Editor Michael Tomasky calls the New Republic’s “Heroes of Resistance” issue a needed “shot in the arm.” The profiles spotlight 14 people who didn’t just speak up but “put themselves on the line” against Trump’s authoritarianism. Edwin Eisendrath describes their courage as “infectious,” the kind of defiance that builds momentum. What emerges is a reminder that resistance is carried out by real people who risk everything, often without recognition.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is one of the few well-known figures included, and Tomasky frames her as “the moral conscience of the opposition.” Edwin points to a line in the profile that she sees “emergency-break-glass moments and … breaks the glass,” clarity in a court stacked against democracy. Her example sits alongside Department of Justice attorneys who resigned, community activists holding vigils, and families who refused silence. These aren’t gestures — they’re acts that shift the culture of resistance.
Edwin warns that Trump has become “the assignment editor” and “the head of HR for newsrooms,” as companies like Disney and CBS bowed to political pressure to protect mergers. Tomasky says it’s straight out of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, where media power was handed to loyalists. What makes it possible here, he argues, is corporate consolidation — profit margins driving editorial choices. News was once regarded as a “public trust” — but now just another bargaining chip with authoritarian power.
“He was murdered, not martyred,” Edwin says, pushing back on MAGA’s effort to turn Charlie Kirk’s death into propaganda. Tomasky notes the DOJ’s own study showed right-wing violence outpacing left-wing violence six to one, until it was quietly erased from the government website. The erasure feels like Stalin’s commissars vanishing from photos, history rewritten in real time. The similarities are clear: Tragedy is being twisted into permission for censorship, repression, and the silencing of dissent.
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The Media's Rush to Judgment
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of right-wing provacateur Charlie Kirk, America was bracing for trouble. A right-wing firestorm was growing, with calls to arms, threats of retribution, and a rush to blame anyone and everyone on the left. The right’s latest moral panic — the one about trans people — provided a …
