photo by: Creators Syndicate

Jamie Stiehm

I went down to the recent demonstration at the Washington Monument, surrounded by a multitude with signs, chants and oh so many causes under the bleak spring sky. In this setting I had a sudden epiphany: Protests are not only to send a message to the ruler golfing in Florida.

No, the point of gathering is to know there are others with you, like you, to create cohesion among the thousands who chose the right to peaceably assemble. All over this land, in 50 states, American people were taking to jamming the streets. Cities, of course, like Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Milwaukee had fantastic turnouts.

Boosting morale and spirits, for starters, is required to resist President Donald Trump. Any fighting force needs that. But that day exposed the urbane/small-town and rural divide that Trump has done so much to deepen. The president has made great American cities and what they stand for — the arts, intellectual engagement, research, diversity, museums — his sworn enemy.

Cities must be defended. They are the places of enlightenment.

Lost in the shuffle was the Senate, in the wee hours that very morning, under cover of darkness and distraction, doing more to destroy the economy. Trump’s tariffs are his own idee fixe — fixed idea — a hard way to take vengeance on an innocent world, even small, poor Malawi.

But the Senate Republicans now have put their hands in the boiling pot. With a new leader, John Thune of South Dakota, in charge, they faced their first test of loyalty to Trump — whether to extend his massive tax breaks for the billionaires among us. The very wealthy and corporations stand to gain the lion’s share of the benefits.

The cost to the Treasury and to us: about $6 trillion. Those whopping tax cuts passed in the budget resolution, also at Medicaid’s expense.

The tall thin Thune was showered with hopeful press about his Midwestern straight talk and a possible show of independence from the White House. In the Senate for 20 years, after upsetting former Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.), Thune surely knew what the Senate was here to do — and not do.

If the late Sen. Robert Byrd said it once, he said it 100 times: Don’t cede power to Caesar.

But on his maiden run, Thune didn’t even pretend to protect what the Senate stands for, as a check and balance, a coequal branch of government. Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), his predecessor, at least was an institutionalist.

Instead, Thune broke a sacred Senate tradition. He ignored the Senate parliamentarian in passing the budget and tax cuts blueprint. What? The parliamentarian is like the high priestess of Senate rules, and both parties respected that — until now. There was genuine shock going around the floor for Thune “going nuclear.”

This is the truth about Thune: He is exactly the tough tin soldier he seems to be, leading into the darkness in lockstep with Trump. He forced a wavering senator to be the tiebreaking vote for Pete Hegseth to head the Pentagon.

Therein lies the urbane/rural divide. Thune represents the 46th most populous state: not even a million people. His bulldog deputy, John Barrasso, is from Wyoming, the 50th, population: half a million. They wield power over a nation of 330 million (mostly) city and suburban dwellers.

At the end of the day, we come back to Trump. Some experts profess surprise at his punishing tariffs: “Few of us ever imagined he would go this far,” Steven Rattner, a professional investor, quoted a chief executive in The New York Times.

Pundit David Brooks wrote in The Atlantic about his moral despair at the Trump havoc: “I Should Have Seen This Coming.” Right.

Do we need to hear “shocked, shocked” mea culpas? I think not.

Trump is a ruthless and stubborn constant in a changing world, same as he ever was. The rules are, there are no rules. If you looked at him clear-eyed, that was clear. But so many, not only the working class but the really rich Wall Streeters, gave him mulligans and fell for the cut of his jib.

In every crisis coming out of the Oval, there are no innocent bystanders.

— Jamie Stiehm is a syndicated columnist with Creators.