Donald Trump’s intimidation techniques aren’t new. On the top of the civil rights motion, segregationists harassed our civil rights legal professionals.
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Individuals participate in an enormous anti-Trump “Arms Off” protest and march in New York Metropolis, New York, April 5, 2025.
(Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu through Getty Pictures)
In our collective creativeness, there’s a typical nightmare about how democracies fall. Tanks rolling in. Struggle breaking out. Blood spilled.
However historical past tells a unique story—much less dramatic, however no much less devastating. Most democracies don’t die by gunfire. They die step by step. Quietly. Passively. A proper revoked. A freedom restricted. A norm shattered. A collective silence. Earlier than lengthy, you go searching and understand that the scaffolding of democracy has been dismantled in plain sight.
It’s why the rule of regulation have to be protected in any respect prices. Encroachments on it aren’t mere coverage disputes. They’re the canaries within the coal mine. And in the present day, these canaries are gasping for air.
Since returning to the White Home lower than three months in the past, Donald Trump has trampled constitutional norms, civil rights, and the rule of regulation. He’s ordered the arrest of peaceable protesters, gutted LGBTQ+ protections, undermined voting rights, deported lawful residents, fomented the unbridled hate that fuels antisemitism, and resurrected a degree of anti-Black racism not seen within the fashionable period. The proverbial tanks are right here—however as an alternative of carrying rifles and troopers, they’re armed with govt orders, presidential fiats, and white nationalist codespeak.
One of the crucial alarming situations of Trump’s disregard for the rule of regulation got here final month in a collection of govt actions naming and punishing numerous regulation corporations and attorneys which have represented purchasers whom the president perceives to be political enemies. On March 6, Trump focused Perkins Coie for representing his political rivals throughout the 2016 election and allegedly illegal variety, fairness, and inclusion practices. On March 25, he focused Jenner & Block for its previous employment of a prosecutor who was concerned in particular counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump for election interference. Two days later, on March 27, he focused Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr for its previous employment of Mueller himself. And on March 23, Trump issued a broader memorandum directing the Justice Division—in principle an neutral arbiter of the regulation, however underneath this administration a software for implementing the president’s vendettas —to hunt sanctions towards attorneys or corporations that problem him in courtroom with purported “frivolous” claims regardless of his regular file of courtroom losses.
These aren’t coverage disagreements or variations of opinion; they’re direct assaults on the independence of the authorized career. And, to paraphrase US District Decide Beryl Howell in describing the chief order punishing Perkins Coie, the scope and scale of the assaults on the authorized career ought to ship chills down each American’s backbone.
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On the Authorized Protection Fund, we all know this tactic higher than some other authorized group within the nation, sadly—we’ve lived it earlier than. On the top of the civil rights motion, segregationists throughout the South weaponized state energy to harass and intimidate our civil rights legal professionals in an effort to forestall us from partaking in advocacy. Alabama demanded that the NAACP, of which we had been a component till 1957, disclose its membership lists. Texas falsely accused and sued the NAACP and LDF over a “medley of costs,” together with allegedly producing revenue whereas claiming nonprofit standing. Georgia tax authorities jailed the NAACP’s Atlanta chapter president. And Arkansas dissolved the state NAACP by govt order.
Then, as now, the objective was easy: Destroy the legal professionals and also you weaken the prospect of opposition. Fortunately, that isn’t how the story ended then, and it’s not how it’s destined to finish now. We, the American individuals, have the wherewithal to chart a unique course.
The president’s actions aren’t simply authoritarian; they’re additionally deeply un-American. They threaten the constitutional precept that each particular person and establishment deserves authorized illustration, and that legal professionals have to be free to do their jobs with out worry of reprisal. That precept is foundational—not simply to our career, however to American democracy.
That’s why LDF filed an amicus temporary final week in Perkins Coie LLP v. U.S. Division of Justice, in addition to on behalf of regulation corporations Wilmer Hale and Jenner & Block, urging the courtroom to reject this blatant abuse of govt energy. If legal professionals are compelled to decide on their purchasers based mostly on worry of retaliation, the rule of regulation and the constitutional order it undergirds will crumble. And with out an unbiased bar and judiciary, there will probably be no verify on Trump’s lawlessness.
Certainly, we’re seeing solely the start of Trump’s radical agenda, together with these intimidation techniques and the normalization of concepts as soon as thought-about unthinkable. In current weeks, after sending a whole bunch of migrants the administration has deemed violent gang members to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Middle, with out offering proof of such membership (past wrongly recognized tattoos), President Trump casually and repeatedly floated the concept of exiling American inmates to the infamous most safety jail. This notion—what can be an enormous violation of the civil and human rights and civil liberties of Americans—is among the many most atrocious threats Trump has issued. He received’t cease there.
So the place can we go from right here?
Defend. Disrupt. Dream. That’s LDF’s prescription.
We should defend the rule of regulation. Defending towards autocracy—whether or not overseas or home—is central to the historical past of this nation. Protection is itself each an indication of power and norms and a testomony to the enduring energy of the rule of regulation and equity, even underneath relentless assaults.
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Second, we should disrupt the equipment of authoritarianism. Meaning difficult unlawful govt actions, utilizing each procedural, technical, and structural lever inside the bounds of the regulation. It’s why LDF is standing with and supporting regulation corporations who’re difficult Trump’s govt orders and why we’re difficult this administration’s overreach in different instances. This isn’t a second for moderation.
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And at last, we should dream. To dream on this second is itself an act of resistance. Our ancestors dreamed of freedom though their fingers had been shackled; they conceived of justice whereas enduring systemic cruelty; they believed in a multiracial democracy though it defied the one actuality that they had ever identified. Their goals modified this nation. Ours should too.
This isn’t a battle for legal professionals alone. It’s a combat that calls for the complete consideration and participation of each American—liberal and conservative, skeptic and idealogue. If democracy is to endure, it is going to accomplish that provided that all of us rise to satisfy this second with unwavering constancy to the regulation and timeless conviction to ship justice.
The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows every week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world financial system and arrange yet one more constitutional disaster at residence. Plainclothes officers proceed to abduct college college students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown overseas to a mega jail towards the orders of the courts. And Signalgate guarantees to be the primary of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence on the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, highly effective regulation corporations, and influential media shops are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is extra decided than ever earlier than to carry the highly effective to account.
In simply the final month, we’ve printed reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to different international locations, uncovered the administration’s enchantment to obscure legal guidelines to hold out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of courageous pupil activists focused by universities.
We additionally proceed to inform the tales of those that combat again towards Trump and Musk, whether or not on the streets in rising protest actions, on the town halls throughout the nation, or in important state elections—like Wisconsin’s current state Supreme Courtroom race—that present a mannequin for resisting Trumpism and show that Musk can’t purchase our democracy.
That is the journalism that issues in 2025. However we are able to’t do that with out you. As a reader-supported publication, we depend on the assist of beneficiant donors. Please, assist make our important unbiased journalism potential with a donation in the present day.
In solidarity,
The Editors
The Nation
Janai nelson
Janai Nelson is president and director-counsel of the Authorized Protection Fund (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights regulation group advancing racial justice and equality, the place she leads its strategic imaginative and prescient, program, and operations.
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