The Americans Who Saw All This Coming—but Were Ignored and Maligned
Cassandras make their arguments in simple and straightforward ways. They’re earnest. They don’t bury their politics in 12 layers of eye-rolling irony or pad it out with jargon or clever-sounding phrases. All this sincerity would become negatively associated with femininity throughout the Trump era. There would be a trend toward “considering earnestness cringe,” to use Alex’s words. She told me: “I got a little sinking feeling when ‘cringe’ became a common epithet. It’s like, ‘Do we like the alternative?’”
Many in the media have a cynical, mercenary, “we all know this is bullshit, so let me let you in on the con” attitude that, ironically, makes them less able to understand the world, Alex observed. I think most anti-alarmists don’t have strong values, so they assume no one else does, either. To them, political commentary is a gig, it’s a game. Within that, they have preferences, certainly, but not deep principles. People who really believe something—liberal or illiberal—are alien to them.
“I think they like to feel savvy,” Alex said. Anti-alarmists instinctively reject the simple, female-coded narrative that we’re in a battle over core liberal principles. They think they’re seeing through the professed values of the Republican base, its commentators, Trump himself, to the grift, political strategy, economic anxiety, and “legitimate concerns” with liberalism underneath. Again, they have not seen the elephant. But even just logically, those pieces cannot hang together. If Trump is just “performing for the crowd,” the crowd must want the thing he is performing. Anti-alarmists thus imagine that the country is becoming literally fascist without there being a single sincere fascist among us.
When they picture Cassandras, they imagine we’re letting gender get in the way of our thinking. That we (delicate liberals/women) are so appalled by Trump’s crassness (his maleness) that we’re overreacting, not being rational. Again, this is projection. In fact, it’s the anti-alarmists who are driven by their gender hang-ups. The Cassandras’ case seems feminine to them, so they find them annoying. More than that, they desperately want the approval of male-coded groups, and the way they make their arguments reflects that. They want to be clever, savvy, and cynical, and this makes them very poorly placed to understand a world increasingly driven by deep values.
Anti-alarmists love to use highly gendered language—“hysterical,” “cringe”—evocative of sexist stereotypes. Immediately after the 2016 election, Corey Robin launched into a furious attack on Cassandras from the left: “I loathe this kind of politics. At a very deep and personal level. I loathe its operatic-ness, the way it performs concern and care when all it really is about is narcissism.”
It didn’t seem to matter that he had been wrong in thinking Trump could never win. Robin would continue dismissing those who feared the worst, even as events proved them right, again and again. Ironically, perhaps, given their constant suggestion of sexist stereotypes, the anti-alarmists were the ones putting their emotion before their reason.
“The Fences Fail”
This male insecurity–driven irrationality would persist for a decade. It would die down a bit after the most egregious attacks on our politics. After January 6, “a lot of reporters were genuinely shaken up about it,” Alex observed, “but it very clearly didn’t last.” The usual anti-alarmist framings would just creep back in.
It was commonplace in the 2024 election to hear talk about checks and balances, about how the guardrails would hold. Go back to the home invasion story. The intruders are now trying to break down the bathroom door, throwing their full weight against it. And they’re succeeding; the hinges are coming loose. All the time, they are screaming the vilest death and rape threats at you and your family. Yet your partner seems more aggravated by your fear. No, they won’t call for help. The door will hold. Stop being hysterical. They don’t really mean those things, maybe you should listen more to them, find common ground.
This seems utterly absurd—and it is. Yet it is no less absurd than our last election.
It’s not that the media was entirely complacent. There are, as we have seen, some Cassandra commentators. And there would be plenty of stories on Trump’s failings, or even the odd editorial that did seem to get it. But the overall picture shows that most in the industry, at some level, bought the anti-alarmists’ case more than the Cassandra one. They just weren’t taking it seriously, as Alex observed: “Going back to the 2016 election, just compare the endless amount of ink that was spilled over Hillary’s emails or, more recently, how many words have been typed on ‘Biden is old’ and so little on what are the actual stakes.”
It was obvious, in advance, that the fascists would aggressively work to destroy the guardrails in which so many placed so much faith. Trump spent his entire first term looking for ways around or through them. “Like a velociraptor testing the fences,” as Jennifer, a nonbinary, white 38-year-old from North Dakota, put it. This metaphor has been around for a bit, and Sonia also referenced it. Cassandras seem to like Jurassic Park, perhaps because the original movie has, in Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm, one of the best depictions of a Cassandra in modern fiction. His “Boy, do I hate always being right,” as the T-Rex broke though the barrier, perfectly encapsulated how many of us feel. I’ve also heard Ellen Ripley from Alien (Sigourney Weaver) mentioned in a similar vein.
The fences are now down, the alien loose on the ship. The bathroom door is off its hinges, and you’re face to face with the intruders, your child behind you, husband cowering in the bathtub. What do we do now? The Cassandra’s answer is a single word: Fight.
“Fight”
Democrats “need to make specific changes to fight fascism,” Megan said, mentioning Supreme Court expansion. Ryan wanted “full opposition.” Cassandras were clear that Republican bills or nominees should not get a single democratic vote unless normal constitutional governance was restored. Sonia summed it up as, “I’d like them to fight for their voters, and I’d like to see them fight for this country.”
Were they not? I asked. Some, somewhat, some of the time, seemed to be the prevailing feeling. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was praised by seven interviewees for his robust response to the administration sending the National Guard to his state. Legislative leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, much less so. Cassandras want much more aggressive rhetoric and actions to match. “People need to see Democrats literally putting their bodies on the line,” said Irina, a 37-year-old Hispanic woman who worked in immigration advocacy in New York for most of the Trump era and recently moved to Edinburgh, Scotland (and, disclosure, my wife). If this was fascism, and it is, then that was what was required.
To the extent that Democrats controlled law enforcement or had judicial power, they needed to be arresting ICE agents who broke the law, or GOP officials who took bribes. Not securing a quick conviction against Trump following January 6 had been a catastrophic failure, they felt. “No more water, the fire next time,” Alex said, quoting an old spiritual.
And it isn’t just the Democratic Party; the entire institutional apparatus of liberalism has yet to fully go on a war footing. “The right has this great ability to rally around the people they think are righteous warriors,” Irina observed. They’ll praise them, elevate them, fundraise for them, close ranks to protect them. When someone shows courage on our side, we can often “leave them standing there by themselves.”
Finally, Cassandras understood our current circumstance as one of total war—across all aspects of our culture. All of us need to be in the game, and they certainly were. Many mentioned volunteering to help elect Democrats or advance other progressive efforts. They would also try to persuade those around them. Erin’s husband was more apolitical and, initially, had something of an anti-alarmist reaction. She had challenged, pushed back, and had many long conversations. “He’s getting there ... I think he’s way more aware than a lot of people I know. That’s because he has three kids and a wife who won’t shut up about it.”
What of the reactionary centrist strategy of making policy concessions to attract swing voters? Cassandras just didn’t think it would work as an election pitch. “What that has actually led to is no messaging, like there’s no values, there’s no morals, there’s no thing we belong and believe anymore,” said Melissa (a second Melissa), a white 46-year-old who works in health care in Baltimore.
Several of the Cassandras mentioned Ezra Klein as an example of someone pursuing the wrong political strategy, so I paraphrased a line of his back to them: “We are going to have to live here with each other, believing what we believe, disagreeing in the ways we disagree.... I think we also have to be looking for what we can recognize in each other.” What, I asked, was wrong with compromise and trying to find common ground?
“That statement assumes we want to eradicate them the way they want to eradicate us ... it’s disingenuous and frankly a bit badly intentioned,” Irina replied. “I don’t find civility a virtue when people wish me ill,” Melissa (from Baltimore), who has a trans teenager, said. “You’re asking me to be civil to people who are, in public, on TV, daily, discussing why I should be, if not jailed, investigated for child abuse for supporting medical care affirmed by major medical institutions and societies for my kid.” The Cassandras’ political strategy flows directly from having seen the elephant, from having understood that those on the right believe what they are telling us they believe. They are not against finding common ground in principle, but don’t think it’s possible with fascists. As Melissa put it, “I’m not opposed to discussion, I’m opposed to having a discussion with people whose beginning point for the discussion is the deprivation of my liberty.”
Fight. You may not win, but at least fight. This is now the dominant view among core Democratic voters. The Cassandras’ numbers have grown. Let’s say there were—and I’m just spitballing this—three million of them when Trump first ran: 1 percent of America; 10 percent of the Democratic primary electorate. Subsequent events created more. Let’s say Charlottesville, January 6, and Project 2025 each created that many again.
And they’ve not been universally ignored. If each Cassandra pulled two or three people around them from not liking Trump to strong opposition, that would mean there are 36 to 48 million Americans who want full opposition from their leaders and are ready to take significant actions themselves. That’s the whole Democratic primary electorate, and more on top. This would match polling showing most Democratic voters want more aggressive opposition. Not a majority of the country, but at least equal to the size of the deep MAGA zealots—and similarly distributed through all levels of society.
This has led to one of the weirder dynamics of the Trump era: When we picture a disaster scenario, we imagine those in charge trying to alert an apathetic public. But this seems to be the reverse; liberalism’s leaders seem unsure, while the rank and file are screaming at them to fight. Some seem to be getting the message—there’s a clear incentive to do so, in the form of primary votes—but it’s still strange. The troops are giving inspiring speeches to the general.
You’re Not Alone
It’s often overlooked due to the pervasive sexist assumption of female weakness, but Cassandras are not merely bewailing bystanders. Cassandras fight. When it counts, they show courage.
The mythical Cassandra, in one version of the story, grabbed an ax in one hand, a flaming torch in the other, and rode a (real) horse toward the wooden one in an attemptto destroy it. Ripley in Alien works better as a female character, but she’s no damsel in distress, outthinking and eventually outfighting the predator her crew mates so foolishly brought onboard. Jurassic Park’s Grant and Malcolm are academics, not action heroes, and they have many of the foibles of those who lead an intellectual life. But then the fences fail, and to protect other people’s children, both will run into the rain to face a monster from another world.
I realized this is the final thing that predisposes someone to being a Cassandra, and allows us to complete our personality sketch: Cassandras are clear, critical thinkers who can connect the dots between different types of bad behavior. They have encountered the modern far right directly. They are earnest and have strong and consistent political values. And they have a quiet courage.
Courage isn’t part of Cassandras’ self-conception—again, they do not understand themselves as doing or saying anything exceptional. But there is a resoluteness to them. They don’t aspire to be cynical, savvy operators, they aspire to be good people. Some have demonstrated physical courage—Yona received threats of violence from their family. The Cassandras who came out or started transitioning in deeply red regions did so at some risk to themselves. Many Cassandras are parents, and their fears for the country are tied up in what they want for the next generation. When they talked about this, their voices took on the direct, declarative tone of those who would, without question, walk into traffic for their children.
We all like to think of ourselves as someone who’ll tell hard truths, or go against our groups’ consensus, but it’s much rarer than people imagine because it’s much harder than people imagine. Humans are hardwired to look to others for a model to follow. Just look at the anti-alarmists: Being a critical thinker with the courage to say unpopular things is at the heart of the justificatory myth they tell themselves. But these are virtues they have spectacularly failed to demonstrate over the last decade.
It’s easy to be angry about this. But at the end of the day, it’s all too human: taking the path of least resistance at every turn, even if that road ultimately ends in disaster, especially if that’s what everyone else in your tribe is doing. Going along, keeping your head down, is contagious.
But so is courage.
It is hard to say something that other people don’t want to hear, to be looked at like you’re crazy. Or to speak up in an environment where free speech can no longer simply be assumed. But it becomes so much easier when you have others with you. “I’m very fortunate in that some family members kinda took a similar journey ... we’ve had each other, and that’s been exceedingly helpful” Ryan told me.
We owe the Cassandras a great debt for being the first among us to raise their voices. It is largely because of them that we are not alone when we do; that there remains a critical mass of people, at all levels of society, resolutely opposed to our authoritarian drift. An army ready, eager even, to fight, if liberalism’s generals can only find it in themselves to actually lead it.
It is because of them there is hope.