Brownstein: What do you consider potentially the most volatile or incendiary of his proposals? To me, the various ways in which he is talking about using federal forces in blue cities seems the most explosive.
Romero: Definitely. The deportation force can implicate 11 million to 13 million undocumented people. Remember that undocumented people live in families and communities alongside many American citizens, so the level of disruption when you start ripping out people who don’t have legal papers can be extensive.
[Ronald Brownstein: Trump’s ‘knock on the door’]
Certainly, the power of the National Guard and use of the Insurrection Act put a lot of things at his fingertips that are incredibly worrisome. That’s why litigation, I think, will be important; litigation preserves the status quo, litigation takes time, and when you are buying time, that is a good thing.
Litigation also helps focus public attention. Part of what happened in the first Trump administration is the avalanche of Trump policies and outrages became a little numbing for the public at one level, and yet with litigation, you could really focus a spotlight on key policies. Family separation is an example I would use: The litigation that we filed engendered such a public outcry that even Trump himself had to backtrack on the policy.
But lawyers are going to play a much less important role in a second Trump administration, because of the specter of a much more consistent and greater assault on civil liberties and civil rights. That’s where you really have to convert the public into a protagonist and not a spectator. And you saw elements of that in the first Trump administration. The women’s marches were largely a spontaneous outburst of energy from constituents. Certainly, the George Floyd protests that happened in the summer of 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, were also an indication that people were willing to take to the streets on issues that really mattered to them. I’ve got to believe that we’ll have the potential of mobilizing the public in that way. Part of what we’ve got to do is get ready for that kind of energy and activism that will be beyond any of our control—the work we have to do as legal observers on protests, know-your-rights training.
Brownstein: Is that under way?
Romero: We’re beginning to map that out—what we need to do, and relationships we need to build.
Brownstein: If Trump wins, I don’t know if he does everything that he’s saying. But if he does even two-thirds of what he is saying, what do blue state governors like J. B. Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, and Kathy Hochul do? What do their attorneys general do? How much pressure could Trump put on the fundamental cohesion of the country if he follows through on this idea of using federal force in blue jurisdictions?
Romero: The real wild card is the extent to which it devolves into a confusing chaos or even violence, in which case Trump’s use of the executive powers will look more justifiable in the eyes of ordinary Americans. Remember the play he made around [sending federal forces to quell the 2020 protests in] Portland? There was an element of Trump’s actions in Portland that resonated with the American public. In some ways, the greatest danger is when Trump’s extreme policies tap into the commonsense reactions of the American people, when he truly is playing the populist role. That’s what I think is the most dangerous.
Brownstein: How different could America look after four years of another Trump presidency? And what do you think could be the most important differences from where we are now that we might face?
Romero: I think we could very much be on the brink of losing our democracy and losing certain rights and liberties that would be lost for a generation. I am not one given to hyperbole, especially in the face of real threat, but the efforts to curtail protest and demonstrations; the promise to enact gestapo-like searches and deportation forces; the enactment of federal bans on reproductive rights or gender-affirming care or diversity-and-inclusion efforts could fundamentally change the way that we think about rights and liberties in the United States.
Right now, we bemoan the idea that our zip code determines our rights and liberties. That if I am 10010 in New York—my zip code—I am de facto going to have a much greater enjoyment of rights and liberties than if I were in a zip code in Alabama or Mississippi. And the challenge with a second Trump administration is that rights and liberties may be lost even in blue states. We are already living with a status quo where rights and liberties are curtailed in red states, but it’s the metastasis into blue states and liberal and progressive jurisdictions that is perhaps the most concerning.