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The Bulwark: Advice to Funders: Protect Democracy Defenders Who Stand Up to Trump
The Bulwark - Advice to Funders: Protect Democracy Defenders Who Stand Up to Trump
Trump threatens all who dare to challenge him. Help them stay safe and hire lawyers.
Jill Lawrence
Dec 02, 2024
SO YOU’RE RICH, VERY RICH. You’re anywhere on the political spectrum, you cannot abide Donald Trump, and you’re looking for ways to make sure this era ends while you’re still alive. Preferably while you have some time left to savor life in a post-MAGA world.
The question is where to put your money. In the spirit of the giving season, how about launching a bipartisan Stand Up to Trump Freedom Fund? While threats are a bipartisan plague these days, and last week saw Trump cabinet and staff picks targeted along with MAGA threats against Democratic lawmakers, the most immediate and straightforward need is money to underwrite legal, physical, and political protection for people who fear breaking with or taking on Trump.
In their short history in U.S. politics, Trump and his MAGA movement have already demonstrated that all perceived enemies, rivals, and critics of Trump are vulnerable. Targets have ranged from state-level election workers and authorities to senators, representatives, military leaders, the federal workforce, and their high-profile bosses.
Republicans who supported the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law were called traitors for giving President Joe Biden a win, and some received death threats. The temperature inevitably will rise under Trump, given his personnel choices and his explicit promise to perpetually aggrieved conservatives last year that “I will be your retribution.” That’s especially true now that he’s announced he’ll fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and replace him with wannabe hatchet-man Kash Patel.
As early as the afternoon of January 20, Trump will be able to officially nominate his roster of dangerous picks for top jobs and to fire, or at least attempt to fire, any federal employee deemed hostile or woke—from the career Justice Department lawyers who brought two federal criminal cases against him, to homeland security bureaucrats who might not rubber-stamp Trump’s radical anti-immigrant policies, to an expert in a highly technical “climate diversification” job described by the Wall Street Journal as “identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather events.”
Standing up to Trump is risky and expensive. A critical mass of Republican senators managed to convince Trump to back away from Matt Gaetz for attorney general after an action-packed eight days in which Trump announced the choice, Gaetz resigned from Congress, sex-and-drug investigation details started leaking, Trump “instructed Gaetz to jump” (as Bill Kristol put it), and Gaetz jumped.
/snip
Trump threatens all who dare to challenge him. Help them stay safe and hire lawyers.
Jill Lawrence
Dec 02, 2024
SO YOU’RE RICH, VERY RICH. You’re anywhere on the political spectrum, you cannot abide Donald Trump, and you’re looking for ways to make sure this era ends while you’re still alive. Preferably while you have some time left to savor life in a post-MAGA world.
The question is where to put your money. In the spirit of the giving season, how about launching a bipartisan Stand Up to Trump Freedom Fund? While threats are a bipartisan plague these days, and last week saw Trump cabinet and staff picks targeted along with MAGA threats against Democratic lawmakers, the most immediate and straightforward need is money to underwrite legal, physical, and political protection for people who fear breaking with or taking on Trump.
In their short history in U.S. politics, Trump and his MAGA movement have already demonstrated that all perceived enemies, rivals, and critics of Trump are vulnerable. Targets have ranged from state-level election workers and authorities to senators, representatives, military leaders, the federal workforce, and their high-profile bosses.
Republicans who supported the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law were called traitors for giving President Joe Biden a win, and some received death threats. The temperature inevitably will rise under Trump, given his personnel choices and his explicit promise to perpetually aggrieved conservatives last year that “I will be your retribution.” That’s especially true now that he’s announced he’ll fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and replace him with wannabe hatchet-man Kash Patel.
As early as the afternoon of January 20, Trump will be able to officially nominate his roster of dangerous picks for top jobs and to fire, or at least attempt to fire, any federal employee deemed hostile or woke—from the career Justice Department lawyers who brought two federal criminal cases against him, to homeland security bureaucrats who might not rubber-stamp Trump’s radical anti-immigrant policies, to an expert in a highly technical “climate diversification” job described by the Wall Street Journal as “identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather events.”
Standing up to Trump is risky and expensive. A critical mass of Republican senators managed to convince Trump to back away from Matt Gaetz for attorney general after an action-packed eight days in which Trump announced the choice, Gaetz resigned from Congress, sex-and-drug investigation details started leaking, Trump “instructed Gaetz to jump” (as Bill Kristol put it), and Gaetz jumped.
/snip