READ: What keeps them up at night

Trump's henchmen are terrified by something outside of their control.

I went on a hike this morning. I found myself revisiting a truth from the first Trump administration. Something that I’ve rarely shared aloud. It’s the thing that terrifies Donald Trump’s inner circle — the ones willing to contort the Constitution into a cudgel for revenge. Something that haunts them.

But before exploring their “deepest” fear, I want to touch on their “daily fears.” This matters if we are going to hold them accountable. In the first Trump administration, I remember the opposition firepower being formidable. Trump’s loyalists dreaded three things each day, in particular.

First, the lawsuits. Civil liberties groups and state attorneys general flooded the courts in the first term. Rightfully. Trump’s lawyers came to fear the word “injunction” more than the evening news, and I remember the looks on their faces at the White House when a judge ruled against them. No one wanted to tell the President, scared to face his rage. That’s why the second administration is hellbent on neutering the judiciary, whether it’s pressuring judges, targeting law firms, or sanctioning legal adversaries.

Second, the relentless press. Investigative journalists dug up truths buried beneath layers of lies, including how the White House was really operating or the grotesqueness of the President’s requests, whether it was shooting migrants in the legs at the border or putting down Black Lives Matter protests with the full force of the U.S. military. His “enemy of the people” rhetoric wasn’t about ratings. It was an incantation against the free press because they kept telling the truth when he wouldn’t, and his hardcore aides could hardly stand that these people were the nation’s only Constitutionally protected profession.

And third, the hearings. Boy did the hearings make them sweat. Not to mention the impeachments (two of them). History watched as Congress dragged the Executive’s misdeeds into public view. With every subpoena and sworn testimony, Trump’s inner circle saw a spotlight narrowing on their own complicity. Perhaps that explains the current rush to gerrymander the hell out of the country and redraw districts, suppress votes, and ensure that the gavel never again lands in Democratic hands.

Sadly, Trump’s aides are thwarting the avenues of accountability, at least the “daily” ones. Yes, they’ve tried to neuter the justice system and punish the press. And Congress is a lost cause, for now. They’re controlling everything they can. But there’s something they cannot control, and it’s what drives the President’s henchmen mad and what really keeps them up at night.

Their deepest fear is you — and the sound of your voice. Genuinely. The were always shaken when they realized the rising tide of public dissent. They didn’t care when it came from the “coastal elites” in the media. But they panicked when it showed up in their comments on a post; when a neighbor confronted them or unfollowed them; when the cousin at a wedding said, “I can’t believe you’re still in that job”; or when the former classmate emailed with a single line: How do you sleep at night? and attached a petition signed by millions. Signed by you. These were mirrors held up to their faces.

I saw it up close. Cabinet secretaries who fawned over Trump and parroted his worst impulses would suddenly recoil at dinner reservations in a major city. It wasn’t necessarily protesters they worried about (although, sometimes it was) but just the possibility that someone in the next booth might recognize them and call out their complicity. Some of them feared their Twitter mentions more than a Senate oversight letter, and I’m not exaggerating, they’d cancel public appearances if they thought there would be Q&A from the audience.

It happened to me, too. Before I quit the administration in protest, before the world knew I was the “Anonymous” official criticizing Trump from within, I lived this tension myself. A former church friend messaged, questioning if I was still the same man she knew. Another from college confronted me at a happy hour, demanding to know when — if ever — I’d draw the line and leave. The conversation got loud and uncomforatble, and I left the bar. I still remember the sting. It pierced deeper than any headline because it made everything real.

So why am I sharing this? I’m not calling for you to harass Trump officials and chase them out of bars. We must not mirror the mob that we’re fighting. But I am urging you to speak. Loudly and civilly and without apology. Say what you see, and say it online, in coffee shops, and in meetings. Say it not with venom but with volume.

This regime thrives in the shadows. They’ve been banking on our silence and working overtime to persecute others who’ve seen behind the curtain and won’t shut up, myself included. They hope you won’t notice that they’re incinerating democracy’s guardrails on the President’s behalf, that whistleblowers are being purged, or that civil servants are being turned into soldiers for one man’s crusade.

While they pretend you’re powerless to stop them, their fear is how powerful you actually are. I’m telling you this because if you keep making noise, they will hear it. Trust me. They already do. When I was in the first Trump administration, I saw these people wither at the prospect of accountability. I kid you not, one of my former colleagues once threw up in a White House bathroom, panicked that he’d have to publicly defend a decision the President had made. He knew his name could start trending.

Here’s what you should do with that power — and it’s not revenge. That’s what they’re doing with theirs. Instead, you should implore Trump’s backers — from his henchmen to his followers — to grow a conscience. We must remind them that integrity is not incompatible with ambition, nor is decency an enemy of party loyalty. Remind them it’s never too late to do the right thing. Someday, when this all ends (and it will end), they will be left alone with their choices.

And if they still refuse? Then let them feel the sunburn of public truth. Let their misdeeds see daylight, and let them know that the American people — YOU — are watching, speaking, and unwilling to pretend this is normal. Because it’s not. And they know it.