Robert Reich: If leaders stay silent, the US won't survive Trump's next 100 days [View all]

[milestogo]

Wed 30 Apr 2025 14.07 EDT

We have witnessed the first 100 days of the odious Trump regime. The US constitution is in peril. Civil and human rights are being trampled upon. The economy is in disarray. At this rate, we will not make it through the second 100 days. Federal judges in more than 120 cases so far have sought to stop Trump – judges appointed by Republicans as well as Democrats, some appointed by Trump himself – but the regime is either ignoring or appealing their orders. It has even arrested a municipal judge in Milwaukee amid a case involving an undocumented defendant.

Recently, Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III of the court of appeals for the fourth circuit – an eminent conservative Reagan appointee who is revered by the Federalist Society – issued a scathing rebuke to the Trump regime. In response to its assertion that it can abduct residents of the US and put them into foreign prisons without due process, Wilkinson wrote: If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.

Wilkinson’s fears are already being realized. Ice recently deported three US citizens – aged two, four and seven – when their mothers were deported to Honduras. One of the children, who has stage 4 cancer, was sent out of the US without medication or consultation with doctors. Meanwhile, the regime continues to attack all the independent institutions in this country that have traditionally served as buffers against tyranny – universities, non-profits, lawyers and law firms, the media, science and researchers, libraries and museums, the civil service and independent agencies – threatening them with extermination or loss of funding if they do not submit to its oversight and demands.

Trump has even instructed the Department of Justice to investigate ActBlue, the platform that handles the fundraising for almost all Democratic candidates and the issues Democrats support. Meanwhile, Trump is actively destroying the economy. His proposed tariffs are already raising prices. His attacks on the Fed chief, Jerome Powell, are causing tremors around the world. Trump wants total power, even at the cost of our democracy and economy. His polls are plummeting yet many Americans are still in denial. “He’s getting things done!” some say. “He’s tough and strong!” Every American with any shred of authority must loudly and boldly explain the danger we are in.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/30/trump-next-100-days