When I started my politics and humor blog, I had intended to maintain a pretty rigid line between the materials on that blog and this one.

It is a measure of how much things have deteriorated in the last month that that decision now seems neither appropriate or necessary.

It no longer appropriate, because the recent threats to our legal system are surely threats to access to justice — if judges are going to be attacked for entertaining class action litigation, that makes recent caselaw issues pretty minor.  So we have to analyse and track these things.

And it is no longer necessary because there is enough anxiety within the profession, the courts, and the legal system that “non-partisanship” no longer requires, if it ever did, silence in the face of the threats.

So, I want to reference my most recent politics blog analyzing the actual potential threats of dictatorships in a Trump Presidency, and of how to look for, and even sadly see now, the signs.  In particular, as a spur for action, I paste in this para on the role of the legal profession:

Attacks on the Legal Profession?

Interestingly, we seemed not to attract his ire, even though we are unpopular.  He focuses on judges, and the laws, not lawyers.  It may have something to do with how many he must rely on given the massive number of law suits he has been involved with.  So, lawyers are powerful and unpopular, and he leaves us alone.  What does that mean?

Does it have anything to do with our profession’s relative silence on Trump?  (Interestingly, it appears that the legal profession did not take on Hitler’s rise to power, although there was heroic resistance from some after the event. I am no expert on this, so would welcome correction.) It may be that the above linked NYT article is the beginning of a change.  It will be interesting to see if we are now honored with attacks.

Lets hope so, and I mean it.

I would encourage you to also subscribe to zorzapolitics.net.  It’s not all frightening.  I have tried for humor too.  See link to the Humor category.