Last night, the president stood before Congress and declared a "golden age of America." What followed was nearly two hours of false claims, dehumanizing rhetoric, and a vision of governance that treats constitutional constraints as obstacles rather than obligations.
The president called Minnesota's Somali community — over 100,000 people — "pirates" to justify mass deportations and collective punishment of immigrant communities. He attacked transgender children and their families to score political points. He dismissed a historic, congressionally authorized clean energy investment as a "Green New Scam". He demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, voter suppression legislation that would disenfranchise an estimated 21 million people under the pretense of election security.
What the president did not address was equally revealing. He did not acknowledge the two U.S. citizens killed by his own agents in Minneapolis — or that his FBI has formally refused to share evidence with state investigators in both cases. He did not mention the nearly $200 billion in economic and environmental sabotage his administration has inflicted — terminating clean energy jobs, canceling critical public health projects, and revoking the scientific finding that climate change endangers public health. He did not mention the 27 states that have now banned gender-affirming care for minors, or that his own HHS proposed rules so extreme that hospitals across the country have preemptively stopped treating transgender youth.
This is not the speech of a president interested in governing. It is the speech of a president interested in consolidating power — and testing how much the public will tolerate.
At Lawyers for Good Government, we are not tolerating it. And neither is our community.
Since January, our network has sent thousands of letters to Congress demanding real guardrails on DHS enforcement — and Senate Democrats have held the line, blocking the funding bill twice. Our attorneys are volunteering in detention centers and staffing work permit clinics for asylum seekers. Our climate team is fighting to protect billions in federal climate funding. Lawyers across the country are training through the State Legislative Advocacy Academy to bring the fight to statehouses. And on May 1, legal professionals will gather at courthouses nationwide for Law Day of Action to publicly reaffirm their oaths to the Constitution.
The president may have declared a golden age. We see something different: a moment that demands lawyers show up with clarity, with skill, and with urgency. That is exactly what this community is doing.