We Defeat Trump by Defending the Vulnerable

A member of our editorial board on thwarting the president's malign intentions

illustration courtesy of Beck Seamons

On November 16, we wrote to grieve and to remember the disturbing reality that “Donald Trump, a malicious man whose campaign was founded upon a thirst for vengeance and fueled by a violent lie,” had won a majority of Utah’s vote on his way to becoming our next president. Beginning Monday, January 20 at noon, our grief will turn to indignation as this plunderer and villain again assumes the most powerful office on the planet. Mr. Trump will no doubt turn the next four years into a waking nightmare for many across this nation, including some of America’s most vulnerable and marginalized residents (refugees and undocumented immigrants come first to mind as some of his initial targets).

What is to be done in the face of what will shortly become an overwhelming onslaught of policy evil (e.g., mass deportations, blanket pardons for the violent January 6 insurrectionists, and prosecution of political opponents, just to name a few)? Concerned Utahns should, above all, allow their anger to cool and then harden into the firm steel of resolve to do whatever possible, through democratic and peaceful means, to thwart Mr. Trump’s malign intentions—especially where his policies impact their Utah neighbors. At the very least, we must each raise our voices in articulate, passionate, and very public dissent against everything Mr. Trump stands for: sexual violence, anti-constitutionalism, rampant dishonesty, cruelty, greed, and criminality (he is both a convicted and sentenced felon now). He is the avatar of our culture’s worst impulses, an embodiment of wickedness, and his repudiation will require vigilance, eloquence, and conviction.

Those Utahns who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—or are sympathetic to its cause—should remember that Jesus Christ’s ministry was to precisely the kinds of people Mr. Trump has in his crosshairs: the poor, brokenhearted, blind, and bruised. As members of his church, they should take up the same ministry he did, and write, protest, petition, and advocate on behalf of those without a voice so that, as Moroni powerfully described the purpose of his own ministry, “evil may be done away.”

There is still hope. Utahns should take heart that the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square will not be singing at Mr. Trump’s second inaugural, like it did at his first. A small comfort, but something still. More to the point, we believe that, although the American people made a grave mistake in reelecting Mr. Trump, their choice does not necessarily invalidate our experiment in self-government. As one commentator observed, “America is not a lie, it is a disappointment. But it can be a disappointment only because it is also a hope.” However, only a vibrant, sustained opposition movement will keep that democratic hope alive.

Concerned Utahns must join other citizens of goodwill across this country in forming a coalition that can defeat Trumpism, overwhelming his ideology’s dark and sinister power with goodness, righteousness, justice, and truth. This is of course easier said than done. Lofty words mean little until we allow them to drive us to action. And yet, we choose to place our hope in just such a coalition coalescing. Indeed, we trust that ultimately “the wrong shall fail, the right prevail.” Nevertheless, this is a contingent promise—not a statement of inevitability or fact. We must work tirelessly to make it true.