In March, after blowing up Democrats’ unified opposition to the GOP’s government funding bill, which handed President Trump and Elon Musk expanded powers over federal spending, Chuck Schumer appeared on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes to defend his vote. In the interview, the Senate minority leader said he didn’t yet think that our democracy was at risk but made clear what his red line would be: “If Trump doesn’t obey the Supreme Court.” That, he stated, would be “different than anything else. It’s a quantum leap different, because our democracy is then—248 years of American democracy, the Magna Carta is out the window, and we will all have to take extraordinary action.”
This “quantum leap” did not take long to arrive. Last Friday, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to help bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. Abrego Garcia is an immigrant married to a U.S. citizen, with three U.S. citizen children, who has lived in this country for 14 years without being charged with any crimes—just an unsubstantiated claim of gang affiliation. A federal court ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador, as he faced a risk of death there. The Trump administration brazenly violated this order in March, putting Abrego Garcia on a plane to what is effectively a concentration camp. This act was so “illegal,” in the Supreme Court’s words, that all nine justices agreed the administration must “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia and “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
But Trump won’t do it. The administration argues that only El Salvador has the ability to send Abrego Garcia back. “DHS does not have authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation,” Joseph Mazzara, acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a court filing on Monday. El Salvador’s president, who visited Trump on Monday, also claimed powerlessness. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” he told reporters, cruelly mischaracterizing Abrego Garcia. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” (This is all laughable given the recent repatriation of alleged rapists and MAGA diehards Andrew and Tristan Tate from Romania.)
Despite Trump’s kindergarten-level reasoning, it’s clear as day that he’s defying the Supreme Court’s unanimous order. It is also predictable—and, in fact, was predicted. For months, it has been apparent to grassroots Democrats that Trump was pushing us rapidly toward authoritarianism. For months, we have been asking, pleading, shouting, and raging at the leaders of our party to start acting like our democracy is already at risk, because it very clearly has been. And for months, leaders of our party, including Schumer, have directed Democrats to lie low and hold their fire, clinging to the empirically incorrect fantasy that we’re not yet in a break-the-glass democratic emergency.
It’s been a shameful abdication of leadership by Democratic elites. But there was still an opportunity for redemption. Schumer said that if Trump defied a Supreme Court order, then there’d be no choice but to “take extraordinary action.” Presumably he has been preparing for this possibility—not doing so would be almost inconceivable Democratic malpractice.
But when I reached out to Schumer’s office late Monday, the senator hadn’t even posted a response to the news yet. Eventually his office put out a boilerplate statement, which they emailed to me: “The law is clear, due process was grossly violated, and the Supreme Court has clearly spoken that the Trump administration must facilitate and effectuate the return of Abrego Garcia. He should be returned to the U.S. immediately. Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous. A threat to one is a threat to all.” In reply, I referenced Schumer’s statement that “we will all have to take extraordinary action” if Trump defied the court, and asked if he had any additional comments about the kind of action needed right now. His office has not responded.
This failure of leadership is particularly maddening from the leader of the opposition party in the Senate, because the upper chamber remains an institution that, as Mitch McConnell demonstrated, provides incredibly powerful tools to the minority party. We know what Senate Democrats could be doing if they decided “to take extraordinary action.” Just a few weeks ago we saw just one senator, Cory Booker, grind the chamber to a standstill for over 24 hours—an impressive effort, though arbitrary and undirected. Can you imagine how much more powerful it would be if Senate Democrats came together to organize a filibuster relay team that could continuously gum up the Senate until Trump agreed to follow the Supreme Court’s order?
While there have been a few individual demonstrations of courage—like Senator Chris Van Hollen’s commitment to travel to El Salvador to push for Abrego Garcia’s release—there has been no indication of plans or preparations for “extraordinary action” by the party. Is Schumer’s banal press statement really the best that Democratic leadership can do?
We are witnessing in real time what the descent into fascism looks like. Trump is defying a 9–0 order by a right-wing Supreme Court. And let’s be clear: If he can get away with banishing Abrego Garcia to a foreign gulag in violation of the Constitution and the nation’s highest court, he can get away with banishing you—or your spouse, your parents, your children. We need a Democratic Party that is led by leaders who understand this. If spineless Democrats won’t take “extraordinary action” in these extraordinary times, we need to replace them with Democrats who will.
