Trump Is Our True National Emergency

Some judges have indeed started saying to the Trump administration, in effect, Cut the shit. “Blind deference to the government?” said Judge Zia M. Faraqui recently, when asked by federal prosecutors not to unseal a search warrant. “That is no longer a thing.” At a hearing concerning Kilmar Ábrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration deported to El Salvador in defiance of her court ruling, Judge Paula Xinis tried and failed to get a straight answer from prosecutors about what they’d do with Garcia once he was brought back. “This has been the process from Day One,” she erupted. “You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it in my view.”

If Trump keeps declaring emergencies—and, of course, he will—the best response may be for protesters to create an emergency of their own through the expansion of nonviolent public protest. We’ve had May Day and No Kings Day and Good Trouble Lives and Workers Over Billionaires. How about Cut the Shit Day?

In August, the nonprofit Center for American Progress suggested, based on research by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth and others, that it will take about 12 million Americans—a mere 3.5 percent of the population—to halt Trump’s abuses of power. This can happen. In March, I published a guide to resisting Trump. I’m no expert on this subject, but I consulted a lot of people who are, and they had some good ideas. We may need to try all of them, because the emergency emergency won’t end itself. We’re already seeing considerable mass protest. Let’s build on that.