By Reginald T. Jackson
In February, only a month into the new Trump administration, James Carville told Democrats to “rope-a-dope.” Let Trump swing himself tired. Don’t fight every battle. Wait until the next election cycle. And, most of all, let President Donald Trump’s terrible policies go into effect and “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight.”
Now, I understand strategy. I’ve led marches and sat at negotiation tables. And I respect Carville’s long service to his party and the great people he helped elect to office. But I’ll say this plainly: That kind of thinking is born of privilege.
In areas where firewalls have been built between the elite and regular working Americans – such as the protected, hallowed hallways of Capitol Hill, or K Street’s favorite steakhouse, The Palm, or even in some of the more gentrified areas of New Orleans – perhaps this strategy makes sense to some.
But, as we now see with the passage of Trump’s supposed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” this strategy of doing nothing has severe repercussions, especially for African Americans. We’re the ones taking the body blows.
Out here—in Baltimore, Charlotte, South Atlanta, St. Louis, Detroit and Newark—Blacks are not debating tactics. We’re just trying to survive. Trump is ripping through the lives of our people in real time. It’s not abstract. It’s not theoretical. It’s happening now—a blueprint for cruelty, aimed directly at the backs of the poor and working class. And, again, Black folks are in the crosshairs.
Let’s start with health care. Medicaid, which covers 3 of 5 Black children and 1 in 5 Black adults, is over as we know it. Trump has tied eligibility to an 80-hour-per-month work requirement—as if our people aren’t already working multiple jobs, caregiving, managing disabilities and grinding through structural barriers every single day. Add in co-pays and administrative burdens and what you’re left with is a system designed to kick people off, not bring them in. Nearly 12 million Americans are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, and you’d better believe we’ll be first in line.
Then there’s food assistance. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps nearly 30 percent of Black households keep food on the table. Trump’s budget doesn’t just cut it—it guts it. A 30 percent reduction. In a country where groceries already cost more in our neighborhoods, this is nothing less than a manufactured hunger crisis.
Education is our country’s greatest path to opportunity. Yet, Trump wants to make it harder now for us to go to college and harder to stay. Federal student loan borrowing is capped. Even deferment options for people facing hardship are being removed. For Black students–lready carrying the highest loan burdens in the nation–this is a financial noose tightening around our future’s necks.
Meanwhile, environmental rollbacks also target us. When Trump guts clean energy tax breaks, it doesn’t hurt areas like Aspen—it hurts Houston’s Fifth Ward. It hurts every community already choking on diesel fumes and flooding from hurricanes. As we saw just last weekend in Texas, these aren’t “developing issues”—they’re daily realities. We live in what researchers call “sacrifice zones,” and this bill is asking us to sacrifice even more.
And let me not forget civil rights enforcement. Trump has starved the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the same office tasked with investigating voter suppression, housing discrimination and racist policing.
This One Big Bill is not “beautiful,” because it closes doors, specifically on Black Americans.
Even if Carville is right and in three years voters throw Trump and his racist MAGA party out of office, I fear we will be too late, that the doors that are being shut before our eyes will be deadbolted and the keys thrown away.
So no, Mr. Carville, we cannot afford to wait. This is not some bad week on the campaign trail. This is a multi-front assault on Black life, Black futures and Black dignity.
Thankfully, not everyone has adopted Carville’s perspective. Specifically, we should commend the legislative floor actions of Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), but we must do far more.
The silence from some corners of the Democratic Party has been just as dangerous as Trump’s actions and policy. We are tired of the urgent social media posts, the talking points showcased on MSNBC, and the texts asking for donations. You can’t build public will if you don’t mobilize. Where is the educational campaign? Where are the town halls? Why haven’t we seen coordinated messaging across communities most at risk? Why is it always up to pastors and parents to carry the burden of explaining what’s coming?
What happens while we wait? Medicaid vanishes. SNAP collapses. Our students drop out. Our families go hungry. And by the time the strategists say “now’s the time,” there might be nothing left to fight for.
Blacks know this playbook. We’ve seen what happens when Black people are told to wait. We waited during Reconstruction and witnessed its dismantling. We waited during Jim Crow and buried our children. We waited during Katrina and watched the water rise.
Our faith doesn’t give us the option to sit this out. Romans 12:11 says, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” James 2:17 reminds us, “Faith without works is dead.” This isn’t just about policy—it’s about our moral obligation to act.
Our churches must rise now. Our people must organize now. We need voter registration drives, policy teach-ins and loud, public pressure on every member of Congress—Democrats and Republicans alike. We need our young people, our elders, our workers and our warriors. We need a mass moral movement that makes clear: If you target our survival, we will target your seat.
So, with all due respect to the strategists, the pollsters, and the professional rope-a-dopers—no. We will not sit back and let Donald Trump swing freely while our communities get battered. We will not play dead while he dismantles the progress we’ve made since the days of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and John Lewis.
We will rise, and we will resist. Not because it’s convenient. Not because it’s strategic. But because it is necessary. Because our lives depend on it. And because, with God’s help, we still believe in a future worth fighting for.
It has been four months since Carville suggested the rope-a-dope strategy. We have seen the outcomes, and we have waited long enough. We are fighting a true-life Rumble in the Jungle for our great democracy, and we do not have the time to allow this fight to go the distance. Like Muhammad Ali in Zaire, it is time to unleash a flurry of punches that will bring an eighth-round knockout victory.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.