Despair and Resignation Are Not a Strategy: How To Fight Back in a Second Trump Term

Many polls suggest if the presidential election were held today, Donald Trump could return to the White House. Fears of irreparable threats to our democracy and freedoms are neither abstract nor hyperbolic.

We must believe Trump when he reveals his authoritarian plans for a second term and take these threats seriously. He has made clear he intends to deploy the military to crush protests; activate state national guards to deport millions of immigrants; build on his legacy of gutting reproductive freedoms by implementing a nationwide abortion ban; create a police state in which anyone who he views as an "enemy" is surveilled and our law enforcement are further empowered to use lethal force; and undermine the integrity of our elections.

Terrifying as these threats are, despair and resignation are not a strategy. We and our allies are prepared to fight back, informed by our experiences in his first term.

A Nimble Legal Strategy To Combat Every New Threat and Prevent Harm

The ACLU filed 434 legal actions against the Trump administration, and hundreds of other lawsuits were filed by sister organizations, state attorneys general and even private citizens.

We turned to the courts during Trump's first week in office when we, with the International Refugee Assistance Project and other partners, filed the first lawsuit challenging Trump's Muslim ban. We got our first win the day after Trump's executive order was signed. As the administration pivoted to "perfect" its unconstitutional ban, we fought every subsequent version. Along with our allies, we defeated the first two iterations of the ban and ramped up pressure for President Joe Biden to revoke the third and final ban on day one of his presidency.

We employed a similar strategy when the administration started forcibly separating families at the southern border. Initially, we only wanted to reunite one mother and her daughter, but we subsequently learned that the government had codified this horrific practice into standard policy. We quickly expanded our suit and did everything possible to have the full extent of this tragedy revealed to the public. We, Kids in Need of Defense, the Women's Refugee Commission and Justice in Motion mobilized thousands of people to march in opposition. Under significant, sustained public and legal pressure, the administration finally reversed their family separation policy, with our lawsuit helping reunite approximately 3,200 families.

Litigation remains a powerful tool even in the face of Trump's 245 judicial appointments. Much to his chagrin, many of his appointees proved willing to buck his agenda as Trump-appointed judges stood up nearly en masse for the rule of law and civil liberties in response to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump appointees also ruled against the administration's anti-immigrant policies around Title 42 and the third-country transit ban.

Organizing Communities in the Streets

Should Trump return to the White House, advocacy organizations will need to come together like never before. No single organization will be able to stop the power of the federal government at Trump's disposal. If he unleashes a deportation force to remove 13 million immigrants or deploys the National Guard to crack down on demonstrations, we and our partners will be in court daily challenging these unconstitutional and immoral policies. But that's not enough.

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