Five encouraging signs resistance to Trump is strengthening

We have to suffer through Trump until January 2029, unless he leaves office early for a health or some other reason. That’s depressing.

Good news is, there are increasing signs that Trump’s inherent lame-duckness — presidents are limited by the Constitution to two terms in office — and obvious sleepy incompetence is manifesting in greater resistance to the Authoritarian in Chief.

Here’s five recent signs of this.

Indiana rejects redistricting. Kudos to the state where some of my wife’s relatives live. Resisting intense pressure from Trump and his lackeys to create new Congressional maps that would have changed Indiana’s House delegation from 7-R, 2-D to 9-R by gerrymandering the areas that currently elect a Democrat representative, the state Senate voted down the proposal 31-19 even though there are 40 Republicans and just 10 Democrats in that chamber. Trump’s pressure campaign backfired, since state Senators didn’t appreciate the threats and dirty tricks being thrown at them.

Miami elects Democratic mayor. Last Tuesday Miami, Florida elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in 28 years. Plus, Eileen Higgins is the first woman to serve as mayor. She got 60% of the vote even though her Republican opponent was endorsed by Trump and Governor DeSantis. Like Zohran Mamdani in New York City, who was elected last month, Higgins focused on affordability in her pitch to voters, which bodes well for Democratic chances in the 2026 midterm election. No wonder Trump hates that word, affordability.

Release of Epstein files. In a week from now the Department of Justice faces the 30-day deadline to release all of the Epstein files. The vote to require this was almost unanimous in the House of Representatives (one Republican voted against the bill) and 100-0 in the Senate after a discharge petition in the House forced the vote — something Trump fought strongly against until it was obvious that he was going to lose. Representative Majorie Taylor Greene was one of the Republican House members who advocated strongly for the release of the files and support of the Epstein survivors. She has disavowed her previous MAGA allegiance.

White House ballroom legal challenge. Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House without any public input, even though this is the people’s house, not Trump’s. Since, Trump has been working away at preparing the site for a gigantic ballroom that is an architectural nightmare, Pleasingly, today it was announced that the National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that says what Trump is doing is illegal. Of course, lots of stuff the Trump administration is doing has been found by courts to be illegal. Hopefully this suit will succeed also.

James and Comey indictments are on shaky ground. Trump is the first president to break from the long-established precedent of not allowing the occupant of the Oval Office to order indictments of his political enemies by the Justice Department. Thankfully, the cases against most of those indicted have been so pitifully weak, they’re falling apart under the weight of Trump’s misguided authoritarianism. The cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were both thrown out by a federal judge because the prosecutor was illegally appointed. And a court also has ordered that the Justice Department return material improperly retrieved from a friend of Comey, further weakening the case against him.