You may have seen the headline Thursday that two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of fired government workers. This was, certainly, a defeat in court for President Trump and Elon Musk. But it was a lot more than that.

It was a royal spanking. One judge in particular shredded the administration’s arguments and humiliated the lawyer who was arguing the government’s case, all but openly calling her a liar. And it was something else too: a great example of the opposition working for the millions of people who are counting on it.

Let’s start with the sum and substance of the judges’ orders. Some 25,000 federal employees will be back at work Monday. One judge’s order covers the employees at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. The other covers those at Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the General Services Administration, the Small Business Administration, and USAID.

I’m not exactly sure which employees that leaves out. But the two injunctions leave in a hell of a lot of people, people despised and excoriated by Trump and Musk and idiots like Linda McMahon, who called her terminations at the Education Department "a humanitarian thing" and says she took care to keep "the good people." She has no business running this department—she once lied about having a bachelor’s degree in education. (Remember when that might have mattered to a few U.S. senators? Remember when a president wouldn’t even have nominated such a person?)

Join us for an exclusive livestream on Thursday, March 20, when TNR staff writer Grace Segers sits down with some of the women making waves in American politics today—U.S. Representative Sarah McBride, president and CEO of Democracy Forward Skye Perryman, and president of Reproductive Freedom for All Mini Timmaraju. The discussion will cover breaking barriers and ensuring all Americans’ voices are heard in the fight for our democratic and human rights. 

The judges’ rulings leave in the people McMahon heave-ho’ed. They leave in the people at the agency (USAID) Musk called a "criminal enterprise." They leave in everyone at the hated consumer protection bureau. They leave in everyone at the IRS (under the Treasury Department). All of them were unfairly mocked and marginalized, and all of them are back on the job.

Granted, these are temporary injunctions, which last just a couple weeks. We’ll have to see where it goes after that. But if the way the arguments unfolded Thursday is any indication, especially in Judge William Alsup’s San Francisco courtroom, the administration has a long way to go in making arguments the court will find credible.

Alsup more than once called the government’s arguments a "sham." At one point, he said to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland: "I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth." At another, observing that she had no witnesses testifying in support of her case, he said: "You will not bring the people here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so, because … it would reveal the truth. This is the U.S. District Court.… I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years, and I know how we get to the truth."

It was no picnic for the administration in the other courtroom, either. Judge James K. Bredar in Maryland quoted Musk’s line about moving fast and breaking things, saying: "Move fast? Fine. Break things? If that involves breaking the law, then that becomes problematic."

Complete repudiation. And it’s hardly in just these two courtrooms. Earlier this week, a third (!) federal appeals court ruled against the administration’s efforts to end birthright citizenship. And this week isn’t unusual. On February 25 alone, the administration lost three cases: on the attempted freezing of federal grants and loans, on the payment of foreign-aid-related money to government contractors, and on refugee admissions and funding.

Spank, spank, spank, spank, and spank. The law is kicking their asses. And it’s happening because a lot of people are standing up and making it happen. With respect to the cases heard by Alsup and Bredar, it’s Democratic state attorneys general who brought these suits.

When liberals take the measure of the opposition, they tend to zoom their mental camera in to a very narrow field of view. There’s a lot of complaining right now about Chuck Schumer’s decision to let the House GOP’s spending resolution have the eight Democratic votes it needs to pass the Senate.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Schumer made the wrong decision—a defensive and feeble decision of the sort I’ve seen Democrats make far too many times in my life. They’re always thinking of reasons why they shouldn’t throw caution to the wind and try something bold. Blocking the resolution would have carried risks, and yes; a shutdown might have resulted in even more harm to the American people. But rank-and-file Democrats are pretty tired of watching their party’s leaders mothball their fortitude like this.

The good news, though, is that the resistance isn’t limited to what happens in the halls of Congress. It’s in the hands of those attorneys general. It’s in the hands of governors (at least those who aren’t inviting Steve Bannon onto their podcasts). It’s in the hands of a range of nonprofit litigators who are in many cases, trust me, probably risking their funding and/or their 501(c)3 status, considering who’s in charge of the IRS.

And it’s in the hands of millions of people who are enraged. If you’re not watching Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC these days, you should. Every night, toward the beginning, she offers a sampling of that day’s protests and actions around the country—of which there are many all over the country, including in red states and towns. People are registering their shock and disgust at what’s going on.

Cast your gaze a little more widely. The resistance is, in fact, strong, and as the madness multiplies, it’s just going to get stronger.

Eventually, evidence becomes strong enough that even people who’d prefer to ignore it can’t. That’s what’s happening now, just in these last two weeks, with Trump and the economy. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the polls. He’s underwater by double digits on handling the economy; 57 percent find him to be erratic, etc. That "erratic" finding, interestingly, includes about a third of Republicans.

And overall, Trump is now down to the low 40s in approval. That’s a territory Joe Biden didn’t reach until the calamitous Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021. Trump has plummeted there in his seventh week. And it’s extremely unlikely that he’s headed back up. You’re even starting to hear the word "stagflation"—the 1970s cocktail of inflation, unemployment, and a lagging economy—being bandied about. And it’s a lot more believable today than when the term was lobbed at Joe Biden despite his administration’s gold-medal "soft landing," which Trump is now wrecking. Here was Moody’s Mark Zandi this week: "Directionally, it is stagflation. It’s higher inflation and weaker economic growth that is the result of policy—tariff policy and immigration policy."

Alongside the Zandis of the world, we are now also in the phase where we are being entertained by two different types of reality deniers. The first are the mainstream analysts whose brand is the kind of transpartisan optimism designed to show the world they’re not liberals. These people speculate about whether Trump can "change course." No, he cannot. I mean, to an extent—we have twice now seen him announce huge tariffs and then backtrack within 24 hours in the face of intense criticism and the markets breaking out in hives. But overall, he’s set in his ways and he thinks he knows more than anyone. There’s very little capacity for change written into that equation.

The second are the out-and-out apologists. I don’t watch much Fox News, but you don’t have to in order to see the current arc of the apologetics. Just follow your old high-school friends on Facebook who are MAGA today. You can be pretty sure that they’re repeating what they see on Fox.

So you see, for example, some boasting that egg prices are down in March. It’s true, they are. They’re still insanely high—higher than when Biden left office—but they’re down. However, Donald Trump didn’t bring them down. People stopped buying them. When demand went down, the price went down. Trump had nothing to do with it. Likewise, mortgage rates are down a smidge. They’re down because banks lower them when they’re worried about a possible downturn or recession. That’s not exactly good news.

The MAGA propaganda network insisted last year that Trump was a master of economic policy, even though he kept telling us the precise ways in which he was going to wreck the economy. It got just enough people to believe that he would magically reduce the price of everything on the shelves. Instead, he’s reducing the value of everyone’s life savings. And now, just in these last two weeks, the mood is changing. Independents are starting to peel away. It’s only a matter of time before a firm majority of Americans wrap their heads around reality—and maybe not much time, at that.

Last week’s quiz: The fifty-first state? With Canada so in the news, let’s give some renewed thought to our neighbors to the north.

1. How much larger is Canada than the United States?

A. About 2 percent larger

B. About 10 percent larger

C. About 20 percent larger

D. About 25 percent larger

Answer: A, just 2 percent larger. This shocked me. But I guess Alaska is pretty dern big. 

2. What is Canada’s population?

A. 27 million

B. 40 million

C. 53 million

D. 66 million

Answer: B, 40 million. It ranks thirty-eighth, just behind Yemen and just ahead of Poland.

3. Which of the following was not invented in Canada?

A. Insulin

B. The snow blower

C. The birth-control pill

D. The egg carton

Answer: C, the pill, which was invented, I guess, in the United States but was made possible because of a certain Mexican yam. Insulin was discovered by Frederick Banting and two colleagues at the University of Toronto. 

4. Match the capital city to its province.

Answer: Fredericton = New Brunswick, Charlottetown = PEI, Regina = Saskatchewan, Halifax = Nova Scotia

5. Match the famous Canadian to his or her hometown.

Answer: Mitchell = Fort Macleod, Myers = Scarborough, Howe = Floral, Atwood = Ottawa 

6. What is Canada’s favorite flavor of potato chip?

A. Poutine

B. Reindeer

C. Snow

D. Ketchup

Answer: D, ketchup. Not even close. All Dressed, you say? Bah. Tied for a distant third.

This week’s quiz: "May the road rise to meet you.…" With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, a quiz on Ireland, in fact and legend.

1. The legend is that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. Yes or no: Is Ireland, in point of scientific fact, snake-free?

2. By tradition, what is the leprechaun’s trade?

A. Tailor

B. Cobbler

C. Weaver

D. Wainwright

3. The four Irish Nobel literature laureates are William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Seamus Heaney, and:

A. James Joyce

B. Oscar Wilde

C. Brendan Behan

D. Samuel Beckett

4. In World War II, Ireland was:

A. With the Allies

B. With the Axis

C. Neutral

D. With the Axis until February 1944, when it switched to the Allies

5. Which of the following is not an Irish whiskey?

A. Tullamore D.E.W.

B. J&B

C. Jameson

D. Bushmills

6. In 2023, The Irish Independent polled Irish music critics and insiders to compile a list of the greatest Irish albums of all time. The winner was:

A. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless

B. U2, Achtung Baby

C. Van Morrison, Astral Weeks

D. Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

And there you go, a thousand years of history in six questions! Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com. 

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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