To students of authoritarianism, it’s an all too familiar pattern. A strongman takes office and attempts to bring all of the levers of power into his grasp. Government. Business. Media. The Arts.
That’s the story of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Viktor Orban in Hungary. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. And, of course, that is what Donald Trump and his allies are trying right here in the United States.
But unlike those others, he is running into a buzzsaw: the democracy movement, which of course includes you Contrarians. Just look at a few examples from this week where we are fighting back, from the Voice of America to the Paramount-Warners merger; and from the Anthropic case to the Kennedy Center litigation.
Let’s start with government. Courts have stopped Trump over and over again from thwarting the will of Congress and bringing government agencies under his heel. But our heroic federal judges don’t act on their own initiative. Someone has to bring the cases!
That’s where you Contrarians come in. Your paid subscriptions help support my and my colleagues’ over 275 legal cases and matters.
This week was no exception. With wonderful colleagues, we won a landmark court judgment. It reversed Trump’s efforts to shut down the vitally important, US government owned Voice of America. The court ordered that journalists return to work and for broadcast operations to resume.
It was a resounding victory for our partners and clients including federal employee unions AFSCME and AFGE, Reporters Without Borders, other partners–and you Contrarians.
What about business? In the Anthropic fight, the Trump administration went into a rage because that company would not allow its AI to be available for possible mass surveillance or autonomous killer robots. They retaliated by attempting to designate the company as a “supply chain risk,” which would have devastating commercial consequences for Anthropic.
With your support, we represented 149 former federal and state judges to file a bipartisan amicus brief rejecting this bullying. Invoking purported national security risks does not place the Executive above the law. Our brief calls this what it is: unlawful retaliation. And it makes clear that the judiciary has both the authority and the obligation to set it aside.
This is not about courts intruding where they don’t belong. It is about ensuring the Executive stays where it does belong.
Then, there is media. This week, I joined Jim Acosta to speak out against the Paramount–Warner Bros’ merger on The Contrarian right after he appeared before members of Congress to denounce the deal:
We explained that the Ellison family, who put together this unholy alliance, are close Trump allies who already own CBS and control TikTok. Adding CNN would give them and Trump too much power over the media that Americans consume. Trump is openly relishing that prospect. And his lackey Pete Hegseth declared, “The sooner David Ellison takes over, the better.”
Not to mention that combining the movie and television operations of Paramount and Warner would allow the Ellisons to charge consumers higher prices and give them fewer viewing choices.
But there is good news about the government review of the deal. Not from the Trump administration. It can hardly be expected to undertake the usual regulatory scrutiny given comments like Trump’s or Hegseth’s. Nor can it be expected from the FCC’s Brendan Carr, who has threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses if they don’t cover the news the way the administration wants.
Rather, hope comes from the state attorneys general. We public interest litigators have often worked in parallel with them over the past 14 months to go to court when democracy is threatened–and win. Here, we were proud to help lead dozens of members of the democracy movement to call on the AG’s to block this merger.
They have said that they will scrutinize the merger under applicable law. They proved they mean business by challenging another unsavory media merger of media giants Nexstar and Tegna on Wednesday. Friday news broke that two of the largest state AG offices, California and New York, are working together to review the deal.
You Contrarians already have the AG’s backs. Thanks to your support, we have been pushing back legally on Paramount’s overreach for months. We will not let up–and we are grateful for the state AG’s leadership.
Finally, let’s not neglect the Arts. Once again, with your support my colleagues and I struck a series of blows in defense of the Kennedy Center and in opposition to Trump’s effort to rename, close, and significantly demolish the place.
Last weekend, we at Democracy Defenders Fund with the great folks at Washington Litigation Group won a temporary restraining order on behalf of our client Congresswoman Joyce Beatty—a longstanding trustee of the Center. The order forced the administration to provide her with documentation it had been holding back about the planned closure and to allow her to speak at the board meeting addressing that closure.
And speak she did, dramatically confronting the president and telling him why his actions were illegal. No sooner did he and his cronies on the board vote for the closure anyway then we were back in court. This time we secured a “rocket docket” scheduling order to fully brief why it is illegal to rename and close the Kennedy Center. Again, we could not do it without you.
This is just one week and four cases. But if you multiply it by our efforts and everyone’s in the democracy movement over the past 60 or so weeks of the Trump administration, that adds up to a lot of resistance. It also explains why, despite his repeated aspirations to “be a dictator,” Trump has not achieved the success of his admired authoritarians like Putin or Orban.
That is what we cover every week here at the Contrarian, along with much much more. Just see for yourself in this week’s roundup, put together by my wonderful Contrarian colleagues.
SAVE Act
The Anti-Voter SAVE Act Must Be Stopped
Michael Waldman and Emily Whitehead sounded the alarm on just how catastrophic the SAVE Act, which would require voters to show a passport or birth certificate as proof of citizenship to register or re-register to vote, would be for democracy if it is allowed through the Senate. “If passed, it would be the most restrictive voting bill ever approved.”
The SAVE Act: Awful and Unconstitutional
Why exactly is Trump pushing so hard for the SAVE Act, Erwin Chemerinsky asked? To advance his theory of voter fraud, despite study after study showing no evidence for his claims. “The SAVE Act addresses a problem that does not exist.”
War
Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) joined Jen Rubin to lay plain the ground realities of the war in Iran, informed by multiple classified briefings on America’s actual military position: there was no imminent nuclear threat, and we may now be poised for another forever war. “The idea that we’re going to somehow impose a crown prince…is a difficult fantasy.
Trump’s War is the Worst Conceived in American History
Jen Rubin started the week by writing on just how many experts—and previous presidential policies—Trump ignored to launch his deadly folly of a war. “The annals of regime change are not littered with success stories.”
Health & Science
Why the Trump Administration Couldn’t Kill the Nature Record
Jeff Nesbit wrote on the Trump administration’s efforts to disband a first-of-its-kind federal effort to catalog the health of nature and the environment—and how its work is not as easy to kill as they’d like. “Science has a way of refusing to stay buried.”
What They Don’t Want You to Know About Long COVID
Megan Armstrong gave us a brave and blistering essay on what it’s like to live with a condition much of the medical establishment—not to mention the federal government—wants to wish away. “The effects of COVID hide in plain sight…unfortunately, blissful ignorance has never been an effective strategy.”
Economy & Corruption
The “Affordability” Trap: Why Progressives Need to Talk About Design, Not Just Prices
Dr. Julie Sweetland wrote on why, to build a lasting movement, we must stop talking about the economy like a force of nature and start treating it like a blueprint. “Making life ‘affordable’ is a modest, bureaucratic goal. Designing a society where the system works for ordinary people by default? That is a vision worth fighting for.”
PA Representative Exposed For Insider Trading?
Mayor Paige Cognetti (Scranton, PA) joined Jen to discuss Congressional corruption—namely whether an elected official should be allowed to leverage policy votes for personal profit—and the ethics reform we need. “We’ve had to really work hard to rebuild trust.”
Dispatch from Chicago: Illinois Primary Has a Lesson on Big Money in Politics
Lorraine Forte broke down the more than $50 million of dark money poured into the Chicago primaries from PACs and special interest groups, and asked: how can we keep our elections from turning into auctions?
Fighting Back
The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement
This week we saw protests in New York, South Carolina, Vermont, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.
Yeah, the ‘90s Were Cool, But We’re Ready to Fight Now
Jennifer Weiss Wolf wrote on how the real story about Gen X feminism should be less about looking back to the riot grrl past and more about their place on today’s front lines, fighting against ICE, the SAVE Act and more. “Today’s quiet democracy protectors are the same people who may become tomorrow’s pro-democracy voters.”
Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff
This week our cartoonists took on misdirection (Just Another Distraction?, RJ Matson; Misleading Packaging; Michael de Adder), crying wolf (The President Who Cried Nato, Michael de Adder), and how to stop making sense (Talking Head, Nick Anderson).
Why the Irish are Taking Over Pop Culture
Meredith Blake wrote on Jessie Buckley’s Oscar win for best actress—somehow a first for an Irish woman—and why Ireland’s pop cultural ascendance is a lesson in civic investment (and maybe a little homegrown luck).
Must-Read
Maria Cardona, a political strategist for Dewey Square Group, founder of Latinovations, and dear friend to The Contrarian, closed out the week with a stunning tribute to the bravery of Dolores Huerta in the wake of Thursday’s shocking revelation about César Chávez. Though the farmworker movement has always been far more significant than any one individual, we must correct the historical record about a man long miscast as an infallible hero. She leaves us with a message devastatingly relevant to our current moment: “It is long past time to hold perpetrators accountable, no matter how powerful they may be.”
Busy week. Thanks for all your hard work.
As an 81 year old American woman, I am tired. I've raised 4 children, one of whom was multiply-handicapped from birth; kept up the internal housekeeping of our home; ran 4 successful businesses; was very active with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownie and Girl Scouts of America; traveled all over the world with my husband of now 60+ years and am enjoying some peaceful moments during our retirement. I have never been charged with even a traffic violation. All of this was achieved with us always following the rules. I used to teach my children why they needed to always pick up their own trash and not drop it on the ground by explaining how, if 1,000 people passed that same street corner every single day, and if each of them dropped just one piece of litter, in one week alone, no one would be able to even see the sidewalk for the mounds of litter covering it. I taught them that there are stop signs and traffic lights in place to keep our roads safe. I explained how, without any signs or lights, everyone would be crashing into everyone else and no one would be able to get where they were going. Rules are made to bring about structure and to keep the world safe. Our Constitution is a lot like a mother hen, trying its best to keep our country safe. However, there is a fox in our midst, and if we don't do something to take him down, all of our rules will disappear, and so will we.