When leaders fail, people… step up?

The surprising trend giving me hope; plus, the dumpster-fire elections EO

This week I want to talk about a small thing that gives me hope. A “green shoot,” if you will, in a time when so much seems to be withering.

It’s early, it’s scattered, and it’s more of a tendril than a surge of green.

When the leadership of institutions bows down to the autocrat — happening a lot these days — that’s often not the end of the story. In many key cases, the people who make up those institutions are refusing to go quietly. The individuals with less power, not more, are stepping up to defend our democracy.

This is an important inversion of the “institutions are just people” adage. And if this trend continues, with ordinary people showing courage where their leaders fail, that may just be the determinative factor in whether the autocratic project ultimately falls short.

Perhaps that shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, in our democracy — in any democracy — it has always come down to “We, the people.”

At Columbia, a case study of this next line of defense

To see what I mean, look at Columbia University. The Trump Administration decided to make an early target of the Ivy League school, cancelling $400 million in federal funding as part of a broader attack on free speech and independent inquiry.

Read more: The White House goes all-out against the First Amendment

As Harvard professors Ryan Enos and Steven Levitsky write, going after universities is a move straight out of the authoritarian playbook: First they came for Columbia.

Autocrats — both left-wing and right-wing — always attack universities. The public rationale varies. Some, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, reportedly accuse universities or students of supporting terrorism; others, like pro-government outlets in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, accuse them of working for foreign interests; still others, like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, accused universities of supporting “neoliberalism” and corruption.

But these are pretexts. Universities are independent centers of ideas and often prominent centers of dissent. Autocrats are allergic to sources of dissent, so they almost invariably seek to silence, weaken, or control them.

The Trump administration is no different. Its claim to be fighting campus antisemitism rings as hollow as Ortega’s reported claim to be fighting terrorism in Nicaragua’s leading Jesuit-run university. The administration has weaponized the fight against antisemitism as a means to another end: punishing and weakening universities.

To be sure, the federal government has an important role to play in ensuring college campuses are free from discrimination, including antisemitism. But there’s a process for that, one that allows it to address discrimination while also protecting academic freedom.

The fact that they’re blatantly disregarding that process should tell you everything you need to know. This should be one of the most open-and-shut cases in modern First Amendment law. Yet, despite having such a strong legal case, Columbia's leadership apparently felt unable or unwilling to fight. They capitulated last week.

The story, though, does not end there.

This Wednesday, a different group stepped into the void: the faculty, many of whom had their grant funding for vital scientific research improperly canceled. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed suit on their behalf. (Protect Democracy represents them in this case along with Altshuler Berzon, LLP). Read more about the lawsuit here.

Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP, had this to say about the case:

The Trump administration’s threats and coercion at Columbia are part of a clear authoritarian playbook meant to crush academic freedom and critical research in American higher education. Faculty, students, and the American public will not stand for it. The repercussions extend far beyond the walls of the academy. Our constitutional rights, and the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to live in a democracy are on the line.

The emphasis there is mine — but I think it’s the key bit. Yes, many university administrators might prefer to avoid a fight at all costs, but that doesn’t mean that university communities as a whole feel the same.

Green shoots of courage are everywhere

Keep an eye out for it, and you’ll start seeing this same pattern wherever you look.

In the media. It’s true, we’ve seen a dangerous amount of anticipatory obedience from media executives and editors, but there is an impressive (and growing) number of individual reporters who are bravely uncovering truth against the displeasure of people in power. Just as importantly, many outlets like ProPublica, The Bulwark, The Atlantic, and — maybe most strikingly — Wired have risen to the moment with courage and journalistic conviction.

In the legal field. We’ve written plenty about the extreme danger of Trump’s attacks on the legal system and the short window for law firms to stand up together before they get crushed, one-by-one. But as some firms are slow to respond, you know who isn’t waiting? Law firm associates — the lowest lawyers on the big law totem pole. Hundreds are organizing to demand that their firms respond to attacks on the legal profession with greater force and urgency. Read their letter:

Our hope was that our employers, some of the most profitable law firms in the world, would lead the way. That has not yet been the case, but it still very much can be. It is easy to be afraid of being the first to speak. We are removing that barrier; we are speaking. Now it is our employers’ turn.

In the civil service. While Trump and Musk continue their attempt to convert the federal workforce into a legion of henchmen, against Congress’ attempts to create a depoliticized civil service (follow our Dear Civil Servant series for the latest developments), they’ve made uneven progress. Why? Because federal workers are refusing to be politicized, often loudly. They’re also a key part of lawsuits challenging illegal firings and calling out the administration's lies about civil servants.

In the streets. The narrative is that “the resistance is dead.” And yes, there hasn’t been a high-profile equivalent of the 2017 Women’s March. But… guess what? Research by Erica Chenoweth, Jeremy Pressman, and Soha Hammam suggests that the United States is seeing more protests than last time around, not fewer. Americans are gathering in ever larger numbers to protest Elon Musk or the weaponization of immigration enforcement. It’s just happening more spontaneously. (If you are looking for a big protest day: April 5th.)

Source: Crowd Counting Consortium

Every act of courage makes the next one more likely

Anticipatory obedience works because cowardice is corrosive; once the capitulation starts, it often spreads. But that also means the opposite is true: courage is contagious.

If I had to guess, the autocratic project could be at (or past) its political high water mark. Between the economy and the absolute clown show that is Trump’s national security team (more on that in a second), you can see how things could quickly spiral out of control for the White House (that’s not entirely a good thing for the country).

If there’s a tipping point in all this, we might be getting close to it. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you can do to show courage right now — it matters more than you know.

That’s especially true when leaders who are supposed to represent you aren’t living up to that responsibility.

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Trump takes an erratic swing at elections

On Tuesday, Trump issued an extremely radical executive order that purports to — among other things — force states to restrict ballot box access to the point that many people would need a passport just to register to vote.

You do not need to be a constitutional law scholar to understand that this order is massive overreach. You don’t even really need to read the order. Just read the bit where the Constitution talks about elections:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

-Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution

State governments. And Congress. That’s it. Zero mention of a constitutional role for the president here (beyond signing or vetoing laws). This order, if you can even call it that, will almost certainly not survive legal scrutiny.

That said, there is a proposed law in Congress, the SAVE Act, which would attempt to enact a similar proof of citizenship requirement through law instead of baseless executive order. But here’s why the SAVE Act is such a bad idea:

• It immediately demands highly burdensome and impractical measures of voters and election officials in service of defeating a phantom threat. There are many robust safeguards to ensure that only citizens vote and available evidence suggests non-citizens voting is a vanishingly small problem.

• The law is a recipe for disenfranchisement of voters of all political stripes — with particular burdens likely to fall on married women who have changed their name, military voters, rural voters, voters without passports, and older voters (worth noting that many of those groups lean Republican).

• It imposes extensive new costs on election administrators and threatens them with penalties for any errors they make. (This is all while the administration and Congress are cutting the federal government’s support for election administration).

There is very much a role for Congress and the federal government in strengthening our elections systems. That is not what any of this is.

(To be clear, none of this also has any impact on upcoming elections, such as next week’s in Wisconsin or Florida.)

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Any facade of legality (and competence) collapses in a flurry of 👊🇺🇸🔥

There is so much to say about this week’s big story — SignalGate — it’s hard to know where to begin. (If you haven’t read the biggest story in years, gift links here and here.)

Here’s my three takeaways, captured by three quotes in the transcript:

• “As we stated in the first PC…” -National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. There was a first “principals committee” group chat on this? The administration is communicating outside legal and secure channels likely to avoid the Federal Records Act, and it’s pretty clear this is not the first time everyone on this chain has done this. It may well be that the bulk of White House communications are happening through Signal. In other words, the administration is likely operating — on a basic day-to-day level — with total disregard for the constraints of law.

• “We are currently clean on OPSEC.” -Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Putting aside the irony of the Secretary of Defense declaring operational security (whether information about the operation is contained) in a text to an unfamiliar number without realizing he was doing so, the incompetence of all this — including the reaction to the fallout — boggles the mind. Yes, America is currently controlled by a dangerous, autocratic faction — but it’s also remarkably amateurish and out of its depth.

• “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light” - Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (presumably). This moment may explain why so much unchecked chaos is emanating from the White House. To state the obvious: White House staff should never have to interpret whether or not the president ordered a military strike. Right now, it’s not entirely clear on what actions Donald Trump is making clear decisions — or even aware of. (Some further evidence, Trump’s reaction to the most explosive scandal of his second term so far: “I don’t know anything about it.”) His staff and various appointees may be routinely freelancing as they interpret his opaque opinions, views, and desires. Yikes.

As journalist and Watergate historian Garrett Graff writes, there are at least five separate scandals intertwined in this scandal — (1) A massive leak of likely classified information, (2) apparent perjury to Congress, (3) potential criminal violation of the Federal Records Act, (4) a government IT scandal far worse than Hillary Clinton’s email server, and (5) according to Graff, some “light war crimes.”

Read the whole piece: The five scandals (and one fascinating political insight) of Signalgate.

David French, a former Army lawyer, describes eloquently how far less severe infractions would likely be career-ending (and potentially result in criminal charges) for any one of the 2.1 million service members under Pete Hegseth. If we don’t see at least one independent investigation — no, an “investigation” by Elon Musk does not count — arising from this episode, that will be the strongest evidence yet that federal law enforcement is fully politicized. Early signals look very, very bad.

Oh, and things are going to break.

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What else we’re tracking:

• What’s up with the kids these days? Join us on April 7th for a zoom discussion with youth civic leaders, researchers, and pro-democracy advocates discuss new survey findings that defy common assumptions about how young voters perceive democracy, engage with civic life, and see their role in shaping the future. Register here.

• Yesterday, FTC Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro M. Bedoya filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after the president attempted to fire them without cause. Read Amit Agarwal (a former Florida Solicitor General) and Blake Jelley on why this case is so important.

• The Trump Administration detained a Tufts University student on the streets of Massachusetts (the footage is particularly chilling) telling the university her visa had been cancelled. Early reports suggest she was targeted for an op-ed she wrote in the Tufts Daily, which, if true, is a deeply ominous sign — not to mention the clear lack of due process.

• Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to face trial for attempting a coup after his 2022 election loss (a plot that was in many ways inspired by the effort to overturn the 2020 election in the United States).

• Timothy Noah in The New Republic has a comprehensive new resource with just about everything you can be doing right now: Fighting back: A citizen’s guide to resistance.

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What you can do:

How to stand up for science, from Anna Dorman:

Now more than ever it is essential that we come together to protect critical investments in scientific research. One great way to do this is to join Stand Up for Science, now an official co-sponsor of the April 5 Hands Off! rallies nationwide.