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I had a happy, hopeful feeling yesterday. No, I didn’t get good news about my health or my finances, nothing’s new concerning my granddaughter’s college applications, and no, I haven’t heard anything recently to make me think that my New England Patriots will actually win the Super Bowl.
In fact, it was pretty much a nothing, but it lightened my spirits in a way that other things far more consequential haven’t done lately. The news? Apparently 21 Republicans voted against Mike Johnson’s funding package that would have deeply slashed funding to the National Institutes of Health, defying Donald Trump’s attempts to cut health-related research.
Big deal, you say skeptically. And big deal, I respond hopefully.
Every day, I read the news about some nefarious way that Trump and his evil advisors have overtly, or even sometimes subtly, attempted to change the very nature of this republic, some new way in which democracy has been turned toward autocracy, and in which constitutional freedoms can no longer be taken for granted. And it’s depressing that the man wields such absolute control that nothing can seem to stop him, that no public figure of consequence other than a Democratic politician dares challenge or defy him.
Every day the optimist in me asks when—if ever—will we reach an inflection point, a day in which people of consequence will say “I’ve had it, enough is enough.” Every day I seek evidence that some member of the Trump inner circle will say, “I don’t really care about the consequences. I’ve been pushed as far as I’ll go. You’ve finally crossed a red line, and I will no longer be a part of your nonsense.”
I believe with my whole heart that this will happen some day, perhaps some day soon—and that this quiet revolution of 21 Republicans in Congress is just the beginning of this movement. I believe that when this happens, others will jump onboard, that Trump’s power will turn out to be an illusion, nothing more than a house of cards, and that one critical move will start a domino effect that will turn the tide against him.
Have you noticed that the Orange Man has insisted lately on taking limit-testing actions that have gotten pushback. All of NATO told Trump to go screw himself in regard to Greenland. Conservative Republicans, even those who have no serious or principled convictions, have expressed great hesitance to nationalize elections. And perhaps it took the public executions of two ordinary citizens in Minnesota to force Trump to tell the Nazi goon squads to ease off.
In 1954 the end of the Joe McCarthy, the 20th century’s version of Steven Miller, was signaled when 64 year old Joseph Welch looked up at McCarthy and asked, “Have you no decency?” In 2026, perhaps the sad killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti represented the real inflection point, the beginning of the end for the Trump reign of terror. Perhaps the very quiet “bravery” of 21 Republicans who voted not to slash the NIH budget was one of the first manifestations of a political turnaround, barely noticed but truly important.
I have an optimistic side, but I also have a realistic side that tells me that this may simply be wishful thinking. Still, yesterday for a little bit I felt good, felt hopeful, and my spirits were buoyed.
Inflection. Point.
Really truly possible.
You summed up my feelings exactly, Ed.