Like so many of you, we watched the Nov. 5 election results with shock. We can’t sugarcoat it: A second Donald Trump administration is an alarming threat to our democracy.
This is not about political parties; it’s about an incoming regime focused on crushing our freedoms. Trump has promised to deport 1 million people per year, to turn the American military on American protesters, and to use the federal government to relentlessly attack the rights of transgender people, among many other threats.
But although we’re concerned, we’ve also studied the promises of the president-elect and we’ve never been more prepared to fight back. These may be dark times, but the ACLU was forged in dark times.
In West Virginia, Trumpism never went anywhere, but neither did we. ACLU-WV continued to show up and stand in the way of the super-duper majority’s anti-civil liberties agenda. When they banned trans kids from playing sports, we took them to court and we won. When they tried to shut us out of anti-abortion rights proceedings, we only got louder.
The 2024 legislative session was supposed to be a civil liberties doomsday. Rumors swirled as the Legislature gaveled in: They would reinstate the death penalty, extend the ban on gender-affirming care for minors to all trans people, ban diversity trainings in the private sector, and make it a felony to travel out of state for an abortion.
But when the clock struck midnight on the session’s final day, all of those bills died a quiet death.
That’s why we can’t stop now. And we need all of our partners and allies in this fight with us.
We’re prepared to take Donald Trump and his lickspittles in the West Virginia Legislature to court, and we are prepared to win. The ACLU filed more than 400 legal actions against Trump in his first term, and we won numerous times in front of his own judges. We’re prepared to do it all again.
The story of this country is a long one and the presidencies of one man are just a chapter in that long story. The ACLU has been fighting these fights for 105 years, and it will be here long after Donald Trump is gone.
We are bound to a common struggle for justice. And as we look back on history, we know we aren’t alone. We have Sid Hatfield, Mother Jones, Marsha P. Johnson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fred Korematsu, John Lewis, and so many countless others at our side. These people faced adversity that at times felt hopeless, but they persevered. And in many cases, they won.
The ACLU proudly dedicates itself to that tradition as well. We do not give up and we are not alone. Together, we are relentless.