The Rage Trap & the Shame Game: Forces Tearing Us Apart
Conquered by design, divided by our rage: Every time we fight among ourselves, the treacherous Trump/Musk/Project 2025 triad gets stronger. They don’t need to divide us if we do it for them.
We’re approaching a dangerous crossroad. Too many of my fellow Trump-haters on Substack, Facebook, and even X are either consumed by rage or caught up in the shame game. Both are distractions, and both sadly serve the well-organized seditious forces that have been preparing for this moment for years.
These forces have used Trump’s ability to weaponize racism, gender anxiety and parental fears about sex to rebuild a floundering Republican Party in their far-right, extremist image and seize control of government. Meanwhile, Trump’s willingness to punish dissent is allowing them to keep control in their drive to radically reengineer our national identity.
Rage might feel righteous, even the obscenity-laden rage I’m seeing online. But it’s a trap. History shows it rarely wins the long game. More often than not, it fractures movements and alienates potential allies. Worse, it can create a level of disarray that lets the very forces we seek to defeat tighten their grip on power.
Meanwhile, too often these days we see the “shame game” being played out online against anyone not marching in absolute lockstep.
The “shame game” refers to the practice of using guilt, moral superiority or public shaming to pressure individuals or groups into adopting a particular stance or action. It’s often used in politics to enforce ideological purity, discourage dissent, or rally people around a cause by making any opposition at all seem morally indefensible.
It’s playing out in the Democratic Party right now in the growing divide between progressives and moderates, with some on the left accusing party leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries of being too weak or compromising too much. The argument is often framed as “if you’re not fighting exactly the way we are, you’re betraying the cause.”
But let’s be clear, Chuck Schumer — who has a long history of fighting the good fight — is not the enemy. The treacherous Trump/Elon Musk/2025 triad is.
Fueling a split over ideological purity only plays into the hands of those moving to dismantle our democracy at the expense of economic fairness, civil liberties and the democratic process. Now is the time for discipline, for clear-eyed strategy, and for using facts as weapons, not for ignoring facts that might annoy us in our overly ripe and uncontrolled rage.
We don’t have to agree on everything, but we do have to stay focused on the real threat.
A shutdown, Schumer wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times, would give Trump and Musk “permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now. Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have wide-ranging authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff members with no promise they would ever be rehired.”
Is this true? Is this something to be considered, or are we too blinded by our rage to even weigh what might happen during a shutdown, striking out in a way that I’m sure MAGA Republicans are joyfully high-fiving about today.
Trump and Musk have already moved unilaterally to shut down government programs and, in some cases, whole agencies they dislike. But doing so can be a cumbersome and time-consuming process, easily challenged as executive overreach in the courts.
Constitutional Protections
In a shutdown, though, the paradigm would shift, giving the Trump/Musk/Project 2025 triad constitutional protection for decisions on which programs to prioritize and which to leave languishing without money to operate.
Meanwhile, David Super, a professor who researches administrative law at Georgetown University, is quoted in The New York Times today saying that Trump might be able to “effectively dictate the sequence of restarting the government” to favor his team’s agenda, leaving federal employees on prolonged furloughs in agencies the triad opposes.
Let’s take a look at those constitutional protections.
Under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the president maintains full control of the military and national security operations, and he can issue pardons and commutations without restriction. But civilian defense employees may face furloughs unless specifically deemed “essential” by, you guess it, the president or, more likely, our shadow president, Musk.
Under the Antideficiency Act & Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, Trump’s FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, and Secret Service all continue operating. And under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, Trump can still sign or veto legislation.
What limits the president during a shutdown? The Antideficiency Act prevents federal agencies from spending money Congress hasn’t appropriated, except for what the executive branch — here’s Musk again — deems to be essential. You think Trump cares about that last item as he looks for ways to open up funding for his tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, essentially party favors for the rich that are expected to cost as much as $4.8 trillion over a decade? I don’t.
Only one government shutdown, in the winter of 2018–19, has lasted more than 30 days. A report from the Congressional Budget Office later estimated that the 35-day shutdown at that point delayed $18 billion in federal spending and suspended some federal services that took more than a year to rebuild and catch up.
Ok, now let’s consider one other point made by Schumer. He says in his Times piece that Musk has apparently indicated he wants a shutdown, and may already be planning how to use one to his advantage. He’s referring to a March 11 report in Wired magazine quoting two Republicans who said this is common knowledge within the party.
Reason Left in the Dust
When rage takes the wheel, reason gets left in the dust and disaster isn’t far behind. You want a couple of examples? Here it goes:
After the Revolutionary War, the U.S. government, under Alexander Hamilton’s financial plan, imposed a federal tax on distilled spirits. This enraged frontier farmers who relied on whiskey production for income, and believed the tax violated states’ rights. Their resentment exploded into violent protests that included physical attacks on federal officers. The result: Then President George Washington personally led a 13,000-strong militia that crushed the rebellion and established the tax authority of the federal government from that point on. Oops.
In 2016, spurred by Trump’s lies about a stolen election, political rage among the far-right resulted in an insurrection that led to multiple deaths, over 100 injuries, and extensive property damage. Hundreds of the protestors were arrested and prosecuted in an event that shattered trust in American democracy, increasing our political polarization.
A shutdown, Schumer wrote, could cause regional Veterans Affairs offices to reduce staffs even further, delaying the processing of benefits and curtailing mental health services. And it could further slash administrative staffs at Social Security offices, stall federal court cases and furlough critical staff members.
“Finally,” he wrote, “a shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for from his awful agenda.”
Is he right? I think so but, really, it doesn’t matter. Washington is no longer the battleground for those opposing Trump. It’s already been lost. The real fight is happening elsewhere: in hometown America, in federal courtrooms across the country and in the media, whether it’s the mainstream media or those of us online.
In case we all needed a reminder who the real enemy of democracy is, consider the speech Trump made at the Department of Justice yesterday. In it, he sharply criticized the media, labeling outlets like CNN and MSNBC as “corrupt” and “illegal” due to their negative coverage of him. Who knows where this might go with his sycophants heading the Justice Department and the FBI.
How long before Substack joins the list of “official government enemies” facing FBI investigation and Justice Department attack as the result of its growing influence online as an important home for dissident voices? For heaven’s sake, Pete Buttigieg, one of the clearest political voices against Trump, joined Substack as a writer just last week.
The “rage trap” and the “shame game” offer us little in the way of a clear, clean road toward success in the 2026 midterms. Meanwhile, these negative forces offer the Trump/Musk/Project 2025 triad a golden ticket to authoritarian rule. What do you think?