The Long Shadow of 2025: What Happens When We Run Out of Options?

By Lawson Brooks

There’s a fatigue setting in—quiet, weary, but profound. It can be felt in barber shops and book clubs, in Sunday sermons and side conversations. It’s the kind of exhaustion that comes not from physical strain, but from psychological warfare. From witnessing, yet again, the scaffolding of American democracy being dismantled before our very eyes, under the familiar, vindictive hand of Donald Trump and the extremist machine behind him that is mercilessly rolling out his agenda.

Let’s be clear: what we are facing is not a political pendulum swing. It’s not about red versus blue. This is about an authoritarian movement cloaked in the language of patriotism and propelled by the erosion of rights—particularly for Black people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ individuals, and those already teetering on the economic margins. The goal is not merely power, but domination. A permanent minority rule enforced by the courts, administered by executive fiat, and cheered on by a right-wing media ecosystem that no longer even pretends to traffic in truth.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), once a relatively obscure agency, has metastasized into a federal force increasingly untethered from oversight. Its raids, surveillance tactics, and militarized posturing bear an eerie resemblance to authoritarian police forces of the 20th century. Call it what it is—an American Gestapo in training. While their purported focus for now is the undocumented, there is no doubt that it will broaden and could include others. Black activists, journalists, and organizers who dare to speak truth to power are or will be surveilled, harassed, and targeted under the thinnest pretexts. History may not be repeating itself, but it’s certainly rhyming.

The federal courts—stocked with Trump appointees whose ideological rigidity borders on religious zealotry—have become accelerants. With each decision, whether it's stripping away environmental protections, rolling back voting rights, or nullifying decades of civil rights gains, they are pushing us further toward a dystopia that used to seem unimaginable. Roe was just the beginning. The goal is simple: to cement an America where the powerful remain unchecked and the rest of us are reminded daily of our place.

But for Black America, this moment feels especially perilous. Because we’ve seen this movie before. We’ve lived it. Reconstruction gave way to Jim Crow. Civil rights victories gave way to mass incarceration. And now, the promise of a multiracial democracy is giving way to white grievance weaponized at the highest levels of government. What’s new is the boldness—the sheer audacity of a movement that no longer pretends to hide its anti-Black animus. In speeches, in policies, in platforms, we are watching the casual dehumanization of Black communities become mainstream.

And yet, perhaps what cuts the deepest is the creeping realization that the usual tools—voting, marching, petitioning—may not be enough this time. What happens when the courts are completely captured, the agencies are radicalized, and the media is neutered or complicit? What happens when every lever of government is turned inward against its own people?

Project 2025 was not a theory. It was a blueprint. A 900-page manifesto detailing how to purge federal agencies of dissenters, centralize executive power, and reorient government toward a hardline Christian nationalist ethos. Far from a plan for responsible leadership, it was a calculated strategy for control, and in only six months, the results have been nothing short of alarming.

So the question that haunts me—and perhaps many of us—is no longer “How do we stop Trump?” but rather, “What do we do when our options run out?” When elections are no longer free or fair, when courts are hostile, when protest becomes criminalized—what then?

I don’t offer answers for this stunning dilemma, but I know this: silence is not an option. Fatigue must not become surrender. And we must reject the comforting delusion that things will simply self-correct. They won’t. Not this time.

Communities of color are being systematically and strategically sidelined by those who fear the implications of true equity. To resist this, we must rebuild coalitions rooted in mutual survival, not merely shared beliefs. Our institutions—whether religious, academic, or journalistic—must be compelled to act with conviction. We have to tell the truth—clearly, fearlessly, and without flinching, and not just when it's easy. Silence in moments like these is a luxury we can't afford.

If we fail to act, Project 2025 won’t be just a momentary crisis—it will become a permanent reality that defines generations to come.

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