By President and CEO of Democracy Forward
March 4, 2025
President Donald Trump‘s address to Congress will cap off a month of chaos and confusion that has left Americans wondering if our democracy can hold. His administration is, by its own terms, “flooding the zone,” imposing tariffs that raise costs, weaponizing federal funding and threatening essential services, dismantling civil rights, gutting programs focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, decimating consumer protections, weakening the federal oversight that checks corruption, undermining public health initiatives, abandoning America’s role as a global leader, and intimidating and threatening public servants. The list goes on.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s not a coincidence.
Over the past month, in large cities and small towns, in red states and blue states, among older Americans and younger ones, the American people have felt what the Trump-Musk agenda is trying to achieve. People have woken up each morning to anxiety and confusion, wondering if Meals on Wheels will be able to deliver services, if child care centers will be open, if our public health authorities will be able to provide information regarding bird flu, if Elon Musk and a band of 19-year-olds will have access to their most personal data, and, after last Friday, if our nation will support our strongest global allies or align with a leader who invades his sovereign neighbors.
All of this chaos and confusion is the point. The “shock and awe” approach that the Trump-Vance administration is pursuing follows from a well-known playbook that is aimed at making people feel alone, isolated, and defeated. It’s an attempt at an autocratic power grab to make it appear as if the die has already been cast—that there is nothing that can be done to build a different future except to comply and be silent.
What I know about this country is that we don’t like power grabs and we don’t like kings—and we certainly don’t like being silent. What I also know is that we, the people, stopped this power grab eight years ago, and we can again.
It will be hard work against long odds, but nothing that we can’t do together.
First, we must exploit the Trump administration’s extreme overreach—an overreach that is offensive to the vast majority of Americans—conservative, liberals, and independents. During the 2024 election, President Trump and his allies disavowed extreme agendas like Project 2025 because they are so unpopular with all Americans. Now, he is abusing the trust the public put in him and is installing the architects of this extremism within the government. People who may not agree on everything, but all reject extremism and adoption of the Project 2025 playbook will come at a political cost.
Second, we must use the checks and balances that exist. That starts with the courts. Here’s a statistic I think should get more attention—court cases against Trump’s first administration were successful 78 percent of the time. Already, we are seeing the courts again provide important checks.
Since inauguration, more than 85 lawsuits have been filed against Trump administration executive orders and actions and judges of all stripes have ruled against the administration. At Democracy Forward alone, we have filed more than 25 legal actions since Jan. 20 on behalf of courageous people and communities, securing major protections for the American people ranging from blocking immigration enforcement in houses of worship; overturning the freeze on essential services and federal funds across the nation, stopping the enforcement of executive orders that try to penalize people for adopting diversity, inclusion, and accessibility measures, and halting the termination of civil servants.
In the coming weeks and months, there will be more cases filed. Lawyers at my organization and so many others will work day and night to ensure that unlawful and harmful action is met with swift responses. And, while Trump and Musk may suggest they don’t intend to follow court orders—those suggestions are garnering pushback from even Republicans.
Third, we must resist isolation and intimidation. Extremists and anti-democratic actors want us to feel alone and isolated, and so building community is not just essential for our work together, but for the very existence of a pro-democracy community. Community also creates the conditions for courage—courage to stand up for ourselves and for each other, courage to not give into attempts to divide us.
And finally, we must never underestimate the power we all have—we, the people. The late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who spoke truth to power in the halls of Congress during the Watergate hearings, used to say, “The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport.” Those words ring so true today.
Our very present and futures are at stake, and we cannot stand idly by or be pushed into thinking that we can’t turn the tide. Hard work and long odds are what Americans before us have done and that is what we will do again. As President Trump delivers his remarks to Congress, we must remember that the state of the union is on us. All of us.
Skye L. Perryman is president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan, national legal organization that promotes democracy and progress through litigation, regulatory engagement, policy education, and research.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.