41. Escalation

Over the past two weeks, the Trumpists have significantly escalated their assault on the rule of law as well as on both individuals and institutions they regard as the “enemy within.” We focus on two dimensions of this truly dangerous escalation: We start with the Trump government ramping up its attempt to purge the nation from what they now officially call “alien enemies.” Ten days ago, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming emergency wartime powers to detain and deport foreign nationals – specifically a group of Venezuelan migrants, disappeared into a prison labor camp in El Salvador with no due process whatsoever. This is outrageous in at least three different ways: There is the way these people are being treated; there are the pseudo-legal justifications brought up by the Trump administration to justify such an extreme assertion of executive power; and there is the way the Trumpists are ignoring court orders and moving ever more aggressively towards denying the courts’ authority to check and curtail their power outright. We then move to the escalating attack on universities. The Trumpists, it is evident, will use whatever pretext they can come up with to subdue institutions they deem insufficiently deferential or a potential source of “leftist” subversion. Unfortunately, as the example of Columbia University caving to the regime’s demands demonstrates, those institutions are choosing to capitulate and acquiesce. That is the really scary part: Any assumption of democratic resilience in the United States was predicated on the idea that civil society actors with enormous resources at their disposal – universities, law firms, media companies… – would push back. But so many simply won’t.

Show notes:

Chris Geidner, “Court blocks deportations hours after Trump says he invoked Alien Enemies Act,” Law Dork, March 15, 2025 https://www.lawdork.com/p/alien-enemies-act-venezuela-tro

Amicus podcast, “The Rule of Law Took A Very Dark Turn This Week,” March 22, 2025 https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2025/03/trump-regime-flights-of-venezuelans-to-el-salvador-land-in-a-constitutional-crisis

“Columbia Yields to Trump in Battle Over Federal Funding,” Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2025 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-university-trump-demands-federal-funding-e94d41ca?st=n8GS7V&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

“Law Firm Bends in Face of Trump Demands,” New York Times, March 20, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/paul-weiss-deal-trump-executive-order-withdrawn.html

Follow Lily

Follow Thomas

Follow the podcast on social media

Read Thomas’ weekly newsletter Democracy Americana