No one is coming to save us. We must save each other.

Last week, using the Capitol Rotunda as a refuge from the Washington cold, Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second nonconsecutive term. At a rally for the Trump supporters in town for the festivities without the prerequisite net worth for an invite to the indoor proceedings, Elon Musk celebrated with a Nazi salute from behind the presidential seal.

The day was the culmination of months of fears and trepidation that will carry with us for years and persist long after Donald Trump exits the stage.

Trump's shock victory in 2016 stands in stark contrast to his recent victory where he was the odds-on favorite for most of the cycle. Yet in the shock of Hillary Clinton's defeat eight years ago, opposition to Trump coalesced and proved powerful. Indeed, Resistance 1.0 was successful.

• An estimated 3.3 to 4.6 million people participated in the Women's March across the country the day after Trump's first inauguration.
• A week later, mass protests erupted at airports across the country in response to his initial attempt at a Muslim ban.
• Democrats captured governorships in Virginia and New Jersey decisively later that year.
• In the 2018 midterms, congressional Democrats reclaimed the Speaker's gavel, picking up 40 seats.
• Investigations undertaken by the Democratic majority in the House provided a path to Trump's 2024 conviction in New York for falsifying business records as part of an illegal campaign finance scheme to pay off a mistress and subvert the 2016 election.
• Congressional Democrats were hesitant to push for Trump's impeachment once they gained control of the gavel. However, grassroots anger over Trump's attempted extortion of Ukraine for manufactured dirt on Joe Biden pushed leadership to hold him accountable.
• Resistance to Trump reached the zenith with his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, delivering a record 81.2 million votes to Joe Biden.

This time around, however, conditions are considerably worse. Take, for instance, institutions of accountability are in a far more precarious position. Some were co-opted by the right.

• The information environments in 2016 and 2020 were tough already. Social media was inundated with false stories—fake news—and Russian trolls denigrating Clinton and promoting Trump. The press obsessed over Clinton's emails. Amid a once-in-a-century global pandemic, misinformation scrambled politics. It was even worse in 2024.
  • The influence of the traditional press is greatly diminished and it is unlikely to rebound. Right-wing propaganda outlets continue to flourish while traditional news atrophies. Voters who decide national elections are increasingly getting their opinions from grossly uninformed sources like Joe Rogan's podcast and manipulated social media algorithms.
  • Several blue chip media outlets, which served as watchdogs for the public interest during Trump's first term, torched their credibility with much of their remaining audiences.
    • The New York Times' open hostility to the trans community, obtuse political analysis, and editorial direction which ceded their front pages to a right-wing provocateur.
    • Billionaire conservative John Malone's impact is felt at CNN in an effort to curry favor with Trump. The network sought to exile combative journalist Jim Acosta to the graveyard shift. (Acosta reportedly chose to leave the network instead.) Network chief Mark Thompson directed journalists "to be forward-thinking and to avoid pre-judging Trump."
    • Jeff Bezos' Washington Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong's Los Angeles Times might as well wear red hats.
    • ABC News settled a ludicrous defamation suit with Donald Trump for $15 million.
    • CBS News parent company Paramount Global is reportedly considering settling a frivolous lawsuit from Trump to grease the wheels on the Paramount merger with Skydance.
    • Comcast announced spinning off their cable networks, including MSNBC from NBC News, into a separate company, leaving an uncertain future that could complicate Democrats' ability to reach voters.
• The Democratic Party is arguably in worse shape now than eight years ago. The party (correctly!) identified Trump as a threat to democracy and the rule of law during the campaign. Since the election, however, a number of Democrats defaulted into pleas for "bipartisanship" and "work with" Trump on his agenda. This turnaround threatens to further damage Democrats' credibility with voters and greatly harms efforts to protect democracy from a would-be autocrat. Some centrist Democrats even advocated for the abandonment of threatened communities.
• Eight years ago, major tech companies were forced to confront their role in the spread of misinformation. Now, tech oligarchs openly embrace Trump to secure their spot as beneficiaries of Trump's naked corruption. His biggest donor and unofficial adviser bought and degraded a major information pipeline. Under Musk's ownership, Twitter is a financialized instrument of right-wing lies, conspiracies, and misinformation.
• It took the right Trump's full first term to capture the courts. Seats held open by Mitch McConnell during Barack Obama's presidency eventually were filled with Federalist Society radicals—with more on the way. He enters his second term with a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. An extremist majority which already granted him immunity from prosecution whose control of the Court may be secured for decades with impending retirements from Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
• Early in Trump's first term the website Lawfare coined the phrase, "malevolence tempered by incompetence." With a Republican trifecta for two full years, Trump managed few legislative achievements and legal complications for sloppy executive orders. Historian Thomas Zimmer wrote a series of must-read essays during the campaign about Project 2025 and how the off-the-shelf playbook for autocratic rule makes a second Trump term far more dangerous. (Trump's campaign duped a witting political press about its connection.)

What will be the nature of resistance to Trump the second time around? These structural disadvantages of a Trump second term will ultimately reshape the opposition. The realities of another four years of overwhelming chaos and horrors may imbue a sense of burnout or even defeatism. Ten years of this is exhausting and that is by design.

Leaders and organizers in the first wave of opposition to Trump are also eight years older now. While many are probably still active in the fight, undoubtedly some find themselves in a different place now. Family obligations. Health concerns. Financial restraints. Resistance will take on a new look.

In this renewed fight, there are as-yet-unknown but soon emerging leaders whose names are unfamiliar to us but will soon come to know. Perhaps they are a local activist who fought to keep families facing eviction in their homes. Or political neophytes who get involved for the first time yet prove to have a knack for organizing. Maybe they are honing their message as a first-term elected official at the local or state level.

Not everybody can hit the streets for a demonstration at a moment's notice. But that does not preclude meaningful acts. Resistance falls along a wide spectrum.

A few hours of your time committed to organizations serving communities targeted by the administration. Take a greater involvement in your local government or Democratic Party committee. If financially feasible, investing a few dollars a month to independent media. Phone calls or visits to your elected leaders to demand opposition and not collaboration with this disastrous right-wing agenda. Hell, why not take a look at running for office yourself?

It could even be a simple act of courage.

Throughout Trump's first term, one could sense the collective desire for some arbiter—some external force—to step in and set things right. James Comey? Fiona Hill? Robert Mueller? We must understand: no one is coming to save us. It is on each of us to look out for each other. We have to take control ourselves.