Making Progress Under Trump 2.0

The second Trump administration is weighing heavily on the minds of the many Americans concerned that this Trump presidency will more effectively obstruct and undermine efforts to address our systemic problems than his first. The courageous ones – the democracy defenders, climate warriors, fiscal hawks, economic justice advocates, educators, journalists, and so many others – are pressing forward despite the many threats the returning president has directed at those who oppose him.

Their work won’t be easy. The guardrails that protect against authoritarians and oligarchs are eroded and many have broken. In his January 6 post on Democracy Docket, Marc Elias* wrote that protections against MAGA extremism no longer exist in government institutions, political norms, legacy media, or corporate boardrooms. The courts, in his view, are the last guardrail, but he questions whether they are up to the task of upholding the Constitution and the rule of law.

Writing in The Bulwark just days later, William Kristol* agreed:  “We cannot and should not count on the courts to save us.”

The truth in such observations and a media stream that is all Trump all the time are anxiety-producing for many in the general public. The stressed among us can take some comfort in knowing there are leaders and organizations prepared to challenge the new administration. For the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), two organizations with very different missions, Trump 2.0 is just a bigger challenge.

The ACLU’s Trump Memos

In September, the ACLU published The Trump Memos, a collection of seven documents that provide the organization’s roadmap for protecting civil rights and civil liberties under a second Trump administration. In it, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero issued this warning, “As Trump and Project 2025 make clear, a second Trump administration will be significantly more aggressive and effective in executing its plans to fundamentally erode our democracy, take away our freedoms, and violate our Constitution.” Project 2025, written by people close to Trump, is a radical blueprint to shrink the federal bureaucracy and impose religious values on the country.

The memos outline the specific litigation, legislation, and mobilization the ACLU plans if and when the administration follows through with attacks on undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, DEI efforts, antidiscrimination laws, voting rights, privacy, free speech, and the criminal legal system.

Recognizing the crumbling of democratic norms,  the federal courts’ increasingly transparent service to Trump and a radical conservative agenda, Romero wrote, “Because resignation and despair are not a strategy, we and our allies must be prepared to fight back. I know the ACLU is fit for the fight.”

In an interview with the Guardian, the ACLU’s new national legal director, Cecilia Wang, said the organization had already worked out the legal theories, drafted the legal arguments, and lined up plaintiffs for lawsuits against the administration should it act as promised. Wang is not intimidated by the disparity between the resources available to her and to the president. As the Guardian pointed out, her team of 150 “crack lawyers” and the ACLU’s overall staff of 2,200 is easily outnumbered by the Justice Department’s 10,000 lawyers and outgunned by the National Guard troops that Trump has threatened to use to quash unwanted protests.

Wang, like Romero, isn’t ignoring the likely realities of the next four years. “As much as Donald Trump’s threats will cause enormous harm to people in our country and around the world, I’m undaunted, and the ACLU is undaunted. We are made for times like this.”

The ACLU, which turned 105 on January 19, is just one of numerous organizations prepared to engage the Trump administration on the legal front.

The CRFB’s Budget Offsets Bank

In December, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget launched what it calls a Budget Offsets Bank, a repository of policy options for either reducing annual federal budget deficits or offsetting new spending or tax cuts. A month later, the Congressional Budget Office released its latest report on the budget. It projects the public debt will grow from today’s $29 trillion to $52 trillion over the next decade. In 2035, CBO projects the government’s debt will be 118% of the Gross Domestic Product, setting a new record for the seventh year in a row. But extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which primarily benefit wealthy families and corporations and which the Republican Congress looks largely inclined to do, would increase debt to 129% of GDP without offsetting cuts in spending.

As the CRFB has pointed out many times, this upward trajectory is unsustainable and risks future economic chaos. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress claim to recognize the problem. Elon Musk, head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, said before the election he would cut $2 trillion from the $6 trillion annual budget while House Republicans have outlined more than $5 trillion in cuts over 10 years – more than enough to offset the $4.6 trillion cost in the same time period of extending the 2017 tax cuts.

Since slightly more than half the federal budget is spent on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, any significant budget cuts would have their greatest impact on the elderly and the poor who depend on those programs. Indeed, the menu of House proposals would cut $2.3 trillion in Medicaid spending alone. Musk, who is the world’s richest man and does not have  to worry about such things, has said bringing spending under control “necessarily involves some temporary hardship”. Given the GOP’s refusal to consider any sort of tax increase and its longstanding objections to the government’s safety net programs, it’s fair to wonder if the party’s concern for the debt merely provides cover for cutting those programs.

On the other hand, CRFB’s Offsets Bank provides policymakers in Washington with a lengthy list of policy options – including raising taxes. A careful selection from these options could enable lawmakers to navigate the nation’s financial albatross in a more balanced and responsible way for all Americans. CRFB’s Debt Fixer tool allows the public to step through the potential tradeoffs involved in creating a more balanced budget and reducing the debt.

In the Courts: The Lawfare Begins

Within minutes of Trump taking the oath of office, three lawsuits were filed against the new administration targeting DOGE, which, despite its official-sounding name, was not yet a recognized government agency. As reported by Politico barely an hour after Trump was sworn in, the suits allege that DOGE has given private individuals a role in government decision-making without the public access required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

By 12:09 pm ET on January 20, one of the plaintiffs, Public Citizen, had already sent this email to its supporters explaining the details (some text in bold as in the email):

Public Citizen filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump just moments after he was once again sworn in as president of the United States.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Our lawsuit is about Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (a.k.a. DOGE).

• The suit explains that DOGE is what’s known as an advisory committee, which means it is subject to a 1972 law called the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

• The law requires that such committees be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed” and that they operate transparently.

• DOGE is most definitely not fairly balanced and most definitely not set up to operate transparently.

• DOGE is being run by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Vivek Ramaswamy, another billionaire — putting both men in a position to drive policy recommendations in Trump’s second term.

• And although Trump says that DOGE is about “efficiency,” the true intent is to spike corporate profits by rolling back vital regulatory protections — on things like clean air, safe food, and workplace safety — and to slash government spending on vital programs like nutrition assistance and Medicaid.

Forcing DOGE to comply with the law is one way to shine light on the Trump regime’s conflicts of interest and to fight back against its extremist, pro-corporate agenda.

The lawsuit was filed by Public Citizen*, the State Democracy Defenders Fund*, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)*.

The other two suits were filed by the National Security Counselors* and Democracy Forward*.

A fourth lawsuit was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group. It also targets DOGE but with a different purpose in mind. The suit, which seeks to obtain public records that show how DOGE personnel have interacted with Trump and his transition team, is concerned about conflicts of interest and corruption.

The Center’s executive director, Kierán Suckling, said in a press release, “We know Musk is bullying civil servants and boasting about gutting nearly every legal safeguard that protects Americans, but who knows what sweetheart deals he’s making behind the scenes to enrich himself even further. We’re going to find out and we won’t leave any stone unturned.”

Following his inauguration, Trump signed a series of executive orders, including one that rebranded the US Digital Service (USDS), an agency set up under President Obama to facilitate the modernization of government technology, as the US DOGE Service. It is an attempt to make DOGE an official part of the government, which would undermine some elements of the initial trio of lawsuits. Normally, a newly proposed government agency can only be established by act of Congress.

The official US government website launched at doge.gov, although usds.gov, the site of the US Digital Service, remains active at this writing.

Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, isn’t satisfied. “The way [DOGE] has been operating was under a shroud of secrecy with a number of concerns,” she said. “It continues to have a range of legal problems.”

More suits have already been filed on other issues, including a ban on birthright citizenship that plaintiffs argue is unconstitutional, and still many more suits are likely to follow. In time, we should have a much better handle on whether the courts will stand up to the test being put to them or whether we’ll need to find other means to retain, regain, and protect our democracy.