No. of Recommendations: 8
Cringe “implies a kind of naïveté that so often gets coded as feminine,” wrote the New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen, “a silly belief that human beings, through sincere effort, might actually improve themselves and the world.” Such a belief might seem uncool. But it can be a powerful tool with which to cut through the nihilism of Trump and those around him, which draws its power from its insincerity, its refusal to distinguish between truth and falsehood, its willingness to mock and degrade previously treasured beliefs. As one protest sign put it at a demonstration early in Trump’s second term: BE CRINGE. SHIT MATTERS.
“We have a goal for No Kings to be the largest peaceful protest in modern American history,” says Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive organization Indivisible, one of the many groups coordinating the demonstrations. MAGA, at least, is doing its part to deride the gatherings as uncool: “Anyone who participates in a No Kings rally is a dork,” one right-wing influencer wrote on X. Earlier reflections on the Resistance brushed it off as embarrassing pap. But such dismissals now risk ignoring the possibility that earnest outrage, at the right place and the right time, is itself a powerful tonic against the corrosion of American democracy.
—— Quinta Jurecic
