Weekly Mailbag - Building the resistance
Installment #4 of my weekly Q&A with your questions, where we open up a much larger discussion on what we need to do to take care of one another -- and what we need to build together.
Welcome to the weekly mailbag Q&A! Leave a comment on this post to send your question for next week — and also check out the end of the piece here, where I’m also especially interested in hearing your thoughts on what is needed in the pro-democracy movement right now and what we ought to build together.
And away we go!
Anne Whitney: SCOTUS laid down new rules so isn't it an opportunity to use the new rules - even if Biden is old school - to do the most good possible before the incoming storm makes landfall? Wouldn't it be better to issue sweeping pardons and then let a huge amt of bandwidth be taken up litigating for the next 18+ months rather than leaving a blank slate runway for project 2025 to be implemented? For example, could Biden issue sweeping pardons for dreamers or 'illegal immigrants' who's only criminal offense was entry and then let the Trump people have to go to SCOTUS to claw back the blanket pardons?
Very intriguing, and plenty to discuss here. First, there is a lot that Biden can do that would not require him to bank on the immunity the Supreme Court now claims he would have for his “official acts.”1 Pardons could be among those things, with one caveat. If Biden were to pardon millions of people, it could boomerang on us, both in terms of what Trump could claim as a precedent and in how it would be viewed in public opinion (i.e. a pardon of all undocumented immigrants would get lambasted as a general amnesty, which probably would be opposed by a majority of Americans). But a pardon for the Dreamers? Young people who were brought to the US as children and raised here — and who now pay taxes and contribute to society here? That could be an interesting move.
I agree wholeheartedly with the principle that we need to be taking the fight to the courts (and to Congress) rather than just letting Trump and his cronies implement Project 2025 and all its illegality, unconstitutionality, and extremism. Many of those fights will not be ripe legally until Trump takes the illegal executive actions he’s promised to take — but the preparations for those fights are already underway. And then, yes, as you’re suggesting, those court battles will take a while to play out.
And anything Biden can do that cannot be easily undone — and that would not have blowback — he should do. For one thing, that includes making sure that every piece of weaponry we can spare should be shipped to Ukraine immediately, even if the items are loaned. This is what FDR did to circumvent Nazi-backed isolationism and support the British, and it’s what we should do today.
DCWASHINGTON: What is the link to your podcast? Time, day, love to attend.
The podcast is everywhere podcasts are, and of course that means Apple and Spotify. We’re working on getting the release schedule into more of a long-term groove, but of late we have been mostly releasing on Wednesday mornings (at 3 a.m. ET if you happen to be awake then).
The newest episode on the pod was particularly wonderful to do, because I had my good friends JojoFromJerz and V from Under the Desk News joining me and talking about what we need to do to help each other out and to help each other keep fighting. Thanks so much to both of them!
But wait, there’s more! We’re working on dropping a second episode a week where I answer questions from all of you — and we’re working on a second show that will bring together a much larger group of the most awesome pro-democracy voices.
Alex Manifold: What's the best way for a new lawyer to get involved in the fight for democracy?
Does this presuppose that one has already become a lawyer and that it’s too late to avoid that terrible fate? Kidding, kidding.
Law provides a particular set of skills, shall we say, and those skills are badly needed in the fights for democracy.
To go all in, there are government enforcement roles as well as critical work at pro-democracy advocacy organizations. On the government side, to adapt a phrase, if you’re currently in the federal government, stay in the federal government. Those loyal to the Constitution need to stay and to continue doing their jobs as best they can. But if you’re not already in a government role, think about the state attorneys general, or working in a local district attorney’s office — especially in areas like public corruption, financial fraud, consumer fraud, labor, environment, appellate, etc.
On the advocacy org side, check out democracy2025.org and all the members of that coalition: they’ll be doing absolutely vital work to uphold the rule of law, to compel the government to follow federal law and the Constitution, and to stop illegal and unconstitutional executive actions. You should also check out Democracy Docket and the Voting Rights division of the ACLU and the amazing work being done to fight for free and fair elections and voting rights.
TT: How is it legal for Musk to have a position in the government while CEO of a SpaceX, a government contractor? Isn’t that an Ethics & Compliance violation?
Yes, this is exactly what government ethics rules are designed for! The blatant conflicts of interest on the horizon are not really being paid enough attention yet. A government official cannot have private business interests that are directly impacted by that government official’s work. It’s a very simple principle. The question is whether the Senate is going to be willing to uphold it.
In the case of Musk in particular, it is unfathomable how he could continue to control SpaceX and Tesla, both of which are major government contractors, and how he could continue to control Twitter, which he can then manipulate to amplify information (or misinfo or disinfo) regarding his government role.
And yet all of this is academic so far, because there is no such thing as the Department of Government Efficiency — and the president does not have the unilateral power to create new departments. It would have to be created by Congress. That alone is a point we need to keep making, because Musk and Ramaswamy and Trump continue to act like the Department already exists, and the public narrative often just follows the loudest voices.
Faith Rogow: Is it legal for corporations, who presumably pay taxes on profits, to write off lobbying costs as business expenses? How about payment of fines?
No. None of those things are tax deductible, thankfully. Now, does this mean that this rule is always honored? I have no idea. I would imagine that in certain institutions — say, ones that are in chronic trouble with prosecutors and other government enforcement officials — there is a strong temptation to find some way to get around such rules.
Jamie Schler: Hey, Tristan! I’m actually wondering how we can all organize together, on a large scale, to combat this incoming administration. Is there a strong leader who can bring everyone together?
Hey, Jamie! I think we are the leadership we’re waiting for. I don’t think there’s going to be a single leader who rallies the Resistance. I think it’s going to be a wide array of us, organizing, coming together, and taking action. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot, obsessively, for the past month. It’s been the topic of keen conversation with other folks I’m in touch with.
I do know a few things, as I outlined in my posts on how we will fight back — namely, that we need litigation, pressurization, and communication. We need to fight illegal and unconstitutional executive actions in the courts; we need to pressure other politicians so they fear they will lose re-election (or at the very least, so they get rattled by negative publicity); we need to build our own independent and far more robust pro-democracy media ecosystem, with shows and networks and live events (local chapters? live in-person shows?) and conferences and more.
But I’m just one guy, sitting on the couch with his Macbook writing a newsletter. So let’s have a bigger discussion about this!
What do you think is needed? What do you need right now, personally? How can we help one another? What do you think ought to be built?
Share this post everywhere you can, and reply in the comments — and I will also do a separate dedicated post just for this topic alone.
Also, I believe that even if Biden did things as “official acts,” the Trumpers could then still try to prosecute Biden, claiming that the things he did were “non-official acts” and thus “crimes” for which is not immune. So if I were Biden or his team, I would not be putting much stock in the SCOTUS ruling.
All great points. Additionally, we need to focus on ways to counteract disinformation among people who are not highly politically attuned. I’m thinking about ways to identify informal leaders at the grassroots level who are open to ongoing discussions/education so they can pass along valid info to the people with whom they interact and who rely on them for honest assessments of situations.
Judy Woodruff had a great panel yesterday with Judge Luttig, Heather Cox Richardson and Theodore Johnson. I was very impressed with Johnson and would like to see more from him in the DNC.