No room for timidity in fight against Trump’s imperial presidency | Editorial
Judges continue to apply the law and millions of Americans refuse to give up on democracy, calling lawmakers and protesting in the streets, but a serious test looms if Trump ignores court orders.
President Donald Trump’s assault on the federal government, the rule of law, and the Constitution is playing out in plain sight. Fortunately, some lawmakers, judges, and citizens are fighting back, but more must be done if Americans want to keep the republic.
Some scholars said Trump’s destructive conduct has already created a constitutional crisis. At the very least, his efforts — including freezing federal spending, limiting birthright citizenship, cutting off foreign aid, ignoring court orders, smothering congressional authority, deporting people based on their political views, and firing career government employees regardless of civil service protections — will upend the founders’ vision for the country, undermine America’s global leadership, and may mark the end of U.S. democracy.
Even before Trump took a wrecking ball to the government, experts said the nation’s institutions were eroding. Nearly 75% of Americans believe democracy is under threat.
But all is not lost. While some Democrats meekly signaled a willingness to work with Trump despite his extreme proposals and previous abuses, others are finally pushing back.
Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.), who is known for seeking bipartisan solutions, rightly said he was willing to shut down the government to protest Trump’s deep funding cuts and attacks on federal agencies. Kim said it made no sense to fund the government if the Trump administration was going “to dismantle” it.
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Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas) has joined citizen protests and is particularly outspoken on social media and television. “Americans thought that it was OK to take a full-fledged criminal and make him the president of the United States, and then they want to act aghast when he does criminal things,” she said.
Rep. Jared Golden (D., Maine) rightly said Trump’s hatchet man, Elon Musk, is unelected, unvetted, and unaccountable. “If I had a staffer like that, I’d probably fire him,” Golden said.
Democrats pulled an all-nighter to protest the confirmation of Russell T. Vought, an ultraconservative behind Project 2025, who is Trump’s pick to lead the White House budget office. Remember during the campaign Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025?
Sadly, Republicans continue to abdicate their sworn duty to serve as a check against Trump’s abuses of power. Instead, the GOP has confirmed Trump’s dangerous and unqualified cabinet picks and anything else he wants.
Voters should not reward such flaccidity.
The biggest bulwark against Trump’s rogue efforts has been federal judges applying the law. Several judges have blocked Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship. A judge restricted Musk’s access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s sensitive payment information, while others have temporarily stopped efforts to slash funding for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs and National Institutes of Health research.
Still another judge temporarily halted Trump’s efforts to fire a Senate-confirmed head of a watchdog agency that protects whistleblowers who report wrongdoing in the government. The judge compared Trump’s actions to a bull in a china shop.
Vice President JD Vance echoed Trump’s long-held contempt for the rule of law when he said, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance and others continue to falsely claim Trump has a mandate when he only won by 1.5 percentage points and fell short of securing a majority of the popular vote.
A serious test looms if Trump ignores the court orders — as one judge has already found. The U.S. Supreme Court bears some responsibility for the president acting as if he is above the law because the conservative majority essentially ruled that way last year.
The good news is millions of average Americans refuse to give up on democracy. Citizens have flooded lawmakers’ phone lines with complaints about Trump and Musk running amok. Protesters marched in cities across the country to speak out against Trump, Musk, and efforts to implement Project 2025.
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Voters interested in protecting democracy should continue to contact their elected representatives and only back lawmakers who uphold their sworn duty to support and defend the Constitution.
Such grassroots efforts will bolster Democratic lawmakers who are struggling to convince voters Trump is a danger to the country and not interested in helping everyday Americans.
Meanwhile, political scientist Norm Ornstein detailed a number of ways lawmakers can, as he described it, “fight the putsch,” including filibustering bills and confirmations, and requiring the full readings of every bill.
“Democrats need to throw every possible wrench into the plans of Trump, Musk and their Republican cultists in Congress,” Ornstein wrote. “Doing so will also underscore how serious the threat is to our system, thereby forcing media to cover it.”
If that doesn’t work, perhaps the recent mass layoffs, the slowdown in hiring, the uptick in inflation, and the looming fallout from slashing government jobs and federal funding will get voters’ attention.
Until then, sleepwalking into a dictatorship will be difficult to reverse.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell famously warned President George W. Bush about the cost of invading Iraq: “You break it, you’re going to own it.”
The same could be said for Trump’s destruction of the United States. Except everyone else in red and blue states will be left to pick up the pieces.