Hold on – there’s too much caving going on already

As the tax-relief radio spot says, “They tell you to be afraid, to be scared, and they try to frighten you.”

That’s Trump’s approach, whether it’s ICE or withholding funds for child care, health care, research, etc., or attacking other countries. Fear isn’t foolish. Surrender is.

Appeasement to political bullies isn’t new. Eighty-eight years ago this month, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden quit, protesting Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain accommodating dictators, especially Germany and Italy. Chamberlain’s policy was formalized in 1938 with the “Munich Agreement” giving Nazi’s part of Czechoslovakia in exchange for peace. (A year later, Hitler invaded Poland anyway, starting World War II.)

Capitulation – surrendering in advance (“anticipatory obedience”) or just giving up – can be passive complicity, but complicity. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance blends caution and encouragement in her new book title: “Giving Up Is Unforgiveable: A Manual for Keeping A Democracy.”

Whether cowardice or conflicts of interests, billionaires or corporate leaders, too many institutions, elected officials and government figures haven’t stood up to Trump. Exceptions include Costco and Dick’s Sporting Goods resisting his demands to drop Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and principled federal prosecutors  The week after an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, several U.S. Attorneys there and in Washington resigned, protesting the Department of Justice sidelining DOJ’s Criminal Section, excluding Minnesota law enforcement for the FBI to have exclusive access to evidence, and investigating the victim and her family.

But as documented by conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin, some of the “powerful” cowered before the Bully in Chief:

* Universities such as Brown, Columbia and Penn reached Trump-friendly agreements on course content, DEI issues and White House objections to free speech.

* Tech companies. “Wrecking the Washington Post, forking over money for his inauguration, or slobbering over him at the White House, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech billionaires reminded us that character does not go hand in hand with financial success,” Rubin said.

* Several major law firms, such as A&O Shearman; Paul, Weiss; and Kirkland & Ellis made deals or changed positions to satisfy Trump.

* Professional groups like the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association have been oddly quiet.

* Media: Disney/ABC paid Trump $15 million to settle a baseless lawsuit and temporarily ousted late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel. CBS recently followed up its decision to kill “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” by hiring partisan non-journalist Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor-in-chief; dumping its Saturday-morning co-hosts; losing respected anchor John Dickerson; editing, if not censoring, “60 Minutes”; and – most damning – eliminating not just its climate-crisis news staff but its Standards & Practices Division. All of that means the former “Tiffany network” has become "America's newest place to ‘See BS’ news,” as Nikki Glaser quipped at the Golden Globes.

 

Making deals with Trump is useless anyway.

“Once you begin surrendering to Trump, he always wants more,” said former Labor Secretary and author Robert Reich. “You can’t appease a tyrant.”

Filmmaker and murder victim Rob Reiner, whose life and career were remembered Christmas week in “Rob Reiner - Scenes from a Life" (on CBS, ironically) famously said, “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn't defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance and courage from ordinary people.”

Everyday people must stand together and stand tall; hold steady, hold on and hold firm to what’s just and true and worth saving.

“The only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him, to stand up in solidarity and say, ‘No, you will not dictate all of us, you will not control our lives, you will not control our thoughts’,” said retired Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe.