“I picked you, Terry, but you’re not being very nice,” President Trump quipped to ABC’s Terry Moran. And just like that, he said the quiet part out loud: power expects deference.
If that’s what “not very nice” looks like, sign me up. We need more of it—and more people like Terry.
In that Oval Office interview, Moran didn’t coddle, co-sign, or comply. He showed what nerve looks like: the guts to speak plainly and pierce the performance of power. He did what too many of us have been taught not to, he made someone uncomfortable in service of the truth.
Niceness wouldn’t have gotten us there. Nerve did. The opposite of nice isn’t mean, that’s an elementary assumption. It’s nerve: the refusal to shrink. Clarity over comfort. Truth over tact. Purpose over politeness. Nerve shows up when we stop asking for permission and start telling the truth, even when our voice shakes.
This moment is a masterclass in what I explore in my book “The Price of Nice”: We’ve been conditioned to comply, trained to believe that likeability is a strategy for survival. But what this country needs right now isn’t more compliance—it’s confrontation. Not with violence, but with clarity. Not with cruelty, but with conviction.
Nowhere is this conditioning more relentless than in the lives of women. From the moment we are little girls, we are praised for being agreeable, punished for being assertive, and labeled as “difficult” the moment we challenge power. We’re taught to smile through discomfort, nod through disagreement, and apologize for taking up space. “Nice” becomes not just a personality trait, but a survival tactic, a way to dodge punishment in a world that penalizes us for simply existing boldly.
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And when women of color push back, the penalty is even steeper. Assertiveness becomes “aggression,” passion becomes “intimidation,” and boundaries are branded as “attitude.” The demand for niceness is a form of control, a way to neutralize threat by repackaging our personal power as a flaw. We are expected to be palatable, non-threatening, and ever-accommodating. But compliance doesn’t keep us safe, it keeps us stuck.
Look around. More leaders are waking up to this.
Representative Jasmine Crockett called out the Trump administration’s “chaos agenda.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris condemned the administration for promoting fear and implementing economically damaging policies, urging Americans to resist and asserting that “courage is contagious.” Senator Chris Van Hollen called its defiance of a Supreme Court ruling “a gross violation” of constitutional rights. Senator Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours straight to resist the gutting of programs like Medicaid and Social Security. Schumer, Ossoff, and others have publicly condemned the rollback of rights and the normalization of overreach. State Democrats from New York to Massachusetts are refusing to stay silent.
It’s not accidental. It’s a shift.
They’re not just dissenting. They’re breaking form, refusing to follow the old script. And in today’s climate, where saying the word “woman” is controversial, and equity is on the chopping block, disruption is necessary.
The uncomfortable truth we don’t often say aloud: America still struggles to make space for people who show up knowing who they are, particularly women. Confidence is frequently mistaken for arrogance. Certainty is punished as aggression. And every day, in meetings, interviews, and casual conversations, too many of us are forced to calculate: Am I too much? Will I be seen as a threat if I stop shrinking?
This isn’t about playing the victim. I am nobody’s victim.
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This is about acknowledging the truth that resides within many of us. And that truth is this: we don’t have to earn permission to be whole. We are not dangerous because we’re loud or certain or visible, we’re dangerous because our power is becoming impossible to ignore.
Particularly during the 2024 election cycle, we heard a chorus of calls for civility and decorum, always directed at those advocating for equity, never at those upholding injustice. SHRM even created a so-called “Civility Index,” a move that lands less like leadership and more like a polite muzzle for disruption. In today’s climate, civility doesn’t just mask discomfort; it silences dissent. And people still cling to the phrase “it costs nothing to be nice,” but that’s a dangerous lie. Niceness comes at the cost of clarity. Of courage. Of progress. And what’s truly at stake isn’t politeness—it’s a tax on our voice, our agency, and our dignity.
That expectation of “nice” is not just a pattern; it’s a plan: The system and those in power depend on our compliance. Not just through policy, but through propaganda. Through language. Through carefully curated myths about who deserves to speak, to lead, and to challenge. It’s called manufactured consent, a concept Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky describe as institutions manipulating mass opinion to preserve the status quo. When we’re told that we’re “not being very nice”, it’s not really about kindness. It’s about control. It’s about pacifying the public just enough to keep harmful systems intact.
Compliance is the currency of the comfortable. And niceness? It’s the velvet glove covering the iron fist. So when someone like Moran breaks form, it rattles people—not because it’s wrong, but because it’s rare. Because it reminds us that the job of journalism—or citizenship, for that matter—is not to placate, is not to play nice. It’s to question, to challenge, to refuse consent to the unacceptable. I teach my daughter the same lesson author and activist Bell Hooks gave us: “Sometimes people try to destroy you precisely because they recognize your power, not because they don’t see it, but because they do, and they don’t want it to exist.” No, we don’t need to be nice. We need to show up without shrinking. That means asking hard questions, taking up space, disrupting the status quo, and naming what’s wrong, even if someone calls it impolite. For women, here’s what that looks like in everyday life: Stop apologizing for existing. Don’t start your emails with “sorry for the delay” or your ideas with “this might not make sense, but…” Replace apology with clarity. Take your time, state your truth, and don’t shrink to make others comfortable. Interrupt when it matters. If someone talks over you, dismisses you, or misrepresents the facts, interject. Reclaim your voice in real time. Let silence be strategic, not submissive. Say “no” without a soft landing. You don’t owe anyone a 10-minute explanation or emotional labor to cushion your boundary. A firm “no,” “not now,” or “this doesn’t work for me” is enough. Full stop. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich once wrote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” And well-behaved democracies don’t survive autocracy. If you’re waiting for permission, here it is: go forth and be “not very nice.” Be Terry. Be Jasmine. Be Kamala. Be every bit of the nerve this moment demands.
Amira Barger
Amira Barger an executive vice president at a global communications firm, providing diversity, equity and inclusion counsel to clients. She is also an adjunct professor of marketing and communications at Cal State East Bay. Views are the author's own. Recommended
