To be clear: the problem isn’t fear itself, it’s our habitual reaction to fear. Reasonable people are often afraid. We are all mortal and there are real dangers in this world. Fear can be a perfectly useful response, alerting us to danger. So courage doesn’t mean never being frightened. Courage is the habit that allows us, even as we tremble, to do what we know is right and necessary -- to refuse to torture anyone, to rescue refugees, to recognize that striking first is not self-defense but aggressive war, to realize that others are profiting by the ways we let fear immobilize us.

If we are to successfully resist the Trump juggernaut, we will need to be brave, to create through practice a habit of refusing to let fear -- whether of ridicule or repression -- keep us from acting.

Rebecca Gordon