I'm not certain I have the courage for the Trump Era

Most people won't.

Photo by Frans van Heerden

Let’s start with this: I do not generally find Mark Zuckerberg to be all that sympathetic a figure.

That’s usually the case with billionaires.

And I particularly don’t find him sympathetic this week, after he announced that Meta is making changes to Facebook and Instagram¹ that will make the services much more congenial to Donald Trump and Trump’s right-wing allies.

That’s particularly true after he went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to bemoan there’s not more “masculine” energy inside corporations.

That’s just weird dude.

All of this, incidentally, apparently an effort to get on Trump’s good side in the days before Trump has the power to come after Zuck and his company. Which, incidentally, is the kind of thing Trump has said he’ll do once he gets that power.

So I did feel a bit of sympathy for Zuckerberg when I saw Jonathan Last’s reaction to all of this at The Bulwark.

The headline? “Mark Zuckerberg Is a Surrender Monkey.”

We’re seeing this impulse to surrender across American society right now. Where the forces of authoritarianism never give up and never apologize, big chunks of liberal society are bargaining and capitulating without even trying to try to stay independent first.

You see it in the media. You see it in the business community. You even see it in parts of the Democratic party where some elected pols seem to think that they should be “working with” Trump rather than acting like the opposition party.

And the more surrender monkeys there are, the more surrender monkeys we’ll get. Because capitulation is contagious.

And, well, he’s not wrong. But I also feel slightly hesitant to cast moral judgment.

Because I’m not certain how much courage I have for the next Trump Administration.

Trump, after all, has gone so far as to threaten Zuckerberg with imprisonment because he found Meta’s platforms insufficiently helpful. And if that seems like typical Trumpian overstatement — and you never know, do you? — it certainly seemed to put Zuckerberg’s company, the source of all his wealth and (incidentally) employment for thousands of people.

That’s scary stuff. Not everybody has the courage to face down those kinds of threats.²

I don’t think I’m on Donald Trump’s target list. I also don’t think I have to be.

I think his presidency is going to have ramifications for the free press in the United States. And I think there’s a considerable chance my own livelihood could be massively, radically affected as a result.

This scares me.

And so I have, in the last few months, found myself wondering if I need to figure out a different approach. A different future. At times — and I know how this sounds, you don’t have to call a counselor for me — I’ve wanted to simply go to sleep and simply miss out on everything that’s about to happen. I want to be resilient. I’m not sure that I am.

I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that way.

I am, of course, a middle-aged white dude. Other people face futures that are much more dire. It feels selfish to be scared. But there we are.

It’s easy to look at Zuckerberg and wonder: Why can’t he, with all his money, resist Trump? What’s the money for? I ask: If Zuckerberg can’t resist, what hope do the rest of us have?

For now, what courage I have consists of this: I will keep doing what I am doing until I can’t anymore. Whether that’s sooner or later, I don’t know.

It’s all I can do. It’s all the bravery I have.

1. I’ve long, long since abandoned Meta’s platforms in my own social media use.

2. In Zuck’s case, we’re not sure he even wants to, TBH.