For those who fear autocracy is coming—or already here—there is real hope in the legal response that rose to meet it.

Indeed, the legal defense of democracy stood up faster than many expected, and remains stronger and more nimble than we possibly could have hoped.

Within a week of the inauguration, lawyers and nonprofits had begun filing the first suits. They worked with the speed of people who knew what they were seeing. Many suits were filed on inauguration day, in response to the flood of executive orders, and have continued unabated.

Case After Case After Case

On January 28, 2025, Democracy Forward, along with a coalition including the National Council of Nonprofits, filed a challenge to the Office of Management and Budget’s sudden freeze on federal grants and loans. They won: the OMB backed down.

New cases appeared almost daily. Protect Democracy and Selendy Gay filed suit to stop the return of “Schedule F” — now renamed “Schedule P/C” — which would strip job protections from tens of thousands of civil servants.

Civil-rights groups filed suit in California over executive orders attacking diversity and transgender protections.

Universities went to court to preserve federal research funding; by September, Harvard had won back $2 billion in blocked grants. States challenged mass-detention and voting restrictions. 

Case after case after case: Lawfare records that there are currently 233 such cases.

Each suit adds resistance and slows the march to autocracy. It is the courtroom version of sand in the gears. It is a way of being ungovernable.

Holding the Line

The results are real. Judges have restored research funding, paused the civil-service purge, preserved the independence of agencies, and, most recently, ordered the government to keep Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments flowing during the shutdown. 

Not all of these rulings will last.  The administration appeals quickly, and many victories may not survive their trip to the Supreme Court. The Court’s shadow docket has already lifted several injunctions and narrowed relief. Unsigned rulings arrive overnight, granting what Trump seeks with little explanation.

Even when cases remain pending, agencies sometimes ignore lower-court orders, acting as if the appeals are permission to proceed.

Still, the massive legal response is important.  Each case buys time, puts facts in the public record, and creates friction as the machine tries to move ever more smoothly toward ironclad rule.

The Sandbag Republic

And so a loose, yet coordinated and growing, network persists, knowing that many of these fights will end in partial victories or even losses. But persistence in the face of authoritarian might shapes the future: it trains new advocates, clarifies constitutional boundaries, rallieas the people, and keeps institutions awake.

Eventually, we will get out of this bind, and return ourselves to progress toward a truly inclusive democracy. This will start with the rebuilding of the rule of law. Each legal success, even when later reversed, becomes precedent for what our future lawful government will need. The work of these heroic litigators is not only defensive; it is constructive.

When a flood is imminent, those who live by the river spring into action, and pile sandbags along the shore. They know the wall will not hold forever. But often it holds long enough.

We are living now in a sandbag republic.