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Our Nation Has Been Making Progress. It's Trump Who Is the 'Resistance'
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The Stakes with John Harwood

Our Nation Has Been Making Progress. It's Trump Who Is the 'Resistance'

The president-elect and his “manoverse” want to reverse many of the long-term societal changes that make our country truly great.

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John Harwood
Dec 06, 2024
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Our Nation Has Been Making Progress. It's Trump Who Is the 'Resistance'
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Trump arrives for a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Nov. 4, 2024. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

During Donald Trump’s first presidency, his staunch political opponents became known as “the resistance.” The label will doubtless return during his second term.

But that gets the action-reaction dynamic backward. If you step back from immediate political skirmishes, a moment’s reflection makes clear: it’s Trump himself who leads a movement of resistance.

What Trump and his allies resist are the giant waves of cultural, economic, and governmental change that have reshaped the United States and the world in recent decades. The intensity of their grievances doesn’t lessen the futility of trying to recreate the past – even with control of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

What the MAGA World Resists

The components of Trump’s coalition – composed disproportionately of whites, men, evangelical Christians, and blue-collar workers – don’t hide their complaints against the 21st century.

They resist the rising autonomy, power, and occupational status of women. Their bro-culture edge comes through in, among other things, a shrugging response to allegations of sexual misconduct by Trump and his appointees, opposition to abortion, and calls to remove women from the combat roles they’ve been allowed to perform for the last eight years.

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