Courts have become the primary brake on executive overreach, slowing authoritarian tactics long enough for public resistance to organize.
Legal intimidation, retaliation cases, and politicized prosecutions are repeatedly collapsing under judicial and jury scrutiny.
We’re going from defense to offense in 2026: targeting corruption, abuses of power, and election interference.
On this special edition of It’s the Democracy, Stupid, Edwin Eisendrath talks to former Ambassador Norm Eisen, founder of The Contrarian and Democracy Defenders.
MAGA's War on Justice — and How We Fight Back | First Draft with Susan J. Demas and Andrew Warren
Democratic accountability collapses fastest when leaders discover they can violate norms faster than courts can respond.
They frame this moment as one where democratic systems are being stress-tested on a daily basis. Institutions have not held during Trump 2.0 because they are self-executing, but because people inside them—judges, juries, lawyers, organizers—have chosen to hold the line.
Tune in for this end-of-year conversation about how the fight for democracy moves from holding the line to pushing forward.
