It just doesn’t stop. 

 

Day in, day out since the Mad Hatter-in-Chief reclaimed the White House, he’s buffeted our country with non-stop recklessness and cruelty. The despair I feel today, only one-tenth of the way into his second term, is as acute as my dread about what lies ahead. It’s a safe bet that the same wanton impulses that already have defined Trump 2 will continue for the next 3½ years. Nothing suggests his character or agenda will change from what it has been: cruel, dictatorial, vengeful, egomaniacal and Constitution-flouting. 

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Of all the evils I’ve seen since Trump’s return, one is particularly soul-crushing to me. It’s even more upsetting than his cruelty to people we should support, not deport. More dispiriting than watching him militarize policing. Or using his office to enrich himself and his family. Or to attack our universities; dismantle USAID; appoint inept clowns as Cabinet secretaries; shut down programs to slow climate change; or toy around with a fragile economy. 

 

The thing that angers me more than these daily outrages is my growing realization that he and his lieutenants will get away with it all. That they will never be punished for their evil, — yes, evil — deeds. 

 

I know my anger won’t make much difference. At this stage of my life, there are limits to my role in civil disobedience. I dream of a nationwide, general strike against Trump by everyday people who’ve had enough. It could really bring the country to a halt and put “the fear of God” in the fat cat business people who support Trump.  I can’t organize it, but I certainly would join other protesters in the street. Arm in arm, we could make “good trouble” for Trump and his sycophants.

 

Indeed, I believe a tidal wave of resistance is inevitable because Trump glories in constant upheaval, especially if it hurts the powerless. I’ll go a step further. I not only support massive resistance, I advocate it, and the sooner the better. Americans, especially the young, have every reason to forcefully reject Trump’s designs for our country — an increasingly soulless place that’s drifting into facism. I want people to hit the streets in far greater numbers than they did in Los Angeles. Distasteful as this prospect may be to some, it’s better than the alternative: living in a country with no conscience, one oblivious to cruelty inflicted on the least of its people.

 

It’s possible, I suppose, that I’m wrong about what’s ahead. Maybe there will be no massive uprising to drive Trump from office. The closest we’ve come to that was in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson backed out of running for a second term because of growing public resistance to the Vietnam War. In that case, though, we had a president who put aside his ego to do what was good for the country. Trump will never do that..

 

Failing a nationwide uprising, are there other ways Trump and his team can be ousted and punished? Realistically, no. There are only a few ways to fire an off-the-rails president to begin with, and with Republicans in control of Washington, there’s almost no chance Trump could be: 

• impeached and removed from office. Stop laughing.
• tried for and convicted of bitcoin fraud. 
• tried for and convicted of depriving migrants of their civil rights.

The first possibility won’t happen because MAGAs control the Senate. The next two possibilities are moot because the  Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is immune from prosecution for any misdeeds while in office. So he won’t be punished by Congress or the courts. 

 

Trump and his toadies will probably never pay a price for the hell they have created and the tens of thousands of people they have hurt.  

 

And where does that leave me? How can I live with that?

 

The Psalms are full of advice on how to confront evil. In short, they counsel us to let God take care of evil. We are to do good. The very first Psalm tells us that those who “have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful” will be “like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper.”  The Psalmist continues, “It is not so with the wicked; they are like the chaff which the wind blows away.”  

 

In many other places in the Psalter, we’re admonished not to envy the rich and powerful in this life but to follow the Law and do good. 

 

I chose the Psalms to make this point because they are sacred to Jews and Christians and because for more than two millennia wise people have found wisdom and comfort in them. I’ve also heard from many people over the past decades who’ve told me they found solace in the Psalms. 

 

If you, like me, have fretted over whether Trump and his goon squad will get what they deserve in this life, try reading the Psalms to get yourself back where you belong — that place where judgment is not yours to mete out. I’m working on this, too, and it may take some effort.

 

So no more dwelling on getting even with Trump. Let God handle him. Better to use your energy to oppose Trump and his evil administration in other ways, like making “good trouble.” That’s all we can do. It is not ours to punish.

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