When the Law Becomes the Target
Inside the Authoritarian Playbook to Break the Courts and Silence Dissent
We know the authoritarian playbook. Target vulnerable communities, flood the zone with propaganda, undermine trust in elections, and then, critically, dismantle the institutions designed to hold power accountable.
We are watching that last tactic play out in real time.
Donald Trump is not just signaling he plans to defy the courts; he’s laying the groundwork to erase their authority altogether. He is threatening to impeach judges who rule against him. He has already defied federal court orders, and his legal team has floated arguments that amount to saying they do not have to comply. And now he is escalating his campaign of legal intimidation, not just against journalists or prosecutors, but against some of the country’s largest law firms.
Capturing or Crushing the Courts
In the authoritarian playbook, the courts are either captured or crushed. Trump’s first term was marked by a deliberate and aggressive campaign to stack the judiciary with loyalists. That campaign bore fruit: a Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the floodgates to anti-LGBTQ discrimination. A pipeline of judges hostile to civil rights.
I recently interviewed Chris Geidner, the journalist behind Law Dork, on my Wide Awake America podcast, where he laid out how Trump’s second-term playbook goes even further.
Click here to listen to the full interview:
Trump is not satisfied with installing judges who align with him. He is now threatening the ones who do not. He is testing the system to see how far he can push the line before ignoring court orders altogether. He is daring the system to stop him.
And we are seeing the consequences. His team invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law last used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Trump is now asserting that same power to detain and deport immigrants—without a declared war, without due process, and based on little more than a political narrative and sweeping accusations.
When a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deportation of five named individuals, the government did not stop. Instead of turning planes around, they continued the removals and then returned to court to argue that once the planes left U.S. airspace, the court’s authority no longer applied. It was not just a legal stretch. It was a test of whether the executive branch could defy the judiciary and get away with it.
Law Firms Are the New Target
Trump’s not stopping with judges. It is coming for the lawyers too.
Four major law firms have already been targeted with executive orders from Trump’s campaign, citing their pro bono work and past litigation challenging his policies. The threats are explicit: revocation of security clearances, cancellation of federal contracts, investigations into so-called “racial discrimination” (their language for diversity programs), and perhaps most disturbingly, bans from entering federal buildings, including courthouses.
Let that sink in. Banning lawyers from court.
One firm, Paul Weiss, buckled under pressure. Others, like Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, have filed suit. And some conservative firms have stepped in to defend them, understanding that once the machinery is unleashed, no one is safe. Still, the silence from untargeted firms is loud. Many are hoping that if they lie low, they will be spared.
They will not be. That is not how this works.
The Courts Alone Will Not Save Us
It is true that the courts will not save us. But giving up on them guarantees defeat. Every legal challenge slows the march. Every judge who stands firm forces the authoritarians to stumble. Every law firm that refuses to fold sends a signal to others who are watching and weighing the risk of speaking out.
Chris called this the “sand in the gears” phase. We are not waiting for a singular, heroic rescue. We are showing up in small, essential ways to interrupt the machinery of repression.
Exhaustion Is the Point
We know the cruelty is the point. So is the exhaustion. The barrage of policies, executive orders, lawsuits, and propaganda is not just an attack on rights. It is designed to grind people down, to leave them demoralized and hopeless.
But every time we push back, we prove that the machinery is not inevitable. That it can be jammed. That it can be exposed. That it can be stopped.
“History chose to put me here…”
I asked Chris what keeps him going when his work compels him to slog through some of the most toxic, dehumanizing legal assaults Trump and his allies have pushed into the courts. His answer was not about hope or optimism. It was about grounding. He leaned on a quote from Nathan Fain, a founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who bore witness during the AIDS crisis and another era of political abandonment.
Chris keeps this quote close. After hearing it, so do I:
“I see nobility in men. I know every day I revel in it. It keeps me whole through all this. Awestruck may sound a touch hyperbolic, but it's quite a drama being played out before me. I am fortunate. History chose to put me here to see it all, to remain alive this long. I am grateful. I wish for nothing more than to be only what I am.”
That is not a call for hope. It is a call for presence. For clarity. For refusing to look away from what we are living through. Because we are alive. And we are still here to fight.
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