After Trump’s surprise win in 2016, hundreds of thousands of Americans — mainly women — marched at Washington DC and in sister marches across the country, donning pink knitted “pussy” hats to showcase their resistance.
It didn’t work. Trump implemented his agenda and put three new justices on the Supreme Court, who overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump’s decisive win last month tied the bow.
Resistance 2.0 will look different. Gone are the pink hats. Turnout at a “People’s March” in January is expected to be low. The focus instead will be in the courts, as Democrats embrace state’s rights like they haven’t since the Civil War.
Republicans have long championed the 10th Amendment, a limited federal government, and a state’s right to set policies such as gun rights, education, Covid restrictions, and abortion. Now, it’s the Democrats who want to tell the feds to get out of their states, particularly when it comes to immigration, preserving abortion rights, environmental protections, and transgender-related policies.
“While the idea of federalism is in some ways — there’s still this connection to the right and Republicans — I think that connection can flip pretty easily when the shoe’s on the other foot,” a political scientist at Marquette University, Paul Nolette, who tracks state-federal litigation, tells The New York Sun. “When it comes to the actions of state AGs getting much more involved in national politics, that’s been a feature of the Trump era, and then into the Biden administration and then the next Trump administration.”
Democratic-led attorneys general offices brought an unprecedented number of lawsuits against the first Trump administration — more than Republicans brought against the Biden administration and double what they did against the Obama administration. They’re now preparing for an even more aggressive legal offensive in Trump’s second term.
California’s legislature is holding a special session now, and Governor Newsom is seeking $25 million in additional funding for the state’s attorney general’s office to protect its progressive policies against potential Trump administration encroachment. The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, says his office spent $45 million in “Trump 1.0” fighting for 10th Amendment protections. He is already preparing briefs to fight a possible national abortion ban or mass deportations.
“My plan for my California Department of Justice is to hold Mr. Trump and his administration accountable if and when they violate the law,” Mr. Bonta said on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show Monday night. “They did it repeatedly, consistently during Trump 1.0. My office took him to court more than 120 times. We won and prevailed a vast majority of the times because he was violating the constitution, particularly the 10th amendment.”
Maryland’s attorney general is creating a special team to combat Trump policies that “threaten Marylanders’ rights.” New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, said at a news conference that she is “prepared to fight back” and “will not shrink from that responsibility.”
Massachusetts’ attorney general’s office is not creating a new unit or asking for additional funds to combat Trump policies, but Attorney General Campbell says she is “clear-eyed” about the threats Trump poses.
“Across the country, attorneys general will be on the front lines to protect our fundamental rights and freedoms,” Ms. Campbell tells the Sun in a statement. “My office is prepared for the threats our residents may face, ready to act and we will not shy away or back down from the critical work ahead.”
Colorado’s attorney general, Philip Weiser, says his office is not asking for more funding, but he is vowing to fight back against mass deportations, calling Aurora — where Venezuelan gang members took over an apartment complex — the “Ellis Island of the West.” He says safeguarding access to Mifepristone is also a top priority.
“This is nothing new in politics. Ideology can always be trumped by convenience,” a Republican strategist and former Trump appointee, Matthew Bartlett tells the Sun. “For a party that likes to put a lot of faith into the almighty federal government, you would think it would be a lesson that maybe having the federal government have so much power is not a good thing.”
Trump is promising mass deportations of illegal immigrants, to roll back environmental regulations, and to slash the federal workforce through cuts identified by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Mr. Nolette expects the first big challenge to the Trump administration will be over deportations.
“Trump is more likely than Republican predecessors to have an aggressive federal government for priorities that are Trump’s priorities. I would not call Trump a small government conservative like I would George W. Bush or Paul Ryan,” Mr. Nolette says.
Mr. Bartlett counters that if the Trump administration starts with deporting only criminal illegal immigrants, he doesn’t think Democrats will make that their first legal challenge. “I’m not sure that there’ll be a lot of public outcry, even amongst Democrats and attorney generals around that,” he says.
Trump may have a conservative six-three majority on the Supreme Court, but Mr. Nolette says it’s “too simplistic” to think they’ll always decide in Trump’s favor. He points to examples like the 2023 Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Gorsuch, that upheld on a state’s rights basis California’s ability to set its own farm animal welfare regulations against a challenge from the National Pork Producers Council, an industry group.
“There’s different forms of conservativism there that are at the Supreme Court level,” Mr. Nolette says. “The sheer number of lawsuits can really block and shutdown policy for months, if not years.”