Those working tirelessly to challenge the chaos of the Trump administration must be “hopeful doom-scrollers,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told participants in a “Together for Democracy” conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 25.
The Democratic governor was a keynote speaker at the by-invitation event hosted by Democracy Forward.
He began his 15-minute speech by thanking those in the room who are lawyers, nonprofit leaders, advocates, educators and communicators speaking truth against Trump’s stream of lies.
“I want to thank you for the late nights and for your early mornings and for leaving your family functions to formulate legal strategy over Zoom calls,” he said. “And I want to thank you for canceling Friday night drinks with friends so you could file briefs and battle executive orders. Boy, do we need you. I know what the last six weeks have asked of you. You’ve had to be hopeful doom-scrollers.
“You’ve had to wake up every single day and be your smartest and be your sharpest because you live well with the worry that anything less will mean the constitutional republic you love so much may slip away,” he continued. “You’ve been stepping up when it seems like everyone else is stepping back.”
“Every single generation of Americans, everyone has had to fight to stand up for our democracy.”
While current events in Washington may seem new, the fight for democracy is as old as the nation, he said. “Every single generation of Americans, everyone has had to fight to stand up for our democracy. Not one set of our ancestors has ever been spared. It was hubris to think we would be the first, but here’s what I know: We’ve always won those battles and we are still here in the fight.”
Speaking to a ballroom full of people who feel like Trump is attacking the Constitution itself, the governor offered a small positive note: “I don’t know if you feel it too, but something has shifted in the last week or so. Do you feel it? Yeah. The first few weeks of the Trump administration were like that episode of Battlestar Galactica where the Cylons were attacking every 33 minutes … and it was hard to get their bearings. It’s hard for us to get our bearings and a certain depression set in those first few weeks. We felt like there was nothing that we [could] do to fight back, and so a lot of people did nothing to fight back. This was their design.
“But you all helped to puncture the balloon by taking on the administration, taking them to court over and over and over again. And we watched judge after judge after judge say with conviction that just because the president and Elon Musk write something on a piece of paper doesn’t mean it magically becomes the law in a constitutional republic.”
In fact, on the afternoon he spoke, three separate judges issued orders pausing Trump executive orders, adding to about a dozen such court orders already handed down.
“These early courtroom wins have shown people we’re not fighting some brilliant colossus, but instead a blundering blowhard and his weird unlikeable sidekick, and that has given people courage across the nation over the last few days,” Pritzker said. “I’ve watched Americans start to wake up and remember Donald Trump cannot take anything from us we don’t choose to give him.”
“I’ve watched Americans start to wake up and remember Donald Trump cannot take anything from us we don’t choose to give him.”
Right now, things look bad for democracy, he admitted. “We’re in the thick of it right now. Things are bad, but there is hope and we need to inject it into the bloodstream of America because hopelessness is a debilitating drug.”
One of the weaknesses of the administration, he said, is that Trump and Musk are so loud and boastful and draw attention to themselves. “Trump and Musk could have done what they are doing much more quietly and probably been more successful. They could have cloaked it in the polished veneer of false civility, but they had to boast. They had to do it loudly. They had to wave a chainsaw in the air. They had to make sure that everyone knew that they considered themselves kings.”
Those who oppose Trump’s agenda must not be scared into silence, he urged. “I’ve been in rooms … a lot like this one over the past few weeks full of folks who are ready to turn the fear and anger and the anxiety into action. Too many leaders, some in my own party, think if we just keep our heads down and appease Donald Trump, somehow the country can emerge unscathed. Well, let me tell you, I was governor during Donald Trump’s first term when COVID ran rampant and we begged him for help. So many of us were willing to do virtually anything to get the White House to help us save lives. During that time, I offered to publicly — I do not like the man — I offered to publicly praise him on TV if he would send masks and ventilators for my people. He agreed and then never delivered.”
Other elected officials need to understand this reality, he said. “You can’t cut a deal with him. He won’t follow through. Here’s what I learned: Fealty to Trump will not spare you his cruelty. It’s strength, not weakness, that curbs his baser instincts.”
The message that will win voters must not be “academic and the abstract,” he said. “What people can visualize is what’s affecting them right now. … It’s the loss of health care. It’s higher grocery prices. It is tariffs that tax people’s basic necessities, air crashes because Musk wants to control the FAA. The last month has laid bare beyond any doubt that Trump’s authoritarian megalomaniac is taking things away from everyday Americans and there are things that people have fought for and come to rely upon and that they thought would always be there.”
Trump and Musk are turning the Constitution “into a tool to benefit only the wealthiest or the most powerful,” Pritzker said. “Every day Americans feel the pain when people with disabilities and hardworking families lose access to Medicaid. It will be because Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Congressional Republicans stripped away their health care.”
He rattled off a long list of other ways the Trump agenda is harming average people, then urged: “When we fail to speak up, when we fail to fight, when we stay silent because we’ve become so captive to institutional norms and rules of engagement that only ever apply seemingly to the other side of the aisle, well that’s not on them. That’s on us. That’s on us. We have to act.”