Daily Herald opinion: Patience and protest: The two are not incompatible as we reel from the president’s ‘extraordinary gamble’

With the imposition of punishing tariffs as a kind of final straw, thousands of people from the suburbs and around the country marched in their communities last weekend to protest heavy-handed measures being undertaken by President Donald Trump to remake the United States government and, indeed, the world.

The protesters’ complaints are easily understood. The apparent reckless dismantling of programs ranging from U.S. foreign aid to education policy may seem a worthwhile risk to the most cynical of the president’s supporters, but it feels much more worrisome to Trump voters who wanted a studied reduction in the size, cost and influence of federal government. To non-Trump voters, the president’s aggressive attacks on long-standing government institutions at the foundation of our personal and national security — along with barely veiled threats against valued programs like Social Security and Medicare — are a show of outright contempt for nearly half the voting population of the country he promises to make “great.”

Stir in the frightening uncertainties of his tariff announcements and the almost-immediate suction of 10% of value from the markets that hold the hopes of retirement for millions of Americans, and it is hardly surprising to find crowds rushing to the street to resist.

On Monday, the president would seem to have eliminated any chance of changing his mind, calling rumors “fake news” that he might pause his strategy as the Dow briefly toyed with losses in the 20% range and reasserting his position that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

Which leaves those of us taking that medicine to seriously question what our next steps should be to protect ourselves and our families. Would that we could turn to our representatives in the Senate and the House of Representatives for relief, but considering the political calculus that finds members of Trump’s party in both of those bodies in a state of unremitting genuflection, that seems an all-but-futile wish, even if some promising political response were available.

Trump’s most ardent defenders will no doubt take comfort in conservative lawmaker-turned-broadcaster Jeanne Ives’ appeal to “give President Trump some latitude in correcting unfair tariffs from trading partners, incentivizing our own critical manufacturing, and obtaining other goals like decreased fentanyl crossing our border and diminishment of China’s war machine.” Others may not have the luxury of such patience, but there is a grain of wisdom in such thinking.

The immediate aftermath of the president’s approach has indeed brought a storm of chaos and confusion, but it is important to consider that protest and patience are not incompatible. It surely is critical that we in the suburbs and elsewhere in American impress on the president and our political leaders the excruciating suffering the billionaire president’s political prescription is exacting upon everyday people.

But it is also important in the managing of our own lives and assets that we act with composure and forethought. We need not be prepared to give Donald Trump blanket permission to disrupt our lives and our world, but we should listen to and hear reasoned voices that provide depth to our thinking and planning.

In an article Monday in The Guardian, no bastion of Trump apologetics, economist James Meadway provides a well-articulated proposition that there is room for reasonable discussion about the president’s strategy.

“There is no guarantee this extraordinary gamble will work, not even for those in the clique around Trump,” he writes. “But it would be a mistake to assume it cannot work.”

Trump’s miscalculation — and that of his most-ardent and unquestioning boosters — is the assumption that it will work. Unfortunately, he is in a position — both politically and financially — to impose suffering on the country and much of the rest of the world until the outcome of his “extraordinary gamble” is clear. Considering his record in the casino industry, one cannot have a great deal of confidence.

But perhaps reasoned yet active skepticism can sustain us while we work to find elsewhere leaders who will help ease the anguish we must endure from the medicine being forced on us.