Heady from Joe Biden’s triumph, I penned a piece for the Des Moines Register on November 22, 2020, arguing that “the Resistance worked.” In the face of Trump’s norm-breaking presidency, judges defended the rule of law, the media fearlessly reported on Trump’s transgressions, Congressional Democrats blocked some of his most damaging policies, public servants did their jobs, whistleblowers exposed wrongdoing, fact-checkers corrected lies, protesters took to the streets, donors funded Democratic campaigns, and voters removed Donald Trump from office after four years of turmoil and trouble. America’s democratic institutions survived one of the most serious tests of the past century
Alas, less than two months later, Donald Trump directed both an insurrection and a false elector scheme designed to deny Biden the White House. While these shocking moves failed, so did subsequent efforts to impeach Trump or to hold him accountable in court. Instead, Trump is back, and so too are the threats to our democracy.
This time, the dangers are far worse. Trump’s lesson from his first term’s failures is that no independent centers of power must go unchallenged.
Trump is attacking universities, the media, elite law firms, and the Federal Reserve. Republicans are challenging the tax status of non-profits, withdrawing Federal grants, launching partisan investigations, robbing government agencies of congressionally mandated independence, weakening civil service protections, kneecapping media organizations, and mobilizing the anger of MAGA nation against perceived enemies.
In authoritarian fashion, Trump seeks to intimidate opponents, drain their funds, undermine their legal status, discredit critics, and dismantle the eco-system that supports the Democratic Party and the broader liberal and progressive movements.
Some steps are explicitly partisan. Republicans have forced the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue to spend precious time and money defending itself against dubious Congressional and Justice Department investigations. Even if no legal action is taken, a wounded ActBlue could hamper the ability of Democrats to raise competitive war chests ahead of the 2026 midterm elections as the whiff of scandal scares off donors.
Trump has long sought to delegitimize the mainstream media, which he perceives to have a liberal bias. His efforts to limit the Associated Press’s White House access and to intimidate the corporate owners of CBS’s 60 Minutes aim to undermine media independence and make reporters and editors think twice about critical coverage.
Likewise, Trump is using the withholding of Federal grants, threats to the non-profit tax status of universities, Title IX investigations, impediments to the enrollment of international students, and legal attacks on accreditation bodies to undermine academic freedom and remold higher education in a MAGA image.
Trump is blackmailing elite law firms that represent his perceived enemies: hire conservative lawyers, drop liberal clients, and provide pro bono legal representation for Trump-approved groups, or else lose access to Federal agencies and courts. Trump has directed the Justice Department to bring legal sanctions against lawyers who sue him or his government. This misuse of state power threatens to dry up the pool of high-quality attorneys available to pursue the more than 150 (and counting) lawsuits brought against Trump’s illegal executive orders.
While lower courts have upheld challenges to many of Trump’s Executive Orders, it remains to be seen how far the Supreme Court will go to rein in our rogue president. The Justices have shown a reluctance to draw clear red lines in response to Trump’s lawless behavior, perhaps fearful that their orders will be ignored. The reality is that the judicial branch has limited tools for compelling a lawbreaking president to comply with its edicts, especially since the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have criminal immunity for official acts.
The real brake on an authoritarian president is political. The good news is that effective opposition to Trump 2.0 is emerging. Massive protests have been mounted. The stock and bond markets have punished Trump’s wacky tariff policies. Firms that rely upon imports are challenging the legally of Trump’s tariffs in court. Following the lead of Harvard University, which is suing the administration, higher education is mounting a defense of academic freedom. Four hundred college and university presidents issued a public letter denouncing government intrusion into higher education. The faculty senates at Big Ten universities have begun exploring mutual defense pacts. While some elite law firms quickly caved to Trump’s pressure tactics, others are taking him to court. Democrats and progressive non-profits have attracted a flood of donations. Small cracks have even begun to appear within the Republican Party and among Trump’s advisers.
Most importantly, the public is quickly souring on Trumpian chaos and cruelty. Trump’s approval rating is falling fast. Majorities disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, tariffs, inflation, immigration, and the Ukraine war. Voters are rejecting Trump’s threats to democracy. In a New York Times/Siena poll, 54% of respondents felt Trump was exceeding the power of the presidency. Overwhelming majorities insist that the president obey Supreme Court decisions.
Two-thirds described his first months as chaotic and 59% as scary. Only 44% expressed confidence that Trump “understands the problems facing people like you.”
Neither is Trump impervious to resistance. He pulled back on the most extreme tariffs and the threat to remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after the stock and bond markets tanked. Trump rescinded orders to terminate international students in the face of skeptical judges. And he appears to be distancing himself from Elon Musk. Trump has a record of buckling when the political heat becomes too intense.
Trump’s initial whirlwind of pressure on major institutions has been destructive on a historic scale. Opposition has taken time to mobilize and has yet to fully recover from Trump’s early blows. But it is rapidly building now. As is clear from the Signal-gate scandal and Trump’s erratic tariff policies, the incompetence and incoherence of Trumpworld undercuts the president’s ability to sustain his MAGA revolution.
The Resistance worked once. Together, we can ensure that it works again. We can’t afford to fail.
The Internationalist 