Is it time to start planning a post-Trump restoration?

2026 congressional candidates need to talk about how to stop Trump and fix what he’s broken. Here’s my 10-point plan.

[I’m on vacation next week. Publication of Heads Up News will resume on August 13.]

Someone I know who is thinking about working for a primary campaign in the fall asked me the other day what I would want to see in a 2026 congressional candidate.

And from my perspective covering the resistance, my answer was clear: I want to see some fight.

My view is that if Democrats want to harness the energy of the resistance in the 2026 elections, they need to start talking now about how to stymie Trump as much as possible in the short term and how to undo the damage he has wrought in the long term.

I’m honestly not so clear myself on the short term. As long as Trump is president, given his veto power, it seems to me it will be impossible to pursue a positive legislative agenda even if Democrats win both chambers. And if Trump is willing to hold the country hostage, which he is, Democrats might even have to make some concessions simply to keep the government functioning at all. Does anyone have any thoughts about the best course? Please share them with me.

I do know that a Democratic House majority starting in 2027 could aggressively use subpoena power to fully investigate the many abuses committed by this administration, setting the stage for reforms to come. Every candidate ought to make that a solemn vow.

As for the long term, candidates should enthusiastically address the need to restore sanity and good government to the country after Trump is gone.

I’d like to see people campaign on something along the lines of a 10-point plan. And my first draft is something like this:

1. Restore the rule of law. This includes rebuilding a devastated and defiled Justice Department, prosecuting the rampant law-breaking of the Trump era, and expanding the Supreme Court.

2. Stop mass deportations. That includes defunding ICE, closing concentration camps, restoring temporary protected status, respecting asylum claims, ending to the harassment of people on visas, and welcoming more international students.

3. Revive the civil service. That means hiring back tens of thousands of workers who were driven out, undoing organizational changes, reestablishing the tradition of a nonpartisan bureaucracy.

4. Restart international aid.

5. Invert Trump’s tax changes, to increase taxes on the rich and lower them on the middle class.

6. Restart the Green New Deal and restore environmental protections.

7. Condition Israeli aid on humane treatment of Palestinians.

8. Restore the role of science in government decision-making.

9. Reassert support for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

10. Support human rights for all, including trans rights.

Is it too early to start talking about how to roll back Trumpism? What do you think of my list? And what did I leave out? Please discuss in comments.

Resistance Against Immigration Raids Keeps Growing

“With ICE increasingly seen as the front line of a growing police state, people all over the country are looking for ways to stand up to it,” New York Times columnist Michele Goldberg writes this morning in a must-read. (Gift link.)

Goldberg visited the Los Angeles area to see first hand how “the resistance is evolving”:

Though there have been some big anti-Trump marches this year, many of those most horrified by this administration are looking for more immediate, tangible ways to thwart it. The movement against ICE in Los Angeles — one that is starting to take root, in different forms, in cities like New York — is part of a growing shift from symbolic protest to direct action.

It may be no match for the Trumpian leviathan. But it can protect a few people who might otherwise get swept into the black hole of the administration’s deportation machine. And in the most optimistic scenario, it could be a foundation for a new, nationwide opposition movement.

Resistance in the second term, she concludes, is focused on “trying to make a concrete difference, often close to home”:

Think of the doctors sending abortion medication into states with prohibitions, or the protests in front of Tesla dealerships that helped push down the company’s stock price. “Resistance 2.0 is much more locally grounded and community embedded,” said Dana Fisher, an American University sociologist who studies protest movements.

In another sign that regular Angelenos are fed up with the administration’s jackbooted tactics, the Los Angeles Times had a quite remarkable report last week about how grand juries – made up of ordinary citizens – are refusing to indict people accused of attacking federal law enforcement officers during protests against immigration raids.

Although the U.S. Attorney filed felony cases against at least 38 people for conduct during last month’s protests or near the sites of immigration raids, he has secured only seven indictments, the Times reported.

Keep in mind that, as the Times points out, grand juries “need only to find probable cause that a crime has been committed in order to move forward. That is a much lower bar than the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard required for a criminal conviction.”

In some cases, as it happens, the charges were dropped when it turned out they were based on lies. The Guardian reports that LA federal prosecutors dismissed at least 11 protest-related felony charges after DHS investigators determined that Border Patrol agents had made up stories about the people they arrested. In one case, for instance, defense lawyers were able to present video showing an agent pushing a protester -- not the other way around -- before the protester was wrestled to the ground and arrested.

Not surprisingly, Los Angeles is not the only place where protesters are being accused of attacking law enforcement when they were actually the victims.

Police in Covington, Ohio, viciously assaulted protesters crossing a bridge on July 17 as part of a march calling for the release of Ayman Soliman, an imam and former Cincinnati Children's chaplain detained by ICE. Fifteen people – including two journalists with a local news website – were arrested and initially charged with felonies. All but four of those charges were later reduced to misdemeanors. City officials are now investigating the police conduct.

Protests of the Week

Trump’s trip to Scotland sparked enthusiastic protests across that nation.

NPR reported that at a demonstration in Edinburgh on Saturday, “one protester held Scottish bagpipes in one arm, and a sign in the other. ‘At least this bag of hot air serves a purpose,’ it read. Another waved a banner saying ‘Scotland is already great’— a riff off Trump's ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan.”

Buzzfeed has a marvelous collection of “33 Scottish Protest Signs From Trump's Visit That Show Nobody Does Insults Quite Like The Scots”.

Over on this side of the pond, activist groups held “Families First” protests on Saturday in big cities and small towns.

Forward Kentucky reported that organizer Leslie McColgin kicked off the rally in Paducah by explaining: “Families First actions will bring people together to collectively demand an end to policies that harm children, seniors, and our families. We reject the Administration’s actions that have gutted essential programs like Medicaid, FEMA, food stamps, school lunches, and more, all so a handful of billionaires can get tax giveaways.”

In San Francisco, hundreds of protesters formed a human banner saying “Familia” on the beach,

See also local news reports from Los Angeles; Atlanta; Detroit; Louisville; Newark, N.J.; Bakersfield, California; West Hartford, Connecticut; Rockford, Illinois; Ashland, Oregon; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Glens Falls, New York.

Social media captured rallies in Chicago; Boston; Las Vegas; New York City; Minneapolis; and Seattle.

In other protest news, demonstrators with a group called the “Peaceful Bluegrass Resistance” held a “die-in” in downtown Lexington on Thursday.

Protesters in Canton, Ohio, greeted Vice President JD Vance on Monday with a gigantic sign proclaiming “JD PROTECTS PEDOPHILES”.

And “Tesla Takedown” protesters now have a new target: Elon Musk’s new 24-hour Tesla Diner in Hollywood. Over the weekend, protesters showed up with Nazi-saluting inflatable Musk figures.

No Secret Police

Congressional Democrats have introduced two bills -- the No Secret Police Act and the VISIBLE Act – that would bar federal agents from concealing their faces.

Moveon has gathered more than 60,000 signatures on a petition demanding that Congress “pass legislation requiring all immigration agents to clearly display their agency and name or badge number.”

“As long as Republicans are in the majority, Congressional action is unlikely,” NPR reports. ”At the state level, though, legislation is advancing. In California, lawmakers are considering a bill that would limit the ability of all law enforcement officers — federal, state and local — to wear masks that aren't required for medical or tactical reasons, or undercover work.”

Similarly, In New York, a Democratic assemblyman is pushing a "Mandating End of Lawless Tactics" Act that would ban law enforcement officers from wearing masks.

This Week in the Law

The Wall Street Journal reports that despite the Supreme Court’s blockbuster decision in June limiting the authority of federal judges to halt Trump administration policies nationwide, “the path to winning rulings with nationwide application is still wide open”:

One month later, states, organizations and individuals challenging government actions are finding a number of ways to notch wins against the White House, with judges in a growing list of cases making clear that sweeping relief remains available when they find the government has overstepped its authority.

In at least nine cases, judges have explicitly grappled with the Supreme Court’s opinion and granted nationwide relief anyway. That includes rulings that continue to halt the policy at the center of the high court case: President Trump’s effort to pare back birthright citizenship. Judges have also kept in place protections against deportations for up to 500,000 Haitians, halted mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, and prevented the government from terminating a legal-aid program for mentally ill people in immigration proceedings.

Tactics involve filing class action lawsuits and invoking the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires government agencies to have a legitimate reason for altering rules and regulations.

Indeed, in the third such order since the Supreme Court June decision, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration from ending birthright citizenship. Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that a narrower patchwork approach to the birthright order would not sufficiently protect the 18 states that had filed the suit.

In other legal news:

• Another federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration's efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and ordered that it keep getting Medicaid funds.

• A coalition of faith groups has sued the Trump administration to block immigration raids at houses of worship. The suit alleges that the raids violate the constitutional right to religious freedom. “We are witnessing an unprecedented assault on religious liberty, as ICE raids have created a climate of fear and division, preventing people of all faiths and citizenship statuses from gathering for prayer and receiving vital services. Silence in the face of such oppression is simply not an option,” Lutheran Bishop Paul Erickson said in a statement.

• Status News reports that the Freedom of the Press Foundation has sent a letter to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel at the D.C. Court of Appeals, asked it to disbar Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for his “willingness to abuse his authority as FCC chair to further Trump’s scheme to launder illegal bribes through the court system warrants disbarment on its own.”

Upcoming Events

• The Human Rights Campaign is launching an American Dreams Tour: Equality Across America. “For the first time in decades, we're actually seeing a backslide in LGBTQ+ rights across this country, and we've got to do something,” HRC president Kelley Robinson told MSNBC. “We’ve got to get back to basics in telling our stories, meeting people where they are,” she said. The tour kicks off today in Columbus, Ohio, before heading off to Las Vegas, Washington, Dallas, Atlanta and Nashville.

• The next across-the-nation rally is set for Saturday, August 2. It’s called “Rage Against the Regime” and is sponsored by 50501, a grassroots group dedicated to “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement.” You can find an event near you. What’s it about? “The 50501 Movement is calling for a mass mobilization to channel our collective rage against the Trump regime for its weaponization of ICE against our communities, construction of concentration camps, covering up of the Epstein Files, attacks on transgender rights, and its dismantling of Medicaid, SNAP, USAID, the Department of Education, NOAA, and the National Weather Service into collective action,” the organizers say.