This week's small reasons for modest optimism
11 from this weekFriends,In many ways this was another horrific week. Like a terrible hurricane, the Trump dictatorship is sweeping more people into its maw while further destroying our public institutions and wrecking what’s left of our civil norms.Yet this week also featured 11 reasons for modest optimism:1. Wisconsin Supreme Court voteDespite Elon Musk’s hysterical warnings, cheesehead preening, and more than $20 million spent by the Republican in the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court — much of it by Musk — it didn’t matter: Liberal judge Susan Crawford won by a remarkable 10 points, securing the court’s liberal majority. A state that narrowly backed Trump in 2024 swung sharply away. Every county in Wisconsin shifted to the left in this race compared to the 2024 presidential race.Not only did Judge Crawford pile up huge margins in Milwaukee and Madison, but she kept those of her opponent, Brad Schimel, down in Milwaukee’s predominantly white, middle- and upper-middle-class suburbs, where the abortion issue doubtless moved some Republican women to cross over and vote for her.Wisconsin voters recoiled at the odor of Musk. At one point, Crawford referred to Schimel as “Elon Schimel.” That said it all.Elon is proving to be a huge political liability. Trump says Musk is leaving the regime in a few weeks, but I have my doubts.
Did you miss last night’s executive order?Friends,Today is actually April 2. Your calendar may show April 1 but late last night President Trump issued an executive order making all months 30 days long. That means March actually ended Sunday, March 30, and yesterday was April 1. “This will give dangerous aliens one fewer day each month to cross our borders illegally” Trump said.“It’s more efficient to do away with the 31st’s,” added Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has been cutting days out of the calendar for months.But scientists are criticizing the move. “It leaves the earth six days short of a full cycle around the sun each year,” said Dr. Earnest Won, a Nobel Prize-winning geophysicist at the Berkeley Geodesic Laboratory.In a second executive order issued late last night seemingly in response to Dr. Won, Trump mandated that the six extra days be devoted to himself.
Why Trump opponents can’t find a lawyerHis campaign of vengeance against lawyers and law firms is chilling opposition to his regime, which is exactly what he wants.Friends,Last week I wrote to you about Trump’s crackdown on the pillars of civil society — the universities, the scientific community, the media, the legal profession, and the arts — with the clear intent of intimidating them into silence.Today I want to take a deeper dive into what Trump’s crackdown on the legal community — especially large law firms in Washington — actually means.Frankly, I couldn’t give a sh*t about large law firms in Washington. They make boatloads of money for their partners. Even those whose partners are active Democrats push the party rightward as they round up campaign donations from corporate C-suites and Wall Street and urge Democratic members of Congress to move to the “center.”But Trump’s bullying of Washington law firms is cutting off the litigation lifeline for nonprofit public-interest groups to challenge his policies — which is exactly why he’s doing it.
The Big Chill
Friends,
I was talking yesterday to a friend who’s a professor at Columbia University about what’s been happening there. He had a lot to say. When he needed to run off to an appointment, I asked him if he’d text or email me the rest of his thoughts. His response floored me. “No,” he said. “I better not. They may be reviewing it.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked, suddenly worried.
“They! The university! The government! Gotta go!” He was off.
My friend has never before shown signs of paranoia.
I relate this to you because the Trump regime is starting to have a chilling effect on what and how Americans communicate with each another. It is beginning to create mass paranoia, which is exactly what Trump intends.
The chill affects the four pillars of civil society — universities, science, the media, and the law.
Start with America’s major universities. Columbia’s capitulation to Trump’s demands that the university identify every demonstrator and put its department of Middle Eastern studies under “receivership” — or else lose $400 million in government funding — is chilling communications there.
The Trump regime also “detained” a Columbia University graduate student and green card holder without criminal charges merely for participating in protests at the school. The regime’s agents have also entered dorms with search warrants and announced the “removal” of two other students who participated in such protests.
Other major universities are on Trump’s target list.
Now, consider science. Trump has mounted a direct attack on the three biggest funders of American science — the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation.
