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The Courts Alone Will Not Save Us
Joe is Wypoxic
November 17, 2025
Been out all day at MD appointments (all good) so just a quick note:
I’m sure all of you are familiar with Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) and his team at Democracy Docket. Marc and gang are one of the few real firewalls between Trumpian authoritarianism and what remains of our representative democracy.
I noticed two key items in his newsletter today:
Judge ‘doubts the lawfulness’ of Trump’s voter purge database, but won’t block it. So, DHS is trying to get voter database information form the states (especially blue states) to stitch together with other information for “immigration” purposes - but clearly also other unknow nefarious purposes. The judge doubts the legality of this, but doesn’t yet see “irreparable harm”, so no restraining order. IANAL (or a judge), but it seems to me that once this info is handed over to the government’s it can’t really be un-handed over. Plus, states run elections unless congress says otherwise. What am I missing??
Trump officials seek custody of convicted election denier Tina Peters. The Trump Admin wants “custody” of Tina Peters, the former election clerk in Colorado convicted on state charges for a voter information data breach during the 202 election.
One more thing.
Judge Fitzpatrick joins the growing number of jurists "calling into question the presumption of regularity" of Trump's DOJ. Read the explosive ruling in full here. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
— Adam Klasfeld (@klasfeldreports.com)2025-11-17T16:06:39.873Z
There is a concept in law called the “presumption of regularity” which basically says that Courts start out assuming that government officials and agencies did their jobs correctly and followed the law - unless someone brings solid evidence showing otherwise.
My takeaway from these two seemingly unrelated issues? While many judges have been doing yeoman’s work in upholding the law, judges will not save us. The system is not set up for litigants acting in bad faith and flooding the system. The system is not set up for a government that breaches the presumption of regularity willingly and regularly. The system is not set up for a government that ignores judicial decisions and that willingly breaks the law.
It’s on us as protestors and voters to effect the change we need.
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