Why Keep Fighting? This is why!

It may not feel like it’s working, but it has already yielded results and will yield more if we continue.

Why should we fight? I’m tired of this shit, one reader told me. I have no idea what to do now, said another. These are natural reactions to disappointment—utter disbelief that a man who staged a coup could be handed the mantle of leadership once again.

But disappointment isn’t inherently bad. Mistakes, too, can serve a purpose. What’s harmful is refusing to address the causes of those mistakes and repeating them. Politics is not a single event—it’s a process.

The GOP didn’t win every election after 2000. The political winds shift, and while those shifts once took time, they now swing wildly at every opportunity. The key is to engage, reflect, and adapt—not retreat in frustration.

2012 Dem. 2016 GOP. 2020 Dem. 2024 GOP.

It’s heartening to see that the very people who said they were tired and disappointed still found the strength to rally against Donald Trump’s outrageous nominees. The collective outrage over Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Justice is the only reason Matt Gaetz was knocked off his path. Trump wasn’t ignorant of the allegations against Gaetz—he knew and nominated him anyway.

But people spoke up. Democrats spoke up. The media caught on. This wasn’t one of those times where controversy propelled a candidate forward; it sank him. MAGA loyalists were furious that their chosen extremist was sidelined. Why? Because every underqualified, extreme appointee is a way to erode the checks and balances in our system.

Donald Trump doesn’t want an Attorney General like Bill Barr, who once told him "no" when asked to interfere in the 2020 elections. He doesn’t want generals who will refuse illegal orders. MAGA isn’t interested in governance—they want the checks and balances obliterated. Their objective is power consolidated under a MAGA emperor.

The defeat of Matt Gaetz was a win for checks and balances. But MAGA is gearing up for the next fight. They want a man with a vendetta to lead the FBI, a Bashar al-Assad fan to oversee intelligence, a Christian nationalist to run defense, and a vaccine conspiracy theorist to manage public health. They don’t just want to make America great again—they want to make polio great again.

None of these nominations are guaranteed, and that’s what infuriates MAGA. They know their picks can still be defeated in the Senate. Mitch McConnell is retiring next year, which means just two Republican defectors could sink any extreme nominee. The question is whether the senators on the fence have the resolve to stay in the fight.

There are at least five potential votes against Trump’s extreme nominations: Joni Ernst, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell. The MAGA movement has issued their standard threat: fall in line or face defeat in the primary. Some radical groups are already raising funds to run attack ads against these senators.

But the pressure doesn’t land evenly. Thom Tillis, for example, has reason to feel the heat. While Trump carried North Carolina in 2024, Tillis can’t ignore the recent fourteen-point win by Democrat Josh Stein in the state’s gubernatorial race. Tillis also knows the broader picture: several states voted for Trump for president but elected Democrats to the Senate in the same cycle.

In 2026, Trump won’t be on the ballot, but Collins, Ernst, and Tillis will. MAGA’s "crazy picks" may help push the country closer to autocracy, but they could spell disaster for senators running in light-red or purple districts. That fear is real—and grounded. They can lose.

Midterms have historically been tough for the ruling party, and the stakes are even higher now. Tillis, sensing the risk, recently warned MAGA not to overplay their hand. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, he cautioned that pushing the Senate too hard could backfire spectacularly. It’s a message that hints at growing cracks in MAGA’s hold over the GOP.

A lot of these are third parties that are making money from the fund-raising campaigns, to put some ads in there but double digit percentages are going into their pockets. Here’s what I would tell them: If they really support President Trump’s nominees they should stand down and let the nominees win on their own merits and I think most of them will.

Thom Tillis is right. But the brainwashed MAGA base won’t get it, and those profiting from MAGA chaos have no incentive to stop. The fact that GOP senators like Tillis, Ernst, and Murkowski are still resisting MAGA’s bullying is itself proof that they see the backlash to Trump’s extreme picks as real—and politically dangerous. They know that voters in swing states or moderate districts won’t embrace candidates who undermine public health.

Sure, MAGA might want to make polio great again, but most voters won’t. Trump himself admitted that lowering grocery prices won’t be easy. If he inflames inflation with tariffs or mass deportations, the backlash could hit even deep-red states hard. GOP senators running in 2026, especially in competitive states, won’t want to be taken to task for their support for RFK Jr. or Kash Patel.

These senators need to hear from voters. Every call, every letter, every public stand against these nominees adds to the pressure from the other side. That pressure gives them a reason to stand firm. This is why we fight. We don’t have to show the Senate that rejecting Trump’s chaos candidates is the right thing to do. We need to tell thm that it’s the only move for their political survival.

Even in dictatorships, public resistance matters. Look at Russia: for nearly two years, Putin has avoided full mobilization, fearing public backlash. Even dictators fear the people—they just rely on suppressing dissent to keep control.

So what do we do? We fight back. Loudly, consistently, and strategically. Push against every unqualified or extremist nominee Trump tries to ram through the Senate. Because if we fight, we remind these senators that democracy still has teeth—and that they stand to lose more by caving to MAGA than by standing against it.