It was already a catastrophic week for Donald Trump in the courts over his effort to starve Americans by illegally blocking SNAP benefits. Then Friday afternoon brought him another defeat—this one in the election arena. And both were thanks to you Contrarians.
Let’s start with the breaking news from late Friday. You will recall from prior editions of this column that Trump issued an executive order trying to seize power over American elections. I went to court with wonderful colleagues on behalf of clients such as LULAC to stop it. Under the Constitution, states run elections, with some role for Congress, not the president.
Previously, we had won preliminary relief, temporarily stopping this misconduct while the judge considered a permanent injunction. On Friday, we won summary judgment in the case—that is a permanent bar to this wrongdoing. Of course, Trump can appeal, but the decision is strong, and he will fail.
Because at the Contrarian we are owned by no one, all profits from your paid subscriptions go to support my democracy litigation, like this case—and over 200 other legal matters.
Of course, Trump also had another major legal collapse this week. That was the courts’ rebuke of Trump’s effort to use hunger as a political tool in the form of cutting off SNAP benefits in a misguided attempt to pressure Democrats to end the government shutdown. The pushback came courtesy of state attorneys general, governors, nonprofits, and private plaintiffs—and the federal judges to whom they turned for help. Here, too, you Contrarians made your voices heard.
To back up a bit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides food aid to almost 42 million Americans every month. About 1 in 8 Americans would not be able to eat if this program were halted. The Department of Agriculture has the money to pay for SNAP—and the legal obligation to spend it. The Trump administration claims it is not allowed to disperse the funds because of the shutdown. In fact, it is flouting the law by refusing to do so.
That was the subject of an administrative complaint that my litigation colleagues and I filed this week. As we explained, “USDA is not only authorized to use the SNAP contingency fund in the event of a lapse in normal appropriations, it is legally obligated to do so. Congress has directed USDA to reserve SNAP funding for use ‘as may become necessary to carry out program operations.’ By law, individuals who are eligible for SNAP are entitled to receive those benefits.”
If the money and statutory command are there, why are Trump, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, and others in the administration withholding it, with backing from congressional enablers? They are transparently doing so for political reasons to try to exact pain over the government shutdown and pressure Democratic senators who are unwilling to provide their votes for another heartless initiative: tearing health care away from millions of Americans.
You’re probably asking yourself how they are getting away with this flagrant illegality. That’s why an armada of support—including 23 state AGs and three governors in one lawsuit and a coalition of individual plaintiffs and nonprofit organizations in another—came in to make sure that they couldn’t. The AGs and governors filed their lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court explaining that the failure to disperse the funds was a violation of the law. Then, plaintiffs—including individuals from red states, such as a grocery store owner in South Carolina, who are bravely speaking out while their state governments do nothing to fight back—sued in Rhode Island.
By Friday, the plaintiffs scored significant victories against Trump, securing this vital assistance for Americans across the country. In a hearing on Thursday, federal Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts said, “Congress has put money in an emergency fund, and it is hard for me to understand how this is not an emergency.” On Friday, Chief Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order, preventing the federal government from cutting off SNAP benefits nationwide; and Judge Talwani in Massachusetts, in a scathing opinion, stated that the federal government was wrong on the relevant law and required it to inform the court as to whether it will authorize paying out benefits by Monday.
The fact that the private plaintiffs, AGs, and governors went to court—and that the courts responded strongly—is magnificent. (To be clear, these were separate from my administrative complaint. Credit where credit is due!) It’s another example of how the legal resistance is working as the front line of defending the Constitution and human decency. YOU Contrarians have supported over 200 of these legal cases and matters through your paid subscriptions, including our legal work on SNAP.
Polling shows that Americans dislike these kinds of autocratic shenanigans by Trump. We see that in polls, with Trump at historic lows of under 40% in poll after poll. And we’ve also seen it at the polls. In 46 out of 47 special elections this year, Democrats have won or outperformed by an average of 16 points.
Now we are about to get the biggest referendum yet on Trumpism when voters go to the polls Tuesday in California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. California’s Prop 50 is, of course, a direct response to Trump’s effort to steal congressional seats through redistricting in Texas by triggering reciprocal redistricting in the Golden State. And the other elections also are a reflection on Trump: GOP candidates Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia and Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey have enthusiastically embraced the president and his agenda.
Contrarians, that brings us to you once more. If you are a voter in one of these states or if you have friends or family who are, you have the opportunity to make your voice heard— whatever your views might be. It’s perhaps the most fundamental right in our democracy—and that’s why our authoritarian in chief fears it so much—evinced, for example, by his shameless efforts to encourage gerrymandering nationwide to deprive voters of their choice. On Tuesday, voters in multiple states will get to say what they think, and I believe they will repudiate Trumpism.
Of course, another element of a strong democracy is the free press, and we like to think we exemplify that here at The Contrarian. I hope you’ll agree when you look at the extraordinary lineup of content we offered this week—like my democracy litigation, also made possible by our paid subscribers. See for yourself….
Trying to break SNAP
The MAGA GOP Doesn’t Care If You Starve: Sen. Rosen on SNAP, Shutdown, and Senate.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) joined Jen from her D.C. office to expose Republican hypocrisy, as the “family first” party withholds funds that enable millions of Americans to feed their families. “Many of my Republican colleagues are like, ‘well, if they want to eat, they should get a job and work hard’.… Will you tell that to the disabled veteran or to the senior, or to the children, or to the people who work really hard but just don’t make enough?”
Dispatch from Chicago: Countdown to SNAP cuts
Lorraine Forte reported from Chicago, where SNAP cuts would deal another blow to a city already reeling from the abuses of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. “November threatens to be just the start of a downward spiral.”
The ICE Invasion
The Border Isn’t Where You Think It Is
In his first piece for The Contrarian, Tim Dickinson reported on how and why the infamously brutal Border Patrol is taking a central role in Trump’s immigration crackdowns—far from any international border crossing. “Is the Border Patrol now in Chicago as part of its routine authority? Or is there something darker going on?”
The Forgotten Status in the Immigration Narrative: Dreamers
A 13-year DACA recipient, anonymized for fear of personal retribution from ICE, gave us an incisive, courageous essay on what it takes to live under the ever-less-stable contingencies of a government that has always treated her like a pawn and increasingly like a pariah.
ICE Escalation in Chicago: Looped In with Lynn Sweet
Lynn Sweet spoke with Jen Rubin about the latest on ICE in Chicago: Children teargassed during Halloween celebrations. Women thrown to the ground and arrested. Journalists targeted and obstructed from doing their jobs. “This is happening in a time where everyone has a camera.”
Checks and Imbalances
Calling This Court “Supreme” Is Obeying in Advance
Michael Podhorzer gave us a searing condemnation of how the Roberts Court is passing off tyranny in robes as the rule of law. “When legal and media elites don’t name the partisan stakes, and when even progressive critics keep referring to the Roberts Court’s legal Calvinball as ‘Supreme Court’ rulings, they are conditioning all of us to accept what we never would otherwise.”
Sen. Schmitt’s hearing on political violence was a sham
Tom Joscelyn, Susan Corke, and I wrote on Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt’s baseless belief that only the left commits political violence—an absurd exercise in projection that he and his fellow Republicans have given a veneer of congressional due process.
Flying blind economically, thanks to the shutdown
Dan Koh looked ahead to Nov. 7, when America will likely wake up to yet another month without a jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because “the federal shutdown has silenced the agency responsible for the most basic economic truth-telling we have.” When the data mirror is shattered even temporarily, he argued, the public loses one of its few checks on narrative and power.
The Latest in Hate
The Young Republicans chat echoes the Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 60s
Michael Franklin linked the Young Republicans’ debased, revealing group chat—“the casual cruelty, the smirking slurs, the need to dress violence as irony”—to an older tradition, alive and all too well. “The Young Republicans have become what the Citizens’ Councils once were: the finishing school for a politics that calls prejudice principle and cruelty conviction.”
The Cost of Silence: The Erasure of Black Progress Threatens Our Democracy
Onyx Impact CEO Esosa Osa and Kam Middlebrooks reported the findings of their organization’s new analysis detailing exactly how Black history—and Black futures—are being threatened under the Trump administration’s coordinated attack.
Kamala Harris was right about everything
Shalise Manza Young reflected on just how much Kamala Harris foresaw, spelled out in her forceful campaign trail warnings of Project 2025’s racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, un-American goals. “As we approach the one-year mark of the presidential election that gave us whatever all of this madness is, it is even clearer that Vice President Kamala Harris was right about pretty much everything.”
A minimalist documentary with maximum impact
Meredith Blake wrote on The Perfect Neighbor, a harrowing true-crime documentary now on Netflix that uses body-cam footage to reconstruct a horrific 2023 Florida shooting in which a mother was killed for protecting her kids while Black. “A devastating indictment of Stand Your Ground laws.”
Essential Elections Ahead
Trump is too much of a narcissist to call off elections
Austin Sarat explains that Trump would rather rig than suspend elections to ensure he gets the adulation he craves. That includes Trump already making plays to influence the 2026 midterms. Voting has never been more critical.
As Pennsylvania’s State Supreme Court elections approach, Mike Lee, executive director of the ACLU’s Pennsylvania branch, joined Jen to explain how Republicans are trying to flip the Democratic majority. “Federal law is the floor, not the ceiling.”
Equal Voting Rights are under attack in the courts and in North Carolina [podcast]
“North Carolina really is emblematic of what we’ve been deeply concerned about, and that is, this rush to try to seize control on a partisan basis.”
Republicans are Rigging Maps for More Congressional Seats. Ari Berman explained Republicans’ redistricting strategy. “Even in red states, all the polling shows that voters don’t like this effort.” Republicans are in a race to see how many states they can strip representation from—and they’re targeting Black lawmakers to do it.
Seeing Clearly & Fighting Back
Don’t Lose Hope: Steve Vladeck On Why the Trump Administration Is Always In Court
Legal expert Steve Vladeck joined Jen to break down how Portland and Chicago are fighting back against Trump’s National Guard deployment. “The lower courts are still doing a heck of a lot to at least try to constrain what the government’s doing.”
Authoritarians don’t get the last word
Democracy Defenders Action Executive Director Susan Corke explained how Americans are fighting back on every front against Trump’s autocratic aspirations. “When authoritarian leaders destroy the symbols of democracy, they are preparing to destroy its substance. Their goal is to raise doubts about who this country belongs to, and make us believe that it doesn’t belong to us.”
The Contrarian covers the Democracy Movement
This week, we saw continued ICE protests nationwide, from Portland, Ore., and D.C. to Chicago and Durango, Colo. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.
Culture, Cartoons & Fun Stuff
This week our cartoonists covered some of the many ways Trump is haunting our highest office, from bulldozing the White House (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling), to rewriting history (As Reagan would have it, Michael de Adder), to elevating the soulless (Don’t call us fascists, Nick Anderson), to zombifying the federal workforce (Spooky season, RJ Matson), to bringing in new goons to scare adults and kids alike (Only the best people, Nick Anderson).
Culture recs: Frankenstein (and Mary Shelley) Through the Ages
Meredith Blake recommended Guillermo del Toro’s new spin on the Gothic classic and other interpretations of its timeless themes. “Never underestimate the cruelty that can be waged by neglected, vengeful monsters. Stay spooky, Contrarians.”
Last but not least, Jamie Schler offered cocoa molasses chews for helping us figure out how we go on, and your pets were the treat this Halloween.
That’s it for now, Contrarians—another amazing week of content. We will see you at 9:15 a.m. ET on Monday for Coffee with the Contrarians on Substack. In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend. Warmly, Norm
“Trump at historic lows of under 40% in poll after poll.”
What I find extremely troubling is that approx. 1/3rd of the people polled APPROVE of what this blatantly obvious enemy of the people is doing! Flabbergasting! Astonishing!
Thank you, Norm, and your Legal Associates, for standing up for us all. You are TRUE American heroes! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!🙏🙏🙏!
Thanks for all you do.