"It's worth fighting back," says philosophy professor.
More Americans are showing resistance against Trump. Here, from a demonstration in Washington against the executive order that deprives newborns of the right to American citizenship.(Foto: Andres Kudacki / AP / NTBO)
After just three weeks with a new president, experts fear that Trump could do irreparable damage to American democracy.
This could mean a judiciary rendered powerless, corruption, harassment of minorities and political opponents, and restrictions on freedom of speech.
It could also mean a foreign policy that undermines peace, the economy, and the environment.
What are Americans doing now to stop him?
Judges are stopping Trump
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There is particularly one thing they can do: challenge Trump's decisions in court.
And this is being done continuously.
A judge has blocked Trump's proposal to remove the right to automatic citizenship for children born on American soil. This has been a fundamental principle in the American Constitution since 1868.
Another judge has denied Elon Musk and his associates access to personal data in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
A trade union sued the president for freezing funds and barring employees from their offices at the USAID aid organisation. The ruling was that no one should be laid off or barred – for now.
Will he comply with the court?
The question now is whether Trump will comply with the judges' rulings, such as reinstating USAID employees in their jobs.
Or whether he will go ahead with his plans anyway.
"Since 1864, no president has refused to follow a direct order from a federal court," Noam Feldman says in an interview with the American channel PBS.
Feldman is a professor at Harvard Law School.
"If a president says 'I'm defying it,' that puts us closer to what you might call a constitutional crisis," he says.
So far, however, Trump has not stated that he refuses to follow court rulings.
Instead, he plans to appeal them, which is completely acceptable, according to Feldman.
Delaying executive orders
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Researcher Dag Einar Thorsen from the University of South-Eastern Norway believes the court rulings are absolutely crucial.
He believes there is little to gain in both Congress and the Supreme Court since Trump has the majority in both places.
This is where the lower courts come into play.
"The judges can delay executive orders for several years, preventing Trump from getting everything he wants," says Thorsen.
Harvard professor Feldman believes Trump will be cautious about challenging the courts. Even though he appointed several of the judges in the Supreme Court, they are loyal to the legal system. If Trump ignores court rulings, he risks losing the support he has in the Supreme Court, Feldman told PBS.
Dag Einar Thorsen is a researcher at the University of South-Eastern Norway.(Photo: Private)
The fascists did not gain control over the courts
Thorsen sees similarities with Mussolini's dictatorship in Italy.
The fascists controlled the state apparatus for 20 years, but they never managed to gain complete control over the courts.
"Opponents were arrested but later acquitted in the courts. This does not happen in most dictatorships. So the fact that the U.S. has so many courts may make it harder for a budding dictator like Trump to seize all the power he desires," says Thorsen.
If presidents or others refuse to comply with a court ruling, they should be arrested. The problem is that the courts have no police force.
"The U.S. Marshals operate under the president, so it's not certain they would intervene," says Thorsen.
A self-coup in the making
American Yale professor Timothy Snyder believes that what is happening now is an attempted coup.
Elon Musk is seizing power, but he has not been elected to any position. He has no authority to extract personal data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Snyder writes on his blog.
The whole thing is illegal, and their goal is to dismantle democracy and strip people of their rights, according to Snyder.
The will of the people
Trump says the judges are working against the 'will of the people.'
That is extremely dangerous, according to researcher and philosopher Jonas Jakobsen at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
According to Jakobsen, the U.S. has traditionally had very strong traditions of challenging democratic decisions in court. The 'will of the people' has therefore been more subject to control by non-elected bodies, such as the Supreme Court, than in Norway.
An example is the abortion issue in the U.S.
It is up to the Supreme Court to decide whether abortion rights fall within or outside what can be subject to democratic decisions.
"Whether this is the best or most democratic system can be debated, but right now we are at least seeing some of the positives of having strong legal and constitutional traditions," says Jakobsen.
Jonas Jakobsen is a researcher at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.(Foto: UiT)
A full-blown dictatorship?
'Whether this develops into a full-blown dictatorship, we will soon find out,' Espen Hammer writes in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. He is a philosophy professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Hammer believes that the U.S. is not yet a tyranny. The population still has freedom of speech, the right to political participation, and other human rights.
And judges still have the power to push back.
Many wanted Trump
About half of the American population voted for Donald Trump. Was this what they wanted? Hammer asks.
He does not think so.
Many Americans voted for Trump primarily for economic reasons.
'They did not want a transition to an entirely new system,' he writes.
Despite this, there is almost no organised opposition, either among the Democrats or within the Republican Party from those who want an alternative, he points out.
Cutting research funding
Hammer believes Americans will soon show more resistance.
"It's worth fighting back," he tells sciencenorway.no.
He recently attended a meeting with the president of Temple University regarding Trump's cuts in public funding for research and education.
"The Department of Education may soon be shut down, putting important support schemes for low-income students at risk," explains Hammer.
Researchers have also received a list of words that cannot be used in funding applications.
"The president's message was that we should not be intimidated by this, but rather continue as before and stand by our ideals," he says.
Reject severance packages
Jakobsen from UiT believes that judges alone cannot safeguard the U.S.' democratic institutions.
"Public support and the courage to stand up for one's rights are also needed," he says.
This applies, for example, to public employees being offered severance packages. They can choose not to accept the offer, even though they risk being suddenly dismissed without pay.
Jakobsen also believes federal agencies can play a role.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has decided to follow the court's ruling that overturned Trump's funding freeze. They are now allocating funds as usual.
"They're following the law, but in doing so, they're defying Trump," he says.
What can ordinary Americans do?
American lawyer and law professor Sherrilyn Ifill is concerned by people's expressions of despair and surrender. She expresses this concern on her blog.
Ifill encourages people to get politically involved, contact their elected representatives, file lawsuits, demonstrate, and support organisations that work for democracy.
Jakobsen reminds us that millions of Americans support Trump and the MAGA movement
"In their eyes, Trump is the one saving democracy, while his opponents are the ones threatening it – including officials from Biden's administration and judges who interfere with Trump's decisions," he says.
He finds it difficult to answer what people in the U.S. can do.
"Those sceptical of Trump can voice their opinions, protest, argue, and write op-eds, but I'm not sure how much that helps in a time when social media divides us into echo chambers and information bubbles," says Jakobsen.
"What really matters is who they vote for next time," he concludes.
