Are We at an Inflection Point?

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On Thursday, Trump lashed out at Jay Powell, a day after the Fed chairman warned in a carefully worded speech at the Economic Club of Chicago that Trump’s tariff war could create a "challenging scenario" by putting the central bank’s two primary goals—price stability and avoiding recession—in conflict. Trump has repeatedly pressed Powell to cut interest rates, to offset the damaging economic consequences of his tariffs.

Trump explicitly threatened to fire Powell on a social media post, calling him TOO LATE AND WRONG, adding, "Powell’s termination cannot come soon enough." At the White House, speaking yesterday afternoon, Trump doubled down: "If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me." As Powell himself has pointed out, firing the Fed chair, who has a term appointment, is illegal.

Then again, everything Trump has done in his escalating campaign of government by decree is illegal. It was illegal to kidnap Kilmar Abrego Garcia, send him to a prison in El Salvador, and ignore court orders to return him; illegal to refuse to spend money duly appropriated by Congress; illegal to sic the IRS on nonprofits whose views Trump doesn’t like; illegal to deny law firms access to government buildings or security clearances as a way of extorting pro bono deals; illegal to deny the Associated Press access to the White House press room and to threaten CBS’s broadcast license; illegal to use confidential information held by the IRS or the Social Security Administration for political purposes; and a good deal more.

It does feel as if things have reached an inflection point, where either the antibodies against dictatorship will kick in, or we soon will have full-on tyranny. The good news is that large institutions have found that appeasement is a fool’s game and are starting to push back.

Harvard and Columbia have both discovered that craven capitulation only whets Trump’s appetite to demand more. Their leaders are at last drawing some bright lines.

Billion-dollar law firms that thought they had bought peace with appalling deals to spend $100 billion or more on pro bono work for Trump’s favored causes are finding that those demands are only Trump’s opening bid. They now belong to his whims. Several hundred law firms have now vowed not to cooperate, and have joined universities in suing the administration.

The bad news is that what’s illegal is ultimately decided by courts. One court after another has ruled against Trump and his cronies, but the Supreme Court keeps temporizing. After district courts have issued rulings blocking Trump’s executive order overturning birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court refused to overturn them and has finally scheduled oral arguments on that question and a full hearing for May 15, almost a month from now.

But dozens of other cases remain backed up, remanded on a bogus emergency basis back to lower courts. And in the meantime, Trump’s effort to govern by grievance and decree grows more flagrant daily. And while Trump has had to back and fill on his tariff program lest financial markets totally collapse, there has been no spillover to restrain his other dictatorial moves.

The one other likely source of restraint on Trump is pushback by Republicans in Congress. For the most part, they have been shockingly compliant. One rare exception is Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who came out and said what other intimidated Republicans must be thinking.

"We are all afraid," she said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday, adding, "It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right."

But that fear continues to silence nearly all other Republicans. This despite the fact that more and more of Trump’s policies, such as his attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits, are harming Republican constituents.

Lately, some columnists have written hopeful pieces pointing to a change in the vibe. Maybe, but dictators don’t much care about vibes. The resistance to Trump will be only as good as concrete mechanisms of restraint, such as courts and leaders with principles and spine.