American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law are the righteous causes of our times, and the nation's legal profession is obligated to support them. But with the acquiescence of the larger conservative legal movement, these pillars of our system of governance are increasingly in peril.
Recent reporting about plans for a second Trump presidency are frightening. He would stock his administration with partisan loyalists committed to fast-tracking his agenda and sidestepping if not circumventing altogether existing laws and long-established legal norms.
The dangers will only grow should Donald Trump be returned to the White House next November. This would include appointing to high public office political appointees to rubber-stamp his plans to investigate and exact retribution against his political opponents; make federal public servants removable at will by the president himself; and invoke special powers to take unilateral action on First Amendment-protected activities, criminal justice, elections, immigration and more. We have seen him try this before, though fortunately he was thwarted he would say betrayed by executive branch lawyers and by judges who refused to go along with his more draconian and often unlawful policies and his effort to remain in office after being cast out by voters.
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