No surprise at all in the executive orders that Trump hurried to sign yesterday and today, or in the presence of mass fortunes as a token of Trumpian success. They were all expected. The second act, though, is going to be closer to fascism without its name. It is going to be punitive, particular regarding immigrants. The mass pardon issued by decree is a tell-tale sign. It is going to encourage the constitution of storm-trooper units. Why? Because resistance in the federal agencies, the opposition of legal circles, huge contradictions in the economy leading to unbridable inflation [if migrant labor is arrested in the US or prohibited entry, how do we expect the vanishing cheap labor to beat inflation? As for tariffs, how can they be put in place without inflationary effect here and industrial downturn globally?], fast coming disaffection with the new government, all of the above is going to have one Trumpian retribution: invite the MAGA troops to find enemies inside and outside. Point the finger at all the dangerous riffraff. What is developing is a class war in which the nouveaux riches have obligations only to themselves.

It was rather sad to see some of the richest CEOs of the country trapped and forced to become actors in a new drama. On January 8, the first page of the New York Times had a picture of horses pulling the Carter’s caisson on their way to the Capitol where he lay in state. I imagined the hooves resonating on the streets. What was remarkable about this first page was that the other columns of the paper were reporting signs of our backsliding. First, there was how the Meta company had decided to stop checking the content of messages, most certainly to please Trump. Another column talked about the death of the authoritarian, racist, and antisemitic leader Le Pen whose daughter Marine will probably be the next president of France three years from now. And finally, the third column is telling how kids in the public schools are fearing visits by the ICE agents.

It has become a battle of good and evil, with money greasing everything. Yet, that battle has already been joined by myriads of people whose heroes are not only Jimmy Carter—for some at least—but most surely Bishop Budde who directed her simple words to President Trump at his enthronement Tuesday in the Washington National Cathedral: “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” said the soft-spoken leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Mercy, not violence, vengeance or retribution. Mercy as in a God of mercy, so frequently encountered both in the Hebrew Bible (חסד about 250 times) and its Christian translations (ἔλεος 338 times). Immigrants are not criminals, but “people who pay taxes, and are good neighbors.” And also, “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.” We are going to need plenty of such acts of resistance in the coming months and years.