Trump moves to dismantle democracy — and silence the judges who defy him

The hardest part of my nights usually occurs around 3 am when my brain starts obsessing about upsetting things, such as what Trump is doing to America.

I’m sure many of you are like me. Our days are filled with all sorts of distractions, but in the wee hours of the morning, we tend to drift back to big and often terrifying realities.

Last night I couldn’t get out of my head that Trump is intent on abolishing the two branches of the government with the constitutional duty to constrain him.

As every American school kid learns, the U.S. Constitution establishes three branches of government that are supposed to check and balance each other.

Every school kid, that is, except Donald Trump and the people around him who have been usurping congressional authority and going to war against the judiciary.

Trump and his lackeys want there to be only one branch of government — the executive branch, under Trump.

Congress has now all but disappeared because it’s controlled by Republican zombies who will say and do whatever Trump wants.

This leaves the federal judiciary as the only remaining check on Trump. So far, federal courts have paused about 80 of Trump’s executive orders until judges have an opportunity to hear arguments and sift through evidence at full trials.

But even this is too much for the dictator-in-chief.

On Friday, a majority of the Supreme Court — at the prodding of Trump’s Justice Department — decided that federal judges could pause executive actions only for the specific plaintiffs that bring a case. (Previously, any of the nation’s more than 1,000 judges in its 94 district courts could issue nationwide injunctions that immediately halted government policies across all 50 states.)

On Tuesday, Trump and his lackeys filed a lawsuit against 15 federal judges who serve on the bench in Maryland, seeking a court order that would block them from making any ruling that might “interfere” in “the president’s powers to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.”

Beyond these are Trump’s personal attacks against federal judges who rule against him, calling them “monsters” who want America to “go to hell,” and “radical left lunatics” or worse — even demanding their impeachment.

These attacks have incited some Trump followers to threaten the lives of federal judges and their families. Threats have surged in recent months, including bomb threats and swatting incidents.

For Trump and his lackeys, all who push back against what they want to do — including federal judges — are considered the “opposition.” Attorney General Pam Bondi even accuses federal judges of “meddling in our government.”

But the federal judiciary is not an opposing party. It’s an inherent part of the government. Federal court rulings don’t “interfere” in a president’s powers. They determine what those powers are. Federal judges don’t “meddle” in government. They are a vital part of government.

We were supposed to have learned this in school. Apparently Trump and his coterie — including Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court — never learned it. Or now that they’re in power, have erased it from their minds.

If all of this makes you pessimistic, I understand. The immediate future does look bleak.

But please do not become cynical. Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up the fight.

Pessimism is different from cynicism. Pessimists believe an outcome will be bad. But cynics don’t even try for a different outcome because they’ve lost all hope.

Trump and his lackeys want us to be cynical because then we’ll stop fighting. If we stop fighting, they win everything — not just the entire government but our entire society.

It looks dark today, but it will not remain dark. The Caligula on the Potomac is getting nowhere on tariffs. Inflation threatens. The vast majority of Americans oppose his plan to cut Medicaid and give the rich a huge tax cut. His popularity continues to plummet. He is facing mounting opposition from the rest of the world.

Do not succumb to cynicism. We must keep fighting. Too much is at stake. We will prevail.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.