The Democracy Index May 2, 2025 Joyce Vance, Joshua Kolb, Lily Conway, and Bri Murphy
“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” So said Winston Churchill 87 years ago about Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, infamously secured in the Munich Agreement of 1938.
Much has been written this week about the first 100 days of the Trump Administration. But what strikes us, as we survey the state of our democracy at this time, is how long it has taken for so many to heed Churchill’s lesson. Thankfully, however, that wisdom is starting to resonate, as institutions and individuals who had once buckled to Trump—from law firms to universities—have begun to strengthen their spines and realize that a single show of capitulation will not satiate him. That bounceback was buoyed by the indomitable spirit of righteous indignation and love of country that has swelled among people throughout the country. As that one-two punch begins to wallop Trump, he has responded with increasing brazenness and erraticness. Both dynamics were on display this week.
This week, the Trump DOJ was dealt two significant blows by two Republican-appointed district court judges. On Thursday in Texas, Trump-appointee Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., ruled that the Trump Administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act—a 1798 law that allows the government to detain and deport noncitizens from the country during wartime—was improper and unlawful. Rodriguez, Jr., ruled that Trump’s proclamation “exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.”
Earlier in the week, Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia, who was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan, lambasted the Trump Administration, preventing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from being decimated and ruling that “It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants’ actions here.” Lamberth then took an extraordinary step back from the particulars of the case to strongly defend the independence of the judiciary in our constitutional system, writing: “By enjoining the defendants’ efforts to dismantle the plaintiff networks, actions which I perceive to be contrary to the law, I am humbly fulfilling my small part in this very constitutional paradigm—a framework that has propelled the U.S. to heights of greatness, liberty and prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world for nearly 250 years. If our nation is to thrive for another 250 years, each co-equal branch of government must be willing to courageously exert the authority entrusted to it by our Founders.”
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