The Democracy Index

May 2, 2025

“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” So said Winston Churchill 87 years ago about Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, infamously secured in the Munich Agreement of 1938.

Much has been written this week about the first 100 days of the Trump Administration. But what strikes us, as we survey the state of our democracy at this time, is how long it has taken for so many to heed Churchill’s lesson. Thankfully, however, that wisdom is starting to resonate, as institutions and individuals who had once buckled to Trump—from law firms to universities—have begun to strengthen their spines and realize that a single show of capitulation will not satiate him. That bounceback was buoyed by the indomitable spirit of righteous indignation and love of country that has swelled among people throughout the country. As that one-two punch begins to wallop Trump, he has responded with increasing brazenness and erraticness. Both dynamics were on display this week.

This week, the Trump DOJ was dealt two significant blows by two Republican-appointed district court judges. On Thursday in Texas, Trump-appointee Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., ruled that the Trump Administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act—a 1798 law that allows the government to detain and deport noncitizens from the country during wartime—was improper and unlawful. Rodriguez, Jr., ruled that Trump’s proclamation “exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute's terms.”

Earlier in the week, Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia, who was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan, lambasted the Trump Administration, preventing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from being decimated and ruling that “It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants' actions here.” Lamberth then took an extraordinary step back from the particulars of the case to strongly defend the independence of the judiciary in our constitutional system, writing: “By enjoining the defendants’ efforts to dismantle the plaintiff networks, actions which I perceive to be contrary to the law, I am humbly fulfilling my small part in this very constitutional paradigm—a framework that has propelled the U.S. to heights of greatness, liberty and prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world for nearly 250 years. If our nation is to thrive for another 250 years, each co-equal branch of government must be willing to courageously exert the authority entrusted to it by our Founders.”

Beyond the judiciary, institutions that bent the knee to Trump faced setbacks while those that held resolutely against intimidation were rewarded. Notably, Microsoft, one of the largest companies in the world, dropped the law firm Simpson Thacher—among the shops that caved and made a deal with the Trump White House—and signed up Jenner Block, one of the three law firms that challenged Trump’s Executive Order in court. The cowardly firms that acquiesced cited, as their prime justification, their obligation to their clients to maintain good relations with the government. That was always a false choice, but it was also foolhardy in the long run—after all, what client wants a lawyer who will be intimidated by its bad-faith adversary?

That is indeed courageous, a fact that can be quantified. In the law firms’ litigation against the Trump Administration, hundreds of firms banded together to sign an amicus brief defending their colleagues and decrying the president’s Executive Order. The first amicus brief a couple weeks ago, supporting Perkins Coie’s lawsuit, secured about five hundred firms; this week, another amicus brief in the Jenner Block suit garnered around eight hundred signatories.

Meanwhile, people from a wide range of backgrounds, regions, and professions continue to pour out onto the streets. This week featured sizable labor protests throughout the country. And the typical sight of lawyers in business attire in front of federal courthouses in New York and Washington, D.C. looked decidedly different on Thursday, as attorneys gathered on the streets not to enter the courts but to decry Trump’s attacks on the rule of law and Constitution.

All of this growing opposition may be leaving its mark on Trump. But that only seems to be ratcheting up his incoherence and cruelty. That split-screen was made evident this week in two made-for-television displays broadcast from the West Wing, both ostensibly commemorating his 100th day mark. On Tuesday night, Trump sat for an interview with ABC News, in which his ego gave away the game when he responded that he could get El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, as the Supreme Court ordered him to do. But, Trump said, his lawyers told him he didn’t have to. That admission directly undercut the government’s position (that it did not have the ability to facilitate Garcia’s return).

The following morning, Trump held a cabinet meeting, which devolved into yet another contest for ostentatious, baseless flattery. As our friend Norm Ornstein noted, Pam Bondi won the lickspittle Olympics, when she claimed that Trump and the Bondi-led DOJ had saved 258 million American lives—meaning that, according to the Attorney General, 75% of Americans would be dead right now were it not for Trump’s presidency.

The ridiculousness of that display, however, obscures the harsh reality of the administration’s actions. The federal government continues its indiscriminate and inhumane immigration policies, with numerous U.S. citizens getting caught in the dragnet. In one of the latest heartbreaking developments, the National Immigration Project reported that two children, including a four-year-old who had been receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer, were put on their mother’s deportation flight to Honduras.

As The Democracy Index team takes the temperature of our democracy each week, we are thrilled to announce our newest feature:

Next week, we’ll be rolling out an interactive graphic allowing our readers to easily digest the most important democracy news of the week (please note that these temperatures were not set by the team, but merely to offer a visual of how it will look). To prevent things form getting too overwhelming, we’ve divided our metrics into six categories: National Security, Rule of Law/Autocracy, Corruption, Free Elections, Civil Rights/Public Safety, and Free Press/Disinformation. This is not a quantitative project. Rather, it is a qualitative overview of where the country stands from a democracy standpoint.

Until then,

The Democracy Index team