Don’t fight fire with fire: Trump wants protest and war — we win by offering a better future

Donald Trump thrives on conflict. He feeds on outrage and division like oxygen. He wants confrontation because it gives him the chance to frame himself as the strongman savior—law and order incarnate. And when we respond with rage, protests, and marches, we may be stepping into the very trap he has laid: a narrative of civil war, where power can be seized in the name of restoring peace.

This is not to say protest is meaningless or wrong. Protest is a vital democratic tool. But in the Trump era, public protest often becomes a pawn in a larger game—a spectacle of conflict that justifies authoritarian overreach. We saw it clearly in Los Angeles, when unrest after George Floyd’s murder was met not with dialogue, but with militarization. Trump bypassed local leaders, invoked emergency powers, and sent in the National Guard—despite California’s clear opposition. The protests, originally meant to challenge injustice, were twisted into justification for a power grab. Escalation became his excuse. The flames of outrage became the stage for his performance of control.

And it didn’t end there. Trump has repeatedly manipulated the language of law, safety, and even terrorism to expand his power. By calling protestors “terrorists,” he attempts to strip them of their rights and legitimacy. In doing so, he blurs the line between dissent and threat. He plays with the legal framework of terrorism, not to protect citizens, but to criminalize them. This slippery tactic can be—and has been—used to deport legal immigrants, silence critics, and suppress entire communities. What we see is not security. It’s suppression.

So how do we fight someone like Trump? How do we resist a movement that wants confrontation, because confrontation is a ladder to greater control?

We do not play his game.

Instead of confronting the system with direct attack, we build something better alongside it—something stronger, more humane, and more compelling. We learn from organizers like Zohran Mamdani, who won office not by inflaming anger but by channeling it into care. Mamdani didn’t shout louder. He listened harder. He walked the neighborhoods of Queens, not as a politician, but as a neighbor. He asked people what they needed. He built trust not by condemning the system alone, but by offering a genuine alternative.

This approach offers a path forward. Because the truth is: most people didn’t vote for Trump out of deep ideological loyalty to racism, sexism, or hate. They voted because the system was already failing them. Working-class Americans—struggling to survive on two or three jobs, watching health care costs rise, rent explode, and wages stagnate—saw no hope in the status quo. And the Democratic Party, again and again, failed to offer them one. For decades, it had promised help and delivered little. It protected banks instead of homes, corporations instead of workers. For many, Trump was not a choice of love, but of desperation. When you’re drowning, even the illusion of a lifeboat is enough.

That is the painful truth progressives must face. We do not win by shouting that Trump is evil—most people already know he is deeply flawed. We win by showing that we actually care. Not performatively. Not in speeches. But in action. In groceries delivered. In evictions stopped. In jobs created. In healthcare made real. In doors knocked. In stories heard.

Because people do not respond to ideology. They respond to empathy. When you show up for someone—when you listen, not lecture—they remember. It builds something Trump cannot destroy: trust. And trust, once earned, is more powerful than fear.

That’s the path to defeating Trumpism. Not with louder opposition, but with deeper solidarity. Not with confrontation, but with construction. We must build systems of care that expose the cruelty of the existing ones. Housing cooperatives that reduce rent. Mutual aid networks that feed families. Worker unions that demand dignity. Political campaigns that look more like movements than machines.

This is how you change a country: not just by protesting what you hate, but by embodying what you love.

And in doing so, we rob Trump of the story he wants to tell. He wants a war. He wants enemies. Because in war, the authoritarian becomes the general. But if we refuse that war—if we show up not as soldiers but as healers—his narrative collapses. His power grows only in chaos. Ours grows in care.

Let’s be clear: Trump is dangerous. But he is not undefeatable. His greatest strength is not his policy. It is his ability to manipulate public emotion and frame opposition as threat. When we feed that frame, we lose. When we break it, we win.

Breaking it means refusing to play on his battlefield. It means doing politics differently. It means listening to the person who says, “I voted for Trump because I didn’t see another way.” Not to agree—but to understand. Because understanding, not condemnation, is what builds bridges. And only bridges can carry us somewhere new.

This moment calls for more than resistance—it calls for regeneration. It’s not enough to fight what is; we must begin to create what could be. As Angela Francis reminds us:

“You want us to worry about the end of the world when we’re worried about the end of the week.”

If we want to build real momentum for change, we have to start with what matters to people right now. That means showing up, listening closely, and caring deeply. Only by meeting people where they are—addressing their immediate struggles—can we begin to build systems that are not only fairer, but fundamentally more desirable than the ones we have. Real change happens when the alternative becomes more compelling than the status quo.

That’s the future.

The path forward is not paved in protest signs alone. It is built in community centers, union halls, small farms, campaign offices, kitchens, and classrooms. It is built wherever people come together to meet real needs with real care. And that is something Trump will never understand—because care cannot be commanded, only offered.

So no, we do not fight Trump with his own tools. We do not fight him on his terms. We beat him with something stronger: Movements grounded in solidarity, love expressed through service, and politics rooted in presence. That’s how we win.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.