Politics
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February 7, 2025
While the lawsuits being filed against the Trump-Musk administration are righteous, they will not “save” us from this nightmare.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk speaks live via a video transmission during the election campaign launch rally of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party on January 25, 2025.
(Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
With the Democratic Party protesting the crimes of the Elon Musk–Donald Trump administration with the skill and preparedness of a high school chess club that’s suddenly been told they’re starting the big football game, most liberals have pinned their hopes for real opposition on the courts. Lawsuits have been pouring down on the Trump administration like rain. To keep up, I check the helpful litigation tracker published and updated by Just Security. As of this writing, the website is following 35 separate lawsuits filed against Trump’s executive orders.
Many of Trump’s orders are illegal, and unconstitutional, and brazenly so. Most good-faith lawyers can see that, but “good faith” does not describe the current state of the federal judiciary. Trump and MAGA have captured and corrupted the courts: They have seeded the lower courts with federal judges more loyal to Trump and his white-supremacist movement than they are to the law. They have stacked the Supreme Court with justices hostile to civil rights and equality. This doesn’t mean that cases brought by the ACLU, AFL-CIO, or Democratic state attorneys general are destined to fail. Their cases are righteous (and, legally speaking, right) and must be brought. Some might even succeed.
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