MARY-ROSE PAPANDREA
When Donald Trump returned to the Presidency in 2025, the heated rhetoric attacking the press, universities, and lawyers that dominated his first term in office turned to action. These aggressive attacks on our nation’s elite institutions have been remarkably successful. This Essay asks why. This Essay first offers some historical context for Trump’s attacks and outlines their general parameters. Although the current Trump administration attacks on the press, universities, and law firms are more brazen and more aggressive than any we have ever seen before, our own nation’s history laid the groundwork for them. In addition, in recent decades the public’s trust in universities, the press, and elites in general has dramatically decreased, blunting political outrage. The second Part of this Essay identifies five key factors leading to the remarkable success of the Trump attacks: (1) these institutions need money and are run like businesses; (2) legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions face significant procedural obstacles and substantive uncertainty; (3) the Administration’s actions have a broad chilling effect on others; (4) the institutions under attack have a weak commitment to the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and academic freedom; and (5) the institutions are fractured and have failed to engage in effective collective action. In light of these weaknesses, saving our democratic institutions from the Trump administration’s attacks will be no easy feat.