Waiting for Midnight: A Quasi-Optimistic Take

Things are yet not as bad as they need to be. But we're getting there.

As my friends and readers know, I am not an optimistic person. I think the glass is half empty, and that the water is evaporating. And, to be honest, I think history has mostly proven me correct.

But, at this dire moment in American history, I find myself with a vaguely optimistic perspective — as long as “optimism” includes economic devastation, massive human rights abuses, and clear violations of the constitution.

Robert Reich calls this position “nauseous optimism.” I call it “Waiting for Midnight.”

1.

In terms of the American democratic order, it is clearly five minutes to midnight. The Trump administration has defied judicial orders in multiple contexts: immigration, DOGE, and others. People (including many who are here legally and have committed no crime) are being picked up on the street and disappeared — watch this chilling interview with ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan, in which Homan admits that they’re not receiving any kind of due process, but who cares, because neither did their victims. Universities and law firms have been forced to either bend the knee to Trump or suffer devastating, existential-level repercussions.

And, in response to this week’s scandal de semaine, in which the “National Security Advisor” mistakenly invited a journalist to a top secret Signal chat, Trump, Hegseth, and their surrogates have gone full Orwellian, calling the entire event a hoax, despite the screenshots and non-denials from other officials. If that’s not “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible,” I don’t know what is.

Arguably — and many on the Left have argued — it’s already midnight. None of the foregoing examples are compatible with the definition of democracy, so we are already in a post-democratic, authoritarian period. So, rise up and revolt, they demand. “Stand up and sound the alarm,” wrote

Robert Reich

in dismay when the venerable law firm Paul, Weiss caved into Trump’s extortionist demands.

But it isn’t midnight. Not in terms of public opinion, and not even in terms of the kinds of depredations we’ve seen from the regime. Not yet.

First, it won’t work to “stand up and sound the alarm.” We tried that literally every day in 2024. It didn’t work.

Now, conceivably, if there were mass protests that were brutally suppressed by the regime, perhaps that might catalyze wider opposition (at the cost of hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths, beatings, and imprisonments, of course). But is that likely? Given the way Americans regard such things, it’s more likely the protests would look like Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, or the Climate March: things liberals care about. Tragically, a lot of people basically like what Trump and Musk are doing, even if they disagree with some of the extent of it. “Sound the alarm” is a reflex, not a strategy.

2.

It’s also not yet midnight in terms of what’s actually happening. We are two months into a 48-month (at least) term. What would “midnight” look like, then? Here are some examples:

Trump defying a clear order from the Supreme Court. Not lower court orders, not nationwide injunctions — I mean a clear statement from a majority of the conservative-dominated Court that, for example, birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14^th Amendment, or the “unitary executive” is unconstitutional, or due process must be accorded to everyone in the United States, or any number of other issues. If Trump pulls an (apocryphal) Andrew Jackson, that would be constitutional midnight, and if I had to guess whether it will come to pass, I’d say the odds are 50/50.

Massive chaos impacting millions of people. Like a serious recession brought on by Trump’s tariffs, or hundreds of thousands of seniors being unable to get their Social Security checks, or economic disruptions that are widespread and devastating. I’m not an economist, but based on what I’ve been reading, I think there’s at least a 50% chance this will happen in 2025.

Huge governmental fuckup. Bigger than ‘Signal-gate,’ although that’s the closest yet. I mean something people feel directly, like a huge measles or bird flu outbreak, or a war, or a horrific natural disaster that we’re unprepared to deal with, or a scandal that’s salacious and strong enough to break through the noise.

Elections are actually canceled. I’m more pessimistic here; I think “election integrity reforms” will make it very hard for Democrats to win without actually penetrating into the public consciousness, but it’s possible that sham elections get noticed, and that becomes a tipping point. A lot of people are minding this store.

Something that shocks the national conscience. Finally, politics is unpredictable. One incident with one person – Elian Gonzales, Matthew Shepard, Rodney King, George Floyd, Rosa Parks, Kim Phuc Phan Thi – can shock the movable middle of America, especially if there’s videotape.

I know, of course: it shouldn’t have to get this bad for people to care. Musk has already ruined the lives of tens of thousands of honest, hard-working government employees, including many veterans, park rangers, and other sympathetic people. The level of Trump’s corruption is astounding. A president defying any judicial order, as this administration has done many times now, is grounds for impeachment. The attacks on higher education, the media, lawyers, and even the Kennedy Center have all the earmarks of nationalistic authoritarianism. I’m personally afraid to express certain opinions lest they be used against the institution where I work. This should be more than enough.

But it isn’t. Politics is the art of the real, not the ideal. And when I look outside my window, things seem fine. They aren’t fine, but they look that way. Spring is springing, I’ve got an inbox full of unanswered email, my law school students are busy and thriving and anxious — things are pretty normal. That means it isn’t midnight yet.

And that’s a well-informed coastal elite liberal. At least a third of Americans are getting there information filtered either by right-wing media channels, or right-wing and/or wacko non-journalists on TikTok, podcasts, or YouTube. This is not going to change anytime soon. For midnight to take place, there have to be disruptions that penetrate this hard shell of misinformation, that dismay even the right-wing puppeteers, or are too massive to ignore or spin.

3.

And then what? Suppose it’s midnight. What happens then?