Trump’s autocracy is growing—but patriotic opposition is growing faster

Publisher’s Roundup, 14

I live about a mile from the White House, but even at this distance, when the wind is blowing north, you can smell the desperation. Trump is losing, Elon is laying low(er) and likely on the way out of government and they and their cronies had another shambolic week. Like Putin predicting he would take Ukraine’s capital in days and getting his ass Kyived, Trump’s attempted authoritarian takeover of Washington is stalled or moving in reverse. That is true across all the four main fronts of the battle between autocracy and democracy—the four P’s.

Proceedings. Courts, lawyers and judges have been the leading edge of opposing authoritarianism. I wrote last week about the trend in the Supreme Court of holding Trump back. That continued overnight Saturday with the 7-2 order stopping illegal deportation planes from taking off that we covered right here at The Contrarian in real time.

But this is not just going on at SCOTUS. There are now over 70 temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, and other forms of relief against Trump’s illegality in federal courts around the country. Just this week in my separate legal work—supported by profits from The Contrarian and so by all of you paying subscribers—we won additional relief for thousands of probationary employees, extended our TRO stopping Trump from dismantling the Voice of America, filed a class action on behalf of USAID employees, were in court fighting Trump’s executive order attempting to sabotage elections—and much more. Your paid subscription helps those efforts.

Politics. Among political leaders, state-level officials and in particular state AG’s continue to outperform. They do that both by litigating in the court of law and by speaking out in the court of public opinion. As for federal Congressional opposition, the somnolesence of the early days of Trump has been replaced by members waking up and taking action. When I was in court this week as part of the team challenging the Trump elections EO, I was delighted to see that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries were plaintiffs as well (with separate counsel).

And they and their members are doing other good things with their (admittedly limited) minority powers. That ranges from using the filibuster to stop bad legislation to using the blue slip process to stop bad nominees, and from Jamie Raskin’s domestic democracy barnstorming to Chris Van Hollen’s bold international mission. I don't care what anybody says about that photograph, the senator was able to give some human reassurance to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to pass love to him from his family and back–and to keep the story high up in the news. We had full coverage of that here at The Contrarian, of course, and I share the highlights below.

We need much, much more of all of this action from every single pro-democracy federal, state and local elected official–every one of them using every single tool available to challenge autocracy. Be strategic in doing what matters most, but don't pace yourself! Everything everywhere all at once, please.

Polls. The only poll that ultimately matters is the one at the ballot box, where the anti-autocracy vote has outperformed in contest after contest so far, with surprisingly lopsided wins in that Wisconsin Supreme Court race and a Pennsylvania special election. Look for more of the same ahead in 2025 in the Pennsylvania judicial elections, and the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial and down-ballot ones.

In opinion polls, Trump is underwater and sinking in the polls, and his co-president Elon Musk is truly hated—likely dragging down to defeat the candidate he supported in that Wisconsin Supreme Court (at least in part). Even polling on Trump's handling of immigration has turned upside down for the first time in years, with a majority of voters objecting to his deportation of people without due process.

Public protest. As our readers know well, The Contrarian was among the first publications in the country to establish a beat covering the Democracy Movement. Saturday was another huge day of protests. This week we also saw a speech by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drawing a crowd of 20,000 in Utah, plans for a second economic boycott, rowdy town halls in Iowa and Georgia, a demonstration against a capitulating law firm, and much more.

You can find protests in your area at mobilize.us and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org. And in case you need to refresh your signs, Have You No Posters? is a direct response to Contrarian requests. Talk down to tyranny in style at your next protest with a free download of Bonnie Siegler’s marvelous protest posters.

We saw the most attention and collective action in response to nationwide protests demanding the return of Kilmar Abrego García. His case is where we start our weekly roundup…

The Abduction of Kilmar—and of Many Others

How Courts Can Get Trump to Obey the Law: A Primer. My legal colleague Spencer Klein and I wrote on Trump’s stunning refusal to comply with a ​​federal judge’s order to bring back a U.S. resident unlawfully deported to a Salvadoran prison. Here we explained the stakes, what the courts can do, what happens next—and why we believe Trump will lose.

Carlos Eduardo Espina on Trump's World of Confusion and Fear. In the midst of profound concern being expressed by the masses over how this would shake out, Jen was joined immigration activist and social media warrior Carlos Eduardo Espina, who spoke about fear, ICE raids, and how millions are being forced to prepare for the worst. “You go to work not knowing if it’s the last time you’ll see your family.”

“Out of our hands”: The most dangerous lie in Trump’s deportation doctrine. Brian O’Neill deconstructed the dangerous lie that the Trump regime has been clinging to, in claiming that the fate of Abrego García, a lawful U.S. resident wrongly being wrongly detained by ICE and then deported to El Salvador, was now “out of our hands” given the involvement of a foreign government. The authority to bring him home exists, O’Neill explains; the refusal is political.

No, prisoners in the United States cannot be sent into exile. Austin Sarat emphasized a similar point by offering a vital explainer on the illegality of Trump’s deportations for “homegrown criminals”: the Supreme Court has long held banishment as cruel and unusual punishment—unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Trump is now ignoring citizenship altogether, floating exile as a punishment for dissent.

Free Kilmar. Jen Rubin wrote on the conspiracy of silence and complacency around the human rights outrage that is Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s detainment in El Salvador. “Where are the ‘Free Kilmar’ billboards? Where are the front-page stories counting down his days in hellish captivity?” Not all political prisoners are created equal, it seems. We need to demand otherwise.

The Madness of King Donald. In the latest episode of Talking Feds, friends of the Contrarian Jason Kander, Zoe Lofgren, and Charlie Sykes joined Harry Litman to break down a week in which Trump’s broad and malign influence on civil society took another giant step forward, from the outrage of the Abrego-Garcia case to the disaster of the tariffs.

Andrew Weissmann on Trump's Inhumane Refusal to Return Maryland Man to U.S. In the wake of Trump hosting El Salvador’s President Bukele to discuss the heinous “administrative error” that sent a man to a Salvadoran prison, Andrew Weissmann joined Jen to explain how the administration is denying court orders and violating the right to due process, defying orders to bring him home.

Is Kilmar Abrejo Garcia a State Hostage? Jason Rezaian explains. Former political hostage Jason Rezaian spoke from experience about what the Trump administration’s refusal to facilitate Kilmar’s release means.

Of course, Abrego Garcia is a humanizing reminder, but the same unconstitutional process (or lack thereof) has been extended to to many others, as we were reminded in Michael Franklin’s ‘One hairdresser' is the voice of complicity in 2025. “He came to the United States seeking safety, and he did everything right…Then, one day, he disappeared.” This trenchant, searching essay on the quiet cruelty addresses the disappearance of Andry Hernandez Romero—among so many other victims of state-sponsored violence whose names we don’t yet know.

The Moronic Machiavelli’s Maneuvers and Missteps

Violence is one tool employed by aspiring dictators, sadly. There are others, including razing government institutions, manipulating elections, and harassing our free press.

Why Donald Trump Is SpongeBob SquarePants. Max Stier explained why Trump and DOGE’s steady razing of government as we know it is a cartoonish version of pyrrhic victory.

Jen Rubin live with Julian Zelizer. Princeton historian Julian Zelizer joined Jen to discuss the administration’s pressure campaign against educational institutions and more authoritarian transgressions from our “imperial president.”

It’s not just educational institutions. Jeff Nesbit put the reckless defunding of institutions and agencies that are the backbone of science and innovation in justly broad context, underscoring that Trump’s unrelenting war on science is reckless and dangerous. This covers climate change, public health, medical science and patient safety–among other vast arenas. Through these we see that the administration’s moves will cost lives and put us at risk.

Bad Faith and Worse Policy in Trump’s EPA. Three former EPA administrators–count ‘em, three–wrote in unanimous condemnation of Trump’s EPA head, Lee Zeldin, whose sweeping agenda to overturn protections from dangerous air pollution goes against everything in the agency’s mission “to protect human health and the environment.”

After institutions comes an attack on the press. In Trump Officials Trolling Journalists is Just the Tip of the Iceberg, journalist Liam Scott explored how the Trump administration’s post-Signalgate harassment of The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was no outlier, but rather one more volley in a full-scale assault on media freedoms.

There’s no vacation from Trump. Jennifer Schulze brought the bad (but unsurprising) news that thanks to Trumpian chaos, your summer 2025 travel itinerary could include raging fires, germy cruise ships, and burner phones. Is there anything he can’t break?

The Democracy Index. In this latest installment, the Index acknowledges that our three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, act as checks and balances on each other. Our free press acts as a fourth branch, shining a light on government activity and building an informed electorate. When there is conflict, we submit our dispute to the judiciary, and they decide what the law requires. Democracy prevails. As evidenced from above, events this week called all of that into question.

However, as you know, I’m an optimist when it comes to our democracy, and as we often say here at the Contrarian, Courage is Contagious. Which is why we don’t ignore the hopeful news of the week, and try to remind you of the institutions setting an example by refusing to capitulate to bullies and billionaires. That is why this week, Jen chose Harvard for our Undaunted pick—and not in tribute to it being my alma mater for law school! The university—while hardly a paragon of underdog virtue—used its status to stand up to authoritarian bullies when it counted.

Just as we like to remind you of the waves of courageous opposition we’re seeing, we also want to make sure Trump’s mammoth errors of judgement don’t get swept away by the deluge of distractions he’s wont to present.

Trump Vandalizes the World's Best Economy

Several of those missteps have come in regard to his economic policies. Which is why we are thrilled to add a new Live feature to our weekly lineup: We’ve got Coffee with the Contrarians–now, let’s do lunch with an economist! Live with Jared Bernstein will be featured every Tuesday at 12pm ET. Join Jared Bernstein, former chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama administration, for a live q&a. Submit questions for Jared to submit@contrariannews.org & tune in on Substack! This week special guest Heather Long joined him.

Tariffs: A bad idea, poorly implemented. “It’s not every day that a president proudly pursues an agenda that threatens to create a global recession,” economist William Gale allowed, tracing the misconceptions and fumbled steps that have plagued Trump’s misbegotten tariff plan from its inception.

Josh Levs chimed in, acknowledging that Trump team's newest misinformation blitz goes unchecked by big media–in which he takes the Sunday political talk shows to task, where coverage of Trump’s tariffs is heavily blurring the line with propaganda (another key component of a dictator’s reign).

Trump’s Huge Tariff Exemption Grift. We added to this section a post from friend of The Contrarian Jonathan Alter, who wrote on how Trump’s embarrassing attempt to flex U.S. economic power via his tariff grift makes Tammany Hall and the Daley Machine look like the League of Women Voters.

But tariffs aren’t the only Fiscal Disaster at play. The MAGA budget awaits, and it is “debt-expanding, fiscally insane, rural economy-wrecking, and regressive,” wrote Jen Rubin. Nevertheless, Republicans are willing to vote for it to protect wealthy donors and appease Trump. The rest of us can and should respond with electoral consequences in 2026.

Messing with the economy has far-reaching consequences. In Why does business care about democracy?, Daniella Ballou-Aares explains. Founder and CEO of the Leadership Now Project, Daniella joined Jen to explain why the business community is a crucial component in the pro-democracy fight.

Voting Vertigo

And make no mistake: elections are an institution unto themselves. We’re seeing this play out at the state level, where confusion continues after North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in the Riggs case. Stephen Richer updated us on the ongoing prospect of an undemocratic election result in North Carolina, as thousands of NC ballots—and a state Supreme Court seat—remain in limbo, with the case now headed to federal court.

Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, further explained the state of play in the North Carolina Supreme Court Race. Clayton joined Jen Rubin to give an update on the NC State Supreme Court race—“the last uncertified race in the country”—still being contested by Republicans despite there being no evidence of election interference.

The North Carolina race just further enforces the reality that we can’t afford to defund election security. Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, delivered a clarion warning of the costs of not taking election security seriously (read: irreparable harm), as Trump’s team slashes funding for the very agencies that protect against election cyberattacks.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf sounded a similar alarm, but connected it explicitly to the SAVE Act—the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the House and is headed to the Senate. Despite the GOP’s attempts to gaslight us into believing otherwise, it is no less than voter suppression in democracy’s clothing.

Division: Revised, Revived, and Revisited

Fascism and the English language. Anat Shenker-Osorio, host of the podcast and Substack Words to Win By, offered a must-read primer and glossary on how to say what’s actually happening in a political moment thick with false equivalencies and insidious normalization. “The Trump administration” is simply too nice a name for what is actually the “regime by the bullies and for the billionaires.”

Jen also had a few thoughts of her own about our lexicon. In Words & Phrases We Can Do Without, “Polarization” is the latest word that she felt could be banished, as a seemingly anodyne diagnosis of political stagnation has become a false equivalence used to conceal responsibility. History provides clarity, Jen noted: we would not have said the Confederacy was “polarized.”

On the flip side, Active Empathy is life-changing. Jen began the week (fresh off a rare break in observance of the Passover holiday) with a meditation on “the other.” As she wrote, “The obligation to care for strangers is critical...So, this Pesach, we should not only keep strangers front and center; we should commit to action on their behalf.”

This seems a challenging concept for an administration known to applaud white nationalists. Bill Braniff joined to discuss the Great Replacement Theory. In the latest collaboration between PERIL and The Contrarian, Jen was joined by Executive Director Bill Braniff to discuss an alt-right conspiracy of the “replacement” of the white population. Driven by white supremacy and misogyny, its claims may be unfounded, but its consequences as an ideology are not.

The disrespect toward Jackie Robinson’s legacy isn’t new. It’s always been this way. Carron J. Phillips offered a stirring corrective to anyone shocked by the recent attempts to diminish Jackie Robinson’s legacy by erasing his civil rights activism–indeed, the entire fact of his race–from the story. To really look at MLB, he explained, is to see a system that has remained exclusionary to Black players and fans from Robinson’s day to the present (not just since DEI became a dirty word).

The attack on Shapiro’s home didn't happen in a vacuum. “We should make no mistake,” wrote Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs: “Firebombing a Jewish elected official’s home because of his support for Israel is antisemitism. Period.” A must-read response to the escalating tide of antisemitic & anti-democratic extremism.

Why the “feminist” Blue Origin space flight was an affront to women like Sally Ride. Our culture columnist, Meredith Blake, is less than convinced by the supposed #girlboss victory of the all-women Blue Origin mission. She follows her critique with picks for movies and TV shows about REAL women in space (or those who belonged there)

Global Goings On

Ukraine is Trump’s masterclass in how best to be played. Brian O’Neill dissected Russia’s ceasefire charade–and how Trump is falling for Putin’s dissembling per usual.

“For a president who insists he’s a brilliant negotiator, the past 30 days have been a masterclass in how to be played.” And we know who’s paying attention.

But Putin’s not in ideal shape, either, as revealed by the legendary Marvin Kalb in Putin: A Short-Timer? This illuminating, incisive response pushes back by revealing Putin’s position in Ukraine: it’s a losing hand. After betting on a quick victory, three years later Putin is clinging to power with a broken economy, staggering losses, and a lifeline from Trump (as long as his ego stays fueled).

Comics, Cooking & Companions

Tom the Dancing Bug. This week’s cartoon from Ruben Bolling imagines the Trump Youth, while in A most perfect specimen, RJ Matson gave us a rare print of The Vitrumpian Man: Ink on executive order, 2025; on loan from the Mar-a-Louvre collection.

Lemon posset meets Eton mess. Marissa Rothkopf gifted us with an upgrade to a dish popular since Aristotle's time. You know who else loved posset? Shakespeare.

Contrarian Pet of the Week And finally, bringing comfort to the end of our week, we introduced you to Bella, a mini Bernedoodle from the loving home of Julie Zebrak. She has not mastered the art of table manners, but her high EQ more than makes up for it.

So there you have it, another week of democracy’s doings. From court proceedings to political ones, and from polling places to popular protest, pro-democracy is fighting bro-democracy and holding its own. Trump is not achieving his purposes, and if he's not winning despite all his power, that means he's losing. We cover all that and more here at The Contrarian and you make it (and my separate litigation) possible with your paid subscription.

Thanks for being with us, friends! Hope to see you at 9:15 am ET Monday for Coffee with the Contrarians (with the great Harry Litman subbing for me this week). Keep up the peaceful, patriotic opposition, and I’ll do the same.

Warmly, Norm