Equalizers on retainer
Anticipating Donald Trump’s “promised revenge tour,” Josh Marshall floated the idea of about ten days ago that anti-Trumpers with deep pockets assemble a big pile of money for the legal defense of women and men on his enemies list.
Marshall is back to report there is movement on this effort in a good-news, bad-news sort of way. Since then, he’s become aware of “groups or consortia that are organizing to be the place that Trump targets can go when they get their subpoena or their lawsuit,” but for now they are keeping their identities below the radar:
For very real reasons these groups don’t want to draw a lot of attention to themselves. They don’t want themselves to become the targets of harassment and lawfare when they’re trying to defend others from it. If they themselves get run out of business who’s going to be around to help everyone else? So I can’t give websites for these operations that you’d want to look up if you’re a target or show you how to contribute money. They’re not set up that way and they don’t want the attention.
Marshall wonders how this might work and was initially dubious of the approach. But his thinking has shifted:
It’s not just Trump and official MAGA we have to worry about. We’re really facing an era of broader civic disinhibition, in which public and private actors will be declaring war on civil society, government employees and more in ways that simply haven’t happened in the past. There’s no one group that can combat that. And these nascent efforts are going to be a critical part of the equation — for the civil servant who gets harassed, for the nonprofit which needs legal assistance fending off financially ruinous subpoenas. And by this I don’t mean just to say … well, the small stuff. What I mean is that there’s going to be a lot of stuff, across society, across multiple layers of government. There’s a lot to go around. And not every individual or entity wants to become a poster child for MAGA abuses of power. Often they just need someone to pick up the legal work that would have bankrupted the organization or made an individual lose their home.
And defenders of civic society may not care for Trump sending his flying monkeys their way. (“I understood that reference.“)
Marshall floats how his Big Pile of Money (BPM) group might operate. As lawyerly Equalizers, in my view:
One of the best ways I can think of to describe what I’m looking for is by an illusory hypothetical. Let’s imagine there was another billionaire out there — a non-decadent, non-degenerate version of Musk — who said: I believe in America. Every person Trump targets, I’m going to send them a contact number at mega law firm X, which I’ve retained, and it’s an open tab for as long as they need. And if you’re out there wondering if you’re willing to take the risks of doing the right thing over the next four years, I’ll be sending you a contact number too. And I’m going to do more than that. I’m going to use the channels of these abusive lawsuits and criminal investigations to load these folks down with every discovery motion you could have imagined. I’m going to use my cash and the courts not just to protect people but to embarrass and humiliate the abusers, make them wish they’d never started.
That is, after all, how Trump has for decades used lawsuits to harass creditors until they run out of fight (and money) and go away. Defenders must exact a cost on those who would foul the civic square to create a “penumbra of fear,” in Marshall’s words.
But in an age when politics is a pro-wrestling spectacle, BPM groups must be seen doing it. Landing punches, and “damaging and embarrassing and humiliating the other side.” Turning idle spectators into fans and investors in creating a penumbra of safety. Because right now there is only one fighter in the ring throwing folding chairs.
How many Rocky movies?
Marshall concludes:
Any operation that doesn’t play in that realm isn’t playing this performative, public role. That’s critical. It also operates a virtuous or at least non-vicious circle. People need to open their pockets — billionaires and average people. People open their pockets when they’re seeing points put on the board, when they see punches being landed.
First, like it or not, the public wants Thunderdome. The press covers Thunderdome. Thunderdome draws eyeballs in this attention economy. Again, and again and again: How many Rocky movies did Stallone make?
People pay money to see that. They want to cheer for the little guy with heart facing insurmountable odds. They want to watch The Equalizer squash baddies the law cannot touch. Seen any of those lately?
Maybe the Big Pile of Money could run a classified ad.
