Compliance or Defiance? Responding to the Relentless Demands of Authoritarianism
By Christina Hsu Accomando and Kristin J. Anderson
Lesson 1: Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
—Timothy Snyder, historian
If you do not hold the line at this crucial moment—this is the moment when you are strongest—you will only get weaker over time.
— Maria Ressa, journalist and Nobel Laureate
On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump signed an executive order to terminate federal programs that support fairness, belonging, accessibility, and diversity. By the end of the week, retailer Target announced that it would end its wide-ranging diversity initiatives for employees, suppliers, and consumers. Trump’s executive order targeted federal programs, not the private sector—yet this retail giant volunteered to eliminate programs it had spent years developing and promoting. The same week, Costco defended its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion when its board of directors and shareholders voted overwhelmingly against an anti-DEI proposal.
Anticipatory obedience to authoritarian rule does more than compromise the morality of the yielder. Anticipatory obedience models compliance for other potential capitulators and encourages the authoritarian to demand more, speeding the slide into tyranny. How can corporations, media companies, universities, law firms, and individuals find the collective courage to resist the pressure to obey?
Historian Timothy Snyder analyzes responses to authoritarianism in the form of lessons, which actually function as warnings. First published as an online post after Trump’s 2016 election, Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century offers the benefit of history in facing today’s events, which are often described in the media as “unprecedented.”
Collage by Claire Hsu Accomando (Courtesy of the artist)
Let’s flesh out Snyder’s first lesson, “Do not obey in advance,” in the context of the metastasizing authoritarianism of Trump’s second presidential term. When experts on fascism and the death of democracies are no longer sounding the alarm about what might happen, but enumerating what is happening—we are here.
If a billion-dollar retailer like Target capitulates, it harms employees and restricts the choices available to consumers. If a media corporation caves, the consequences are more dire. Access to news and information is closed off. A free press—articulated in the First Amendment—is vital to a functioning democracy, and intimidating the media has the intended effect of limiting the ability to know what our leaders are doing and when they are lying. In How Fascism Works, Jason Stanley writes, “Regular and repeated obvious lying is part of the process by which fascist politics destroys the information space. A fascist leader can replace truth with power, ultimately lying without consequence.”
Big media companies have folded in the face of lawsuits Trump initiated even before he took office, with chilling consequences. It is impossible to know what questions are not asked, what stories are killed, or what investigations are never attempted, when intimidation tactics silence the media.
Furious over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, Trump sued CBS for $20 billion. The network wants to settle rather than fight (leading two top executives to resign in protest). Experts have called the suit meritless but parent company Paramount wants FCC approval for a multi-billion dollar merger. Trump rejected Paramount’s obsequious offer and threatened further litigation.
More egregious in their anticipatory obedience—without even a lawsuit threat—were the LA Times and Washington Post decisions to kill editorial board endorsements of Kamala Harris for president. A once highly respected newspaper known for exposing Nixon’s Watergate scandal, the Washington Post has been hemorrhaging subscribers ever since, but that didn’t stop owner Jeff Bezos from making a big donation to Trump’s inauguration, earning him a seat at the billionaire bench that day. While its masthead still proclaims “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” the paper has also killed an editorial cartoon unfavorable to Bezos and narrowed its editorial policies, leading to high-profile resignations, including cartoonist Ann Telnaes and Opinions editor David Shipley. While Bezos is a model of self-interested complicity, Telnaes and Shipley are models of doing the courageous thing even as they incur personal and professional losses.
Other media companies have endeavored to preserve journalistic integrity. The Associated Press, like most of the world, continues to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico,” incurring the wrath of the Administration, which barred AP from White House press briefings. A Trump-appointed judge ruled in favor of the news agency; nonetheless, the White House continues to deny AP access, and the judge declined to enforce his own ruling.
We know these profiles in courage and compliance because the news media covered the stories—but such coverage can end. From national networks to local papers to student journalists, all media are feeling the pressure to conform to edicts from a man who has long treated the press as “the enemy of the people.”
Journalists may feel helpless, but they need to use the power they have. “Don’t voluntarily give up your rights,” instructs Maria Ressa, who ran the news site Rappler under Rodrigo Duterte’s autocratic rule in the Philippines. “If you do not hold the line at this crucial moment—this is the moment when you are strongest— . . . you will only get weaker over time. And it isn’t just the journalists, because journalists are the front lines in this, but the question is to every single citizen in America.” In an interview with the PBS NewsHour (PBS is another outlet under attack), Ressa recounts that Rappler endured, despite persecution and prosecution, while bigger news organizations who surrendered are no longer.
Colleges and universities are another key element of a functioning democracy, which is why they are among the first institutions targeted by authoritarians. “Fascism is a cult of the leader,” Jason Stanley reminds us. “It involves the leader setting the rules about what’s true and false. . . . Institutions that teach multiple perspectives on history in all its complexity are always a threat to the fascist leader.” Attacks on the autonomy of universities, funding for research, academic freedom of teachers, and the speech and safety of students do not bode well for our Republic. While Trump has aggressively targeted top universities, his policies (from restructuring Pell Grants to eliminating the Department of Education) threaten education at all levels.
Columbia University offers an illuminating case study that rolling over does not result in protection and only emboldens the authoritarian to demand more. Columbia cracked down on students protesting US involvement in Israel’s war on Gaza in 2024, and under Republican congressional pressure, the university president resigned a few months later. Despite having taken draconian actions against students exercising their First Amendment rights, Columbia was nonetheless in the crosshairs of the new Administration, which withdrew $400 million in funding, and made a series of arguably illegal demands as a precondition for restoring the funds. Rather than challenging these demands in court, or building solidarity with other universities, Columbia acquiesced, agreeing to further stifle student protest and allowing a takeover of its Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. As journalist Robert Kuttner pointed out, “Trump has made no binding commitments in return, and Trump now has Columbia on a very short leash that he can jerk at his pleasure.” Still without the funding, the university announced cuts of 180 positions in May, and faced new attacks on their accreditation in June.
To be clear, funding cuts to elite universities don’t just affect elites. Columbia was conducting vital medical research on cancer, stroke recovery, maternal mortality, diabetes, and dementia, for example. This sudden stoppage should concern all of us. Some of the most important medical, scientific, environmental, and technological research emerges from universities, which do not have the same constraints and profit motives as private companies.
The dangers posed by Trump’s threats are indeed grave, but Columbia lost its soul and still lost its funding. This pathetic morality play offers valuable insight into the folly of appeasement.
Many other schools have succumbed to Trump’s demands around student protest, curriculum, hiring, research, and admissions, but others are fighting back—and many are beginning to act in solidarity. Some universities have created Mutual Academic Defense Compacts, modeled after NATO (another target of Trump). These compacts aim to strengthen schools’ ability to resist the authoritarian onslaught. Authoritarians count on divide-and-conquer tactics, and coalition-building is a key strategy of resistance.
Harvard is the most high-profile university to reject Trump’s demands, resulting in more than $2 billion in funding freezes, threats to its nonprofit status, a Justice Department investigation, and other forms of retaliation. In May, the Administration said it was revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students. Harvard immediately sued and a federal judge temporarily blocked the effort. Because Harvard initially resisted, it can sue to challenge each new demand, while Columbia is unlikely to initiate a lawsuit after already caving. Whether or not Harvard’s legal challenges are ultimately successful, its model is still a vital beacon in a dark landscape, inspiring other universities to push back.
Law firms surrendering to Trump’s retribution might be among the most damaging retreats in this era of profound threats to the rule of law. As we see above, one important way to fight government intimidation and illegal demands is through litigation—and the Trump Administration has indeed lost many times in the courts. But litigation requires lawyers, and it’s demoralizing to see wealthy law firms surrender to Trump’s real and perceived power. He has issued executive orders (extortion orders might be more accurate) targeting firms on his enemies list. If enacted, these threats will have drastic consequences, but caving to extortion also has drastic consequences.
The firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has agreed not only to commit $40 million to “pro bono” work for Trump causes—inverting the meaning of “bono”—but also to stop taking cases that would displease Trump. This once prestigious firm—previously known for defending progressive causes and suing January 6th insurrectionists—folded with such ignominy that some observers now use “Paulweiss” as a verb. An associate at Perkins Coie, another targeted firm, conveyed a shared anger at the “cowardly and despicable” decision made by Paul, Weiss and how high the stakes are for the legal community: “If the big firms had stuck together, I think we would have gotten through this. There’s strength in numbers. . . . But now what? Firms have to either pledge fealty to Trump or get destroyed?”
It doesn’t end with one concession—the tyrant keeps demanding more, and once you’ve signed on it’s hard to sign off. The New York Times described the “preemptive” offers by nine prominent firms as focusing on “largely uncontroversial causes,” until the Administration upped the ante: “after extracting those deals, the White House moved to consider even more intrusive terms, including enlisting them in legal fights to further Mr. Trump’s agenda.” Trump has gloated about these successful extortions: “They've given me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong.”
Other firms have pushed back and judges have struck down as unconstitutional the executive orders against Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale. “The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting,” asserted Judge Richard Leon, adding: “The Founding Fathers knew this!”
The website Above the Law is tracking the responses of law firms in what they call the Biglaw Spine Index, indicating who has capitulated, remained silent, or pushed back. Challenging petulant and unconstitutional demands is no guarantee of winning, but caving is a guarantee of losing—not just autonomy but also reputation, clients, and lawyers who resign in protest—and the harm goes beyond the individual firm.
Photo by Scott D. Bentley (Courtesy of the artist)
Any act of obedience teaches authoritarians what they can get away with. In the case of law firms, agreeing to outrageous conditions also means that the ability of potential clients to receive representation is hindered, and thanks to “pro bono” concessions, Trump now has a $1 billion war chest to support his anti-democratic agenda—even when/if he leaves office. Key advances in our imperfect democracy have been triggered by lawsuits, such as US v. Wong Kim Ark, Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges. Tying the hands of law firms undermines democracy.
These are terrible times with terrible choices before us. Prominent institutions are falling in line despite massive resources and power, so it’s no wonder individuals are struggling with how to make ethical choices in this landscape of fear and coercion. If universities with huge endowments are handing over autonomy, how can individual teachers and students navigate decisions like what books to teach or whether to attend a protest? When giant media companies cower, how can individual journalists continue to ask hard questions and write truthful stories? When Big Law runs scared, how can young lawyers looking for their first job make ethical choices in what kind of law they practice, in the service of whose interests?
Given that there are no frictionless options, we can and must prepare our resistance now.
Do not obey in advance. This is where we began. Anticipatory obedience emboldens authoritarians to demand more and does not guarantee protection. Some capitulate out of fear, and others out of a desire to enrich themselves. Whatever the motive, it’s not one discrete act of obedience—you will have to keep obeying. A tyrant keeps asking for more.
Know the risks and have a plan. Prepare for worst case scenarios. Have conversations about non-negotiables. Identify strategies, from phone trees that alert community members about ICE raids, to having lawyers on speed dial and legal briefs at the ready. Identify the most important elements of a positive path forward, and figure out how to pursue those goals, even if funding is cut or people get arrested.
Support those who do resist. Subscribe to independent news outlets that refuse to back down, support companies that have maintained diversity programs, and let people know why you are backing those with courage. Contribute to legal defense funds.
Build coalitions and act in solidarity. Corporations, colleges, and law firms may see each other as competitors but it’s clear they also have many reasons to forge alliances. Communities that might not usually work together—labor unions and immigrant rights groups for example—should find common ground in times like these. Fascism and other forms of authoritarianism aim to isolate, to divide and conquer, to make us feel we have to save ourselves while averting our eyes to the harm befalling others. German pastor and concentration camp survivor Martin Niemöller cautions us about complicity and compliance in his oft-quoted warning to act before it is too late. Fascism relies upon the construction of the Other—demonized enemies whom we blame for our troubles until we consent to their removal. We must inoculate ourselves against these methods and build alliances across differences before it’s too late.
In the struggle between compliance and resistance, Maria Ressa offers no guarantee of safety but provides this advice: “You have to decide the world you want to live in.”
About the Authors
Christina Hsu Accomando is a professor of English and Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California, and a founding member of the Eureka Chinatown Project. She is the editor of Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Intersectional Study (Macmillan, 2024).
Kristin J. Anderson is a social psychologist and professor at the University of Houston-Downtown. Her book, Benign Bigotry: The Psychology of Subtle Prejudice is in its second edition (Oxford, 2025).