Columnist celebrates new 'dollop of hope' amid Trump's ‘vandalism of the American Project’

Americans opposing President Donald Trump are getting more emboldened, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in an analysis published Wednesday, and in some ways, even more hopeful.

For months in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election, the Trump opposition appeared sapped of energy, with some Democratic lawmakers even capitulating on some of Trump's priorities. "Hands Off" protests that erupted this month are one of many signs that's over now — and not a moment too soon, because, wrote Kristof, Trump's designs for this country are grim.

"America has periodically faced great national tests," he wrote. "The Civil War and Reconstruction. The Great Depression. McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. And now we face another great test — of our Constitution, our institutions, our citizens — as President Trump ignores courts and sabotages universities and his officers grab people off the street."

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The improper expulsion of Kilmar Abrego Garcia into a foreign authoritarian's megaprison — and his defiance of court orders to bring him back as his allies vow more expansive mass deportation projects that could potentially even involve U.S. citizens — is the perfect encapsulation, he wrote.

"Much of this echoes what I’ve seen abroad," wrote Kristof. "In China, the government has cracked down on elite universities, crushed freethinking journalism, suppressed lawyers and forced intellectuals to parrot the party line. One university lecturer recalled how an ancient historian, Sima Qian, had spoken up for a disgraced general and been punished with castration: 'Most Chinese intellectuals still feel castrated, in that we don’t dare stand up for what is right,' the lecturer told me — and I suspect some American university presidents feel that way today."

The good news, he noted, is that just as the protesters have been mobilizing, institutions, too, are showing signs they're done caving to Trump's orders.

"We needed a dollop of hope, and this week it came from Harvard University. Facing absurd demands from the administration, it delivered a resolute no, standing fast even as Trump then halted $2.2 billion in federal funding and threatened the university’s tax-exempt status," wrote Kristof.

It was badly necessary, he said, because this government "is not only authoritarian but also reckless; this is vandalism of the American project. That is why this moment is a test of our ability to step up and protect our national greatness from our national leader."