For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these:
“It might have been!”“I told you so.” — John Greenleaf Whittier, “Maud Muller” (revised PE).
On Nov. 9, 2016, the morning after President Trump was elected to his first term in office, US Supreme Court-watcher Dahlia Lithwick of the online magazine Slate laid out the implications in terms that are still remarkably prescient today:
For those of us who believe […] in the basic tenets of constitutional democracy, in respect for the law, and the courts, and for neutral processes, Trump is the end of that line. These words that we use, due process and equality and justice have actual force and meaning. They are the tools and also the end product of the entire enterprise of democracy. They are the only bulwark against totalitarianism we know.
Yet, Lithwick held out scant hope for the courts and suggested lawyers, at best, would only try to work around the edges of the system:
Lawyers are by definition small-c conservative, incrementalist, and cautious. We don’t do revolution if a strongly worded footnote would suffice. We believe in facts. We believe in neutral rules and principles of fairness. We believe in judicial independence. We will be more apt than anyone to try to shift along in Trump’s America, doing our best. Hoping to make it a little more just for the weakest around the margins.
It didn’t require a crystal ball, even then, to see what Trump was going to do. A few days later, on Nov. 29, I shared a link to my teaching blog to Lithwick’s column. I had a hunch it just might come in handy later. Man, was I ever right about that!
Of course I’m not the only one who had Trump’s number a long time ago. In 2020 Kristin Kobe du Mez, who teaches history and gender studies at Calvin University, was warning in Jesus and John Wayne about his brand of performative masculinity. She said in a Substack post dated April 23, “The whole ‘I told you so’ posture never comes off well, so I know I’m taking a risk here,” but added “those of us who have been raising the alarm are used to coming across as obnoxious and annoying.”
How well I know the feeling! And I’m sure it truly is obnoxious and annoying. But here goes.
Of course, it didn’t take a genius to predict trouble ahead, even before Trump’s first term, and not just for the courts. As early as 2012 Thomas E. Mann of the center-left Brookings Institution and Norman J. Ornstein of the center-right American Enterprise had warned, in an op ed for the Washington Post:
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. [Link in the original. I’m leaving it in because I have a hunch it might come in handy later.]
So, what are we to make of all this in 2025? Is there no hope left? Oddly, in spite of everything, I think there is. And it comes largely from Dahlia Lithwick’s “small-c conservatives” in the legal profession.
Soon after Trump was re-elected conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin predicted tough times ahead for “nation that seems to have gone off the rails and rejected the very values that have imbued it with greatness.” But Rubin, who wrote for the Washington Post at the time, added, “there are opportunities and green shoots that may provide a source for resistance — if not counterreaction — against the excesses of the incoming administration.”
Nearly a year later, the Trump regime has gone off the rails more quickly and with less resistance than anyone could have imagined. But there’s still reason to hope Rubin’s “green shoots” will take root, bud out and bear fruit.
One who shares that hope is William Dutton, now a professor at Oxford but a longtime chronicler of American politics and culture who taught at Michigan State and the University of Southern California. In a July 4 blog piece Dutton noted, ironically enough, that Rubin’s career under the Trump regime exemplifies one of those green shoots.
In January she left the Post, in Dutton’s words, “rather than bend to political interference” after publisher Jeff Bezos acquiesced to Trump’s threats. She’s now on Substack, where she doesn’t have to bend the knee. “She and others are literally changing journalism in the US,” adds Dutton.
Other green shoots have appeared in civil society. A couple of them:
- Religious organizations including the Catholic Conference of Bishops, ordinarily a socially conservative group, have opposed Trump’s mass deportations. Also vocal on social justice issues are mainline Protestant denominations including the United Methodists, the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Religious writers like du Mez have also been strong advocates of a pro-democracy movement.
- Comedians have been a perhaps unexpected source source of opposition to Trump and the censorship he encourages. Stephen Colbert’s satire has always targeted Trump, as it has other prominent figures. That’s in the nature of satire. But he took on a sharper edge after his contract and the Late Show were not renewed by CBS. Similarly, Jimmy Kimmel lampooned Trump more harshly after ABC suspended his show. More recently, Saturday Night Live drew Trump’s ire when Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny hosted a cold open.
Here’s a wild thought I haven’t seen in any of the commentary I read. Colbert’s show is scheduled to go off the air in the spring of 2026, just about the right time for someone to form an exploratory committee and test the presidential waters. He’s from South Carolina, and I’m from East Tennessee. Hey, Southern expatriates have to stick together. I could get behind Colbert. Besides, Ukraine has done pretty well, in very trying circumstances, with a comedian as its president.
Politicians and mainstream political commentators have been more circumspect than the comedians (or straying Southern expats), and only recently have Democratic Party leaders taken up the fight. Frankly, I don’t expect much out of them until next year’s congressional campaigns heat up and 2028 presidential hopefuls begin to emerge. Political parties are about winning elections, and national parties tend to come and go in presidential election cycles, something like cicadas but in four-year cycles. Dutton sees hope, but it will take a while:
I fear too many people opposed to Trump’s assaults on democratic institutions are looking for another leader to rise above the ashes of American democratic institutions. It is more plausible and democratic in spirit to recognize that there are many green shoots rising across multiple institutions and across the political spectrum. Consider the growing number of politicians, from Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newsom, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and A.O.C. – to name a few, who have found a new voice in the wake of Trump’s attacks on institutions, Medicare, universities, and more.
Here’s another venture into what Kristin du Mez calls the “whole ‘I told you so’ posture.” More and more, I’m coming to think state and local governments may offer the last best hope for holding the line on small-d democracy. After the 2024 election, Jennifer Rubin wrote:
[…] America is fortunate to have a federal system in which considerable power and responsibility still reside in states and localities. Superb Democratic governors in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — for instance — can be the incubators of not only good policy but also good leadership. In the years ahead, Democrats should look forward to a new cast of Democratic leaders, including Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, JB Pritzker of Illinois, (newly elected) Josh Stein of North Carolina and Maura Healey of Massachusetts. They will be responsible not only for governing their states but also leading the resistance against federal overreach and repression.
One green shoot I’m keeping my eye on is in the village of Broadview, an industrial suburb of Chicago where an ICE facility is located. Protesters opposed to Trump’s mass deportations have gathered there regularly for several months, especially since Trump announced a surge of federal ICE and Border Patrol agents in the Chicago area. Toward the end of September, the village accused the feds of “seeking to intimidate the Village of Broadview because we dared exercise our 1st Amendment constitutional rights calling for an end to their war on Broadview.” Citing a report on WFLD-TV (Fox 32), the Capitol Fax newsletter reported:
In a statement, the village said ICE informed the Broadview Police Department that there will be “a s*** show” in the village on Saturday.
The comment from ICE came as retaliation for the village on Friday calling on ICE to “stop making war on our community,” according to the village’s statement.
“ICE agents told the BFD that they will be launching enforcement action throughout all of Broadview throughout the day. Additionally, ICE informed BPD officials that ICE agents will be again deploying chemical arms, such as tear gas, pepper spray, etc. against American citizens, our residents, and our first responders,” according to the village of Broadview. [Link in the original.]
Since then, Broadview has sued DHS over a fence that blocks traffic on the municipal street outside the ICE center. Its prospects in US District Court are at best uncertain, but the village, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois have all started litigation contesting what they see as federal overreach. I’m not alone in suspecting that, no matter how Trump’s disregard for settled law plays out, our federal system of government isn’t going to look the same when the dust settles.
I don’t anticipate state troops marching off in blue and gray uniforms to the strains of “John Brown’s Body” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” but if my reading of history is anywhere near accurate, I suspect we’re in for a protracted struggle in the state and federal courts between the feds, on the one hand, and “blue” states like Illinois, California and Oregon on the other. In the meantime and closer to home, I’m undergoing a little personal transformation I never would have expected as an expatriate Southerner.
Slowly but surely with each new outrage from the nation’s capital, I’m turning into a States’ Rights advocate.
Works Cited
Kristin du Mez, “In Defense of Alarmism,” CONNECTIONS, Substack, April 23, 2025 https://kristindumez.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-alarmism
Bill Dutton, “Green Shoots of Democratic Resilience,” William H. Dutton [blog], July 4, 2025 https://billdutton.me/2025/07/04/green-shoots-of-democratic-resilience/.
“Mayor: ‘ICE is seeking to intimidate the Village of Broadview… We will not be intimidated’ (Updated x6),” Capitol Fax, Sept. 27, 2025 https://capitolfax.com/2025/09/27/mayor-ice-is-seeking-to-intimidate-the-village-of-broadview-we-will-not-be-intimidated/.
Jennifer Rubin, “Trump won, but green shoots rise in the road ahead,” Washington Post, Nov. 8, 2024 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/08/newsletter-democracy-election-trump/.
“Village of Broadview officials allege ICE agents are putting residents, law enforcement in danger,” WLS News, Chicago, Sept. 30, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJThCmtwLOI.
“Village of Broadview sues DHS over fencing at ICE Processing Center; new video shows Noem in village,” WLS, Chicago, Oct. 3, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVomylh9b44.
My 2016 posts are still available online, at “Resisting Trump’s rule of law: “[Lawyers] don’t do revolution if a strongly worded footnote would suffice.” — Dahlia Lithwick — plus reax to today’s flag- burning Tweetstorm,” TEACHING B/LOG, Nov. 29, 2016 https://teachinglogspot.blogspot.com/2016/11/misc-links-trump-rule-of-law.html.
[Uplinked Oct. 7, 2025]
Ordinary Time 