It can feel like we’re drowning under the incessant torrent of outrages launched by this administration, but every now and then, some true patriot throws us a lifeline. 

This week, it was U.S. District Judge Bill Young, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, who published an extraordinary 161-page cri de coeur, ruling that the administration violated the First Amendment by targeting pro-Palestinian college students for deportation.

Everyone should read the decision in its entirety, which Young framed as a response to the anonymous sender of an ominous postcard to his chambers, which read, “Trump has pardons and tanks, what do you have?”

“Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States — you and me — have our magnificent Constitution,” Young wrote in response, above the opinion itself. “Here’s how that works out in a specific case.”

But if you just want the highlights (and some useful context), our Jacob Knutson has you covered. As Jacob noted, Young included a highly unusual 12-page assessment of the president himself in the opinion that detailed how Trump routinely ignores the Constitution, laws, and regulations while governing but aggressively deploys the legal system against those who stand in his way.

“Now that he is our duly elected President after a full and fair election, he not only enjoys broad immunity from any personal liability, he is prepared to deploy all the resources of the nation against obstruction,” Young wrote. “Daunting prospect, isn’t it?”

Read Jacob’s coverage here. Or read the whole decision here.

For decades, Republicans have envisioned the federal government one day creating a centralized citizenship database that would threaten every American’s privacy and liberty. 

But what we thought was a dire forewarning turns out to have been a sneak-preview of the GOP’s authoritarian turn. At Trump’s behest, the federal government has been piecing together databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services and the DOJ into vast, centralized repositories of Americans' sensitive personal information. 

Now a coalition of advocacy groups* is suing to block that Orwellian consolidation of data, which the Trump administration wants to use to purge noncitizens from voter rolls and launch criminal investigations. While these federal agencies have boasted in public about the development of this digital panopticon, they have failed to properly notify Congress or the public as required by federal law, the class action lawsuit alleges. 

Read more about the lawsuit here. 

*Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, serves as board chair of Democracy Forward, which represents plaintiffs in this case.

OPINION

“Constitutional” Sheriffs Have Already Shown Us How the Trump Administration Might Attempt To Overthrow Elections

Jessica Pishko has spent a decade tracking “constitutional” sheriffs: MAGA diehards who believe that, as elected officials without direct oversight, they are the supreme legal authority in their county. 

“These ‘constitutional’ sheriffs have used their political and policing powers to harass local officials, criminally investigate select individuals, and intimidate voters with displays of force. Their historical plans, however, provide a roadmap for what is ahead," Pishko warns Democracy Docket readers this week.

In the op-ed, Pishko, an independent journalist and lawyer, illustrates how Trump could attempt to deploy these rogue officials in an attempt to undermine the upcoming midterms. After all, “constitutional” sheriffs have already tried to thwart past elections. 

“Thankfully, most of these efforts did not succeed,” Pishko notes hopefully. “Lawyers filed lawsuits to prevent election interference. And many of the theories around election interference — bamboo-laced ballots from China! Venezuelan hackers! — were too wacky for most people to purchase.” 

Read the full essay here.

Donald Trump’s second term isn’t just about bad policies — it’s about breaking America’s democratic institutions for good. Marc explains why we can’t simply “resist” Trump and wait things out, but must build a long-term pro-democracy opposition movement. Watch it on YouTube here.