Epilogue

Abstract

The epilogue explores the reasons why progressives, following Trump’s re-election defeat, must not give up on their commitments to the federalism, separation-of-powers, and free speech principles that they defended during the difficult Trump years. It may be tempting, following Biden’s defeat of Trump, for progressives to try to put the traumatic and harrowing Trump years behind them by worrying and fretting less about the implications of his policies and of how he governed. But progressives must be prepared for the possibility of a future president in the Trump mold by continuing to defend the constitutional principles that they endorsed and championed during the Trump era. Those principles consist of not only the ones that progressives have valued for decades, including those related to equality, privacy, and the fundamental right to vote, but also the structural constitutional principles behind federalism and separation of powers that progressives had generally ignored before the Trump presidency, but which became crucial to resisting it.