Matthew, you’re celebrating procedural resistance while missing what those procedures are failing to prevent. The swamp is slowing autocracy, not stopping it.
Yes, incompetent DOJ appointments hurt Trump’s legal effectiveness. Yes, smaller law firms are picking up slack. Yes, procedural complexity makes democracy “hard to get rid of.”
But while you’re thanking God for the swamp, ICE is detaining five-year-olds as bait, running secret detention centers where 32 people died in 2025, and operating under a secret memo that subverts the Fourth Amendment.
This isn’t legal system resilience. This is state terror emerging while lawyers file motions.
The parallels with Argentina’s Dirty War are chilling….
Detention centers operating outside judicial oversight. Forced disappearances (detainees transferred to Texas, families can’t locate them). Paramilitary forces (ICE with masks, no badges, no warrants). Deaths in custody ruled homicides with no accountability. Witnesses being deported to silence them.
Argentina’s dictatorship also had courts. Lawyers filed habeas corpus petitions. Judges occasionally ruled against the regime.
None of it stopped 30,000 people from disappearing.
Because when a regime operates paramilitaries outside legal constraints, procedural resistance becomes performative.
Your “bottom of the legal food chain” resistance matters. But it’s happening while the regime builds capacity to ignore courts entirely. Secret ICE memos. NSPM-7 designating protesters as terrorists. DOJ weaponized against political opponents. The swamp is creating friction while authoritarianism establishes parallel structures that don’t require legal process.
Understand what they’re fighting: not a president who respects courts and loses cases, but a regime building the infrastructure to operate outside judicial reach entirely. Argentina had lawyers too. It didn’t save them.
The U.S. has been moving in this direction since at least the Reagan administration, and maybe since the founding (with pushback along the way). Maybe if more of "we the people," especially the Democrats with some clout, had realized it and reacted accordingly, we wouldn't be where we are now.
Too many white people are shocked because this is happening in places like Minneapolis and Maine. Law enforcement acted like this in the U.S. South under Jim Crow, and the policing of major northern cities after that, especially when the mass-carceral state went into overdrive during the Reagan administration, came down hard on people of color. Too many white people cheered for "law and order" without looking too closely at what was being lost in the process.
Short version: "the infrastructure to operate outside judicial reach entirely" has been around from the beginning. Many of us who weren't directly affected barely noticed, and some of us thought that those who *were* directly affected deserved whatever they got.
Why aren’t the bar associations disciplining and suspending the licenses of the multitude of unethical attorneys? And, what does it matter that the administration is losing cases if they ignore the rulings? Also, the lack of oversight of the concentration camps is frightening – how do we know that the people sent there aren’t being murdered? I think that the Republican congresspeople put themselves in a position of damned if they do/damned if they don’t – at this point, their choices appear to be retribution by the dictator’s regime or prosecution by the opposition for their illegal, treasonous actions. Sadly, I can’t see how this will be resolved without violence.
Indeed! The lower courts have become the guardrails the do-nothing Congress - the GOP in
particular - has abandoned. But Trump bought a willing SCOTUS … with John Roberts his willing reactionary … too busy standing up to uppity Negroes and libs, AND protecting itself, to protect democracy.
At this point, all testimony before the Oversight Committee should be public. The Jack Smith questioning by the Republicans was delusional. People should be required to watch this 💩 show. They voted for these clowns.😡
Ironically, Trump's lawyers made good use of the slow movement of courts when he was not president. It works both ways.
We are also benefiting from Biden and Schumer and the Senate Democrats filling as many federal judgeships as possible with a wide range of well-qualified people. Too little attention is paid to the president and Senate's roles in confirming federal judges; the commercial media only comes out of hiding when it is a Supreme Court nominee, yet the majority of cases never reach the Supreme Court. Democratic candidates for senator need to stress that a vote for the Senate is a vote for the kind of courts we will have.
Why be thankful for "the swamp"? Why not be thankful for the Constitution?
It's not mere courts or mere judges that oppose Trump and prevent his misconduct. The People in Article VI of our Constitution commanded that "all executive and judicial Officers" (including the president, any subordinate executive branch employee, and federal or state court judge, and all attorneys admitted to practice before any federal or state court court) must be "bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support [our] Constitution." Federal law says the same even more emphatically in 5 U.S.C. Section 3331, as does Article II of our Constitution (no president has any power to do anything other than "faithfully execute the Office of President," i.e., "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States").
The People in Article VI of our Constitution declared that "the supreme Law of the Land" (which governs all our public servants, including all judges and the president) consists exclusively of our "Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties."
So be thankful for the incredible wisdom and diligence of those who wrote and ratified our Constitution precisely to restrain people like Trump. Be thankful for the lawyers who fulfill their oaths to support our Constitution and the judges who fulfill their oaths to "support and defend [our] Constitution" against "all enemies, foreign and domestic," as 5 U.S.C. Section 3331 requires them to do. Why disparage those lawyers and judges by calling them "the swamp" just because Trump did so?
Why aren’t the bar associations disciplining and suspending the licenses of the multitude of unethical attorneys? And, what does it matter that the administration is losing cases if they ignore the rulings? Also, the lack of oversight of the concentration camps is frightening – how do we know that the people sent there aren’t being murdered? I think that the Republican congresspeople put themselves in a position of damned if they do/damned if they don’t – at this point, their choices appear to be retribution by the dictator’s regime or prosecution by the opposition for their illegal, treasonous actions. Sadly, I can’t see how this will be resolved without violence.
One of those lawyers leaving DOJ was one of my long-time best friends. He accepted the Musk buyout immediately (and got paid through September and used government health insurance to get a knee replacement). Then again, he was over 70 and not in the greatest of health (and his wife got diagnosed with cancer this year).
I feel like this argument picks and chooses aspects of democracy that constitute “The Swamp”, and it doesn’t accurately define or constitute how TS was originally portrayed. TS is not the same as rule-based systems or bureaucracy. TS, broadly, is indeed opposition to the whims of an autocrat, but as Johan points out, procedural opposition is not the entire picture, yet it is the ONLY thing that has put up resistance to Trump’s agenda. But if the legal system (or “the Swamp”, as you call it) was actually working, the Epstein files would have been fully released over a month ago, and there would be repercussions for not following the constitution.
It’s a nice thought, but it’s more wishful thinking than true.
Thank goodness for the courts- it’s only the courts and the American people holding the line for democracy and the rule of law against the Executive and Congressional branches of government - even when they are crippled by four unethical members of SCOTUS.
Matthew, you’re celebrating procedural resistance while missing what those procedures are failing to prevent. The swamp is slowing autocracy, not stopping it.
Yes, incompetent DOJ appointments hurt Trump’s legal effectiveness. Yes, smaller law firms are picking up slack. Yes, procedural complexity makes democracy “hard to get rid of.”
But while you’re thanking God for the swamp, ICE is detaining five-year-olds as bait, running secret detention centers where 32 people died in 2025, and operating under a secret memo that subverts the Fourth Amendment.
This isn’t legal system resilience. This is state terror emerging while lawyers file motions.
The parallels with Argentina’s Dirty War are chilling….
Detention centers operating outside judicial oversight. Forced disappearances (detainees transferred to Texas, families can’t locate them). Paramilitary forces (ICE with masks, no badges, no warrants). Deaths in custody ruled homicides with no accountability. Witnesses being deported to silence them.
Argentina’s dictatorship also had courts. Lawyers filed habeas corpus petitions. Judges occasionally ruled against the regime.
None of it stopped 30,000 people from disappearing.
Because when a regime operates paramilitaries outside legal constraints, procedural resistance becomes performative.
Your “bottom of the legal food chain” resistance matters. But it’s happening while the regime builds capacity to ignore courts entirely. Secret ICE memos. NSPM-7 designating protesters as terrorists. DOJ weaponized against political opponents. The swamp is creating friction while authoritarianism establishes parallel structures that don’t require legal process.
Understand what they’re fighting: not a president who respects courts and loses cases, but a regime building the infrastructure to operate outside judicial reach entirely. Argentina had lawyers too. It didn’t save them.
— Johan
Former foreign service officer
The U.S. has been moving in this direction since at least the Reagan administration, and maybe since the founding (with pushback along the way). Maybe if more of "we the people," especially the Democrats with some clout, had realized it and reacted accordingly, we wouldn't be where we are now.
Too many white people are shocked because this is happening in places like Minneapolis and Maine. Law enforcement acted like this in the U.S. South under Jim Crow, and the policing of major northern cities after that, especially when the mass-carceral state went into overdrive during the Reagan administration, came down hard on people of color. Too many white people cheered for "law and order" without looking too closely at what was being lost in the process.
Short version: "the infrastructure to operate outside judicial reach entirely" has been around from the beginning. Many of us who weren't directly affected barely noticed, and some of us thought that those who *were* directly affected deserved whatever they got.
Why aren’t the bar associations disciplining and suspending the licenses of the multitude of unethical attorneys? And, what does it matter that the administration is losing cases if they ignore the rulings? Also, the lack of oversight of the concentration camps is frightening – how do we know that the people sent there aren’t being murdered? I think that the Republican congresspeople put themselves in a position of damned if they do/damned if they don’t – at this point, their choices appear to be retribution by the dictator’s regime or prosecution by the opposition for their illegal, treasonous actions. Sadly, I can’t see how this will be resolved without violence.
Indeed! The lower courts have become the guardrails the do-nothing Congress - the GOP in
particular - has abandoned. But Trump bought a willing SCOTUS … with John Roberts his willing reactionary … too busy standing up to uppity Negroes and libs, AND protecting itself, to protect democracy.
At this point, all testimony before the Oversight Committee should be public. The Jack Smith questioning by the Republicans was delusional. People should be required to watch this 💩 show. They voted for these clowns.😡
Pure optimism that the public will either listen or care.
It’s been disappointing to realize that the Good doesn’t often win.😞
And the Bad lashes out at anyone who disputes its superiority … Sour Grapes as governing policy, blaming the victim writ large.
Ironically, Trump's lawyers made good use of the slow movement of courts when he was not president. It works both ways.
We are also benefiting from Biden and Schumer and the Senate Democrats filling as many federal judgeships as possible with a wide range of well-qualified people. Too little attention is paid to the president and Senate's roles in confirming federal judges; the commercial media only comes out of hiding when it is a Supreme Court nominee, yet the majority of cases never reach the Supreme Court. Democratic candidates for senator need to stress that a vote for the Senate is a vote for the kind of courts we will have.
Why be thankful for "the swamp"? Why not be thankful for the Constitution?
It's not mere courts or mere judges that oppose Trump and prevent his misconduct. The People in Article VI of our Constitution commanded that "all executive and judicial Officers" (including the president, any subordinate executive branch employee, and federal or state court judge, and all attorneys admitted to practice before any federal or state court court) must be "bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support [our] Constitution." Federal law says the same even more emphatically in 5 U.S.C. Section 3331, as does Article II of our Constitution (no president has any power to do anything other than "faithfully execute the Office of President," i.e., "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States").
The People in Article VI of our Constitution declared that "the supreme Law of the Land" (which governs all our public servants, including all judges and the president) consists exclusively of our "Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties."
So be thankful for the incredible wisdom and diligence of those who wrote and ratified our Constitution precisely to restrain people like Trump. Be thankful for the lawyers who fulfill their oaths to support our Constitution and the judges who fulfill their oaths to "support and defend [our] Constitution" against "all enemies, foreign and domestic," as 5 U.S.C. Section 3331 requires them to do. Why disparage those lawyers and judges by calling them "the swamp" just because Trump did so?
Why aren’t the bar associations disciplining and suspending the licenses of the multitude of unethical attorneys? And, what does it matter that the administration is losing cases if they ignore the rulings? Also, the lack of oversight of the concentration camps is frightening – how do we know that the people sent there aren’t being murdered? I think that the Republican congresspeople put themselves in a position of damned if they do/damned if they don’t – at this point, their choices appear to be retribution by the dictator’s regime or prosecution by the opposition for their illegal, treasonous actions. Sadly, I can’t see how this will be resolved without violence.
Thank you for the point-counter point with both the essay and responses to a non-lawyer reader.
One of those lawyers leaving DOJ was one of my long-time best friends. He accepted the Musk buyout immediately (and got paid through September and used government health insurance to get a knee replacement). Then again, he was over 70 and not in the greatest of health (and his wife got diagnosed with cancer this year).
I feel like this argument picks and chooses aspects of democracy that constitute “The Swamp”, and it doesn’t accurately define or constitute how TS was originally portrayed. TS is not the same as rule-based systems or bureaucracy. TS, broadly, is indeed opposition to the whims of an autocrat, but as Johan points out, procedural opposition is not the entire picture, yet it is the ONLY thing that has put up resistance to Trump’s agenda. But if the legal system (or “the Swamp”, as you call it) was actually working, the Epstein files would have been fully released over a month ago, and there would be repercussions for not following the constitution.
It’s a nice thought, but it’s more wishful thinking than true.
Thank goodness for the courts- it’s only the courts and the American people holding the line for democracy and the rule of law against the Executive and Congressional branches of government - even when they are crippled by four unethical members of SCOTUS.
Thanks. Question: Congress? Not Republican-controlled Congress?