Refusing to follow orders in the time of Trump
In the first weeks of the Trump administration, in the face of a deluge of illegal and immoral executive orders, one act of resistance has managed to break through the news cycle. On Valentine’s Day — February 14, 2025 — Assistant US Attorney Hagan Scotten joined several of his colleagues in refusing to execute an order to drop the Department of Justice’s corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in exchange for the mayor’s cooperation with Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. In his letter of resignation, Scotten wrote:
Any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion, but it was never going to be me.
It was never going to be me. These seven words, backed up by action, form a powerful statement of non-cooperation, a refusal by Scotten to follow orders he knows are corrupt, unlawful, and dangerous.
Most of us are not involved in a high profile prosecution of the mayor of America’s largest city. We will not be told to sign our name to a legal document we don’t stand by, in front of the court and the country. And yet. For most of us, our time to choose will come.
Will we follow orders? Or will we refuse?
We encounter opportunities for non-cooperation everyday. We can seek them out, or we can avoid them. Often they will feel small, not worthy of our engagement.
- Do we call it the Gulf of America, or the Gulf of Mexico?
- Do we put our pronouns in our email signature, an act that is now a firing offense for federal employees?
- Do we provide kids with books that have been banned from their school library? Do we continue to teach kids uncomfortable truths about the past and present, in the face of orders to whitewash history?
- When our employer eliminates DEI programs at work, do we put a pride or BLM flag in our office or cubicle? In our window or on our lawn?
- Do we hire immigrants who are at risk of internment and deportation?
- Do we put our money and time into institutions that have been taken over by and put into serving MAGA, like the Kennedy Center or X?
The sacrifice will not be spread evenly. Some people will lose their jobs. Others will merely be inconvenienced, or will alienate a few friends. That’s why we can’t wait for opportunities to find us. We must seek them out.
On February 19, 2025, former NFL punter Chris Kluwe decided to go out of his way to signal his dissent, driving an hour to a council meeting in Huntington Beach, CA. From the Guardian:
Kluwe attended a city council meeting in Huntington Beach and spoke out against the decision to erect a plaque at a local library. The plaque features the words “Magical, Alluring, Galvanizing and Adventurous” and the city commission confirmed it was a reference to Maga. “Maga is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy and most importantly, Maga is explicitly a Nazi movement,” Kluwe, who was part of the Minnesota Vikings for most of his career, said. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that’s what it is.”
Following his remarks, as cameras rolled, he stepped past the lectern and was arrested in an act of civil disobedience.
If the Trump administration is going to lie about the people it is firing from the federal government, claiming they are part of the “deep state” or are unnecessary or are DEI hires, then it is our obligation to tell the truth about these workers. That is why people have been sharing on social media the stories of strangers, federal workers who manage our national parks, who work in VA hospitals, who prevent the spread of disease overseas. We need to understand that letting the lies about federal workers stand when we know they are lies means we are aiding and abetting Trump. We have an affirmative obligation to act, to speak out.
Or, as Spiderman put it:
When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.
It’s time to listen to your spidey sense America.
