The Connector

08/26/2025

Our side is very good at cataloging how terrible things are and then projecting our fears forward into complete darkness. I call this catastrophizing. Remember how sure people were that martial law was going to be declared on April 20? Now the new version of that catastrophizing is all the people sharing a Substack article titled “I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.” In fact, that’s a very arguable claim, in part because of how the author actually defines success: removing a fascist regime from power via elections.

Here are some examples of successful movements that stopped fascism: the 2019 Smile Revolution in Algeria, the 2018 Revolution in Armenia, the July Revolution in Bangladesh in 2024, the Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the various movements that overthrew Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s including Solidarity in Poland and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the People Power campaign against Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986—the list goes on.

Past is not prologue. We have a ton of knowledge and capacity to organize ourselves. Plus, let’s not forget that Trump himself is quite malleable and often backs down in the face of strong opposition.

Try a Different Point of View

Another problem with catastrophizing is that it works when we behave like an echo chamber. There’s a reason why it’s dangerous to be in a big crowd when scary rumors start to spread; the lizard part of our brains takes over and stampedes happen. So, I find it useful to seek out other points of view, because there’s no way my little bubble is seeing everything. Here’s a fresh example.

What if, despite all the ugly actions emanating from the White House, Trump is actually in decline? And not just physically, but politically, with his own base? Professional futurist Cassidy Steele Dale made a very interesting argument on his Substack Think Future last Thursday. Here it is in summary form.

The entire Trump-Miller-Vought project rests on the loyalty of his MAGA base. That’s what has kept him polling with at least a 40% approval rating. And now that support level is showing signs of dipping, slowly but perceptively, below 40%. If you assume that 20% of the population are hardcore racist, fascist, authoritarians (something Dale says is true for most countries), then there’s another substantial group that is wedded to Trump because they buy into four core narratives that are the heart of his aura. Dale argues that maybe those narratives are weakening, or will begin to weaken soon.