When Leaders Attack Judges as "Enemies": The Global Authoritarian Playbook—and How to Stop It

From Erdoğan to Trump, strongmen follow the same script—and mass mobilization offers a path to resist.

Following a string of legal setbacks from judges across the ideological spectrum, President Trump has ramped up the rhetoric painting judges as "USA HATING JUDGES," as “communist radical-left judges”, as enemies of the people. When Donald Trump unleashes these verbal assaults, it is tempting to dismiss them as just another piece of inflammatory bluster, perhaps fueled by unfavorable court rulings. But these outbursts follow a well-worn script from the authoritarian playbook, consistently used by strongmen worldwide —a deliberate strategy to delegitimize and ultimately control any judicial body that dares to stand in their way.

The good news? Other countries haven't just shown us the danger—they've shown us the best ways to fight back. The bad news? They've also shown us what happens when we wait too long.

The Script Is Always the Same

When Turkey's Constitutional Court dared to order the release of imprisoned journalists in 2016, President Erdoğan didn't mince words: "I don't obey or respect the decision." He simply declared his nation's highest court irrelevant. Then came the failed coup attempt in July 2016, which Erdoğan used as a pretext to accelerate his judicial purge. What followed was devastating: over 4,000 judges and prosecutors were dismissed, arrested, or forced to flee. The fledgling protest movement was undercut, the opposition set back years, and only recently has it begun regaining strength.

The Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte was even more direct. When Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno defended judicial independence during his brutal drug war, Duterte's response was defiant: "I am now your enemy, and you have to be out of the Supreme Court." She was removed shortly after. When a leader brands the nation's top judge an "enemy," the endgame is rarely subtle.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, facing corruption investigations in 2021, issued a barely veiled threat to his Supreme Court. If they didn't rein in Justice Alexandre de Moraes, he warned, "the justice system can suffer something we don't want to happen." A sitting president openly threatening violence against judges. The pattern holds across continents and political systems.

Even Italy's Silvio Berlusconi pioneered these tactics decades ago. When courts struck down his immunity law in 2009, he ranted about "communist prosecutors and communist judges" who were "out to destroy him." If anyone proves how unoriginal authoritarian tactics are, it's the repetitive nature of these attacks. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Hungary's Viktor Orbán, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez—they all read from the same script.

The Authoritarian Playbook

The pattern is frustratingly predictable:

1. A court rules against the leader

2. The leader attacks judges personally—calling them biased, corrupt, or "enemies"

3. They work to delegitimize the entire judicial system

4. This creates permission for supporters to threaten and intimidate judges

5. If there is no or insufficient mass resistance → They capture the courts

6. If there’s sustained, broad resistance → They're forced to pause or retreat

What makes Trump's rhetoric so dangerous? Because the escalation is already visible. We're seeing calls for their impeachment based on flimsy pretexts, doxxing of judges, the outright intimidation, the vile death threats that endanger not just the judges but their families. We even hear whispers about replacing civilian courts with military tribunals. This isn't a drill.

Mass Protests Are Effective: But intensity And Timing are Important

In 2023, when Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government pushed to gut judicial independence, something remarkable happened. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis poured into the streets immediately, week after week. But this wasn't just the usual suspects. Tech workers left their offices. Military reservists—including elite unit commanders—declared they wouldn't serve under a dictatorship. Doctors staged walkouts. Even former Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs joined the protests.

Crucially, this wasn't an opposition party rally. Grassroots groups like Kaplan Force, the Israeli Bar Association, university rectors, and ordinary citizens led the charge. They deliberately kept it nonpartisan, framing it as defending democracy itself, not a left-versus-right battle. That's why conservative military officers stood alongside progressive tech workers.

The turning point came when the Histadrut—Israel's powerful labor federation—joined with a general strike. Airports shut down. Banks closed. The economy ground to a halt. Netanyahu was forced to pause his judicial overhaul.

But perhaps the more instructive example for the US is Poland. When the Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in 2015, they executed a masterclass in judicial capture that should resonate with anyone watching Trump's rhetoric today.

First, they went after the Constitutional Tribunal, refusing to publish unfavorable rulings and packing it with loyalists. Then they took over the National Council of the Judiciary—the body that appoints judges. They created a disciplinary chamber to punish judges who spoke out. State media branded dissenting judges as "postcommunist elites" and traitors. One judge, Igor Tuleya, reported being called "whore" and "traitor" on the streets after government attacks.

The Polish people didn't take this lying down. Tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, took to the streets repeatedly from 2017 to 2023. Protests erupted in over 100 cities and towns. International judges flew in to show solidarity. "We judges must not be afraid," declared Judge Pawel Juszczyszyn at one protest. "Without free courts there are no free citizens."

But, unfortunately, it wasn't enough. By 2018, PiS had complete control over the Constitutional Tribunal and the body that appoints judges. Over eight years, they appointed 3,000 new judges through their captured institutions. Even after PiS lost power in 2023, the new government finds it nearly impossible to undo the damage. As Judge Tuleya now says, "defending the rule of law is easier than rebuilding it.”

The Lesson: Immediate, Broad Coalitions Work

Compare Israel’s response to Poland's:

In Israel, the mobilization was immediate, massive, economically disruptive, and crucially, it united people across political, economic, and social lines. In Poland, despite heroic efforts by judges and citizens, the protests came too late and never achieved the breadth or economic impact needed to stop the takeover.

The truth is that mass protests are no guarantee of success. But without mass protests in Poland, the situation would likely have deteriorated further and faster.

Research by Erica Chenoweth at Harvard University has shown that nonviolent mass mobilization is a powerful force for change. Her work famously explored the "3.5% rule," a descriptive statistic indicating that historically, few governments have withstood a challenge of 3.5% of their population mobilized against it during a peak event. Chenoweth emphasizes this is a historical tendency, not an iron law. Indeed, most successful nonviolent campaigns achieved their goals even without reaching 3.5% popular participation.

More recent work by Chenoweth and Margherita Belgioioso introduces the concept of "movement momentum," suggesting that the disruptive capacity increases as movements gain momentum, which is a function of participation (mass) and the number of protest events (velocity). This means movements can potentially compensate for lower participation by concentrating their activities in time. Their broader findings underscore that organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability are likely as important as large-scale participation itself.

Of the two cases, Poland seems more instructive for the US. America has already seen a partisan takeover of the Supreme Court and lacks a labor union with the centralized power of Israel's Histadrut. While the US has witnessed massive single-day mobilizations—like the Women's March in 2017, which drew 1-1.6% of the population—these lack the sustained velocity and economic disruption that Chenoweth's research identifies as crucial. This makes the Polish experience a particularly salient warning.

While success is never certain, the probability of success for a protest that doesn't happen is unequivocally zero.

The Path Forward

So when we hear Trump's rhetoric about "USA HATING JUDGES" and see the escalating threats against our judiciary, the question isn't whether this is dangerous—history has already answered that. The question is: will we mobilize in time, or will we become another Poland?

The roadmap is clear:

• ACT IMMEDIATELY—don't wait for the first purges. Poland shows us that once judges start being removed, it's almost too late

• BUILD broad coalitions—this isn't about party politics. When lawyers, tech workers, veterans, and business leaders unite, power listens

• PREPARE for economic action—protests matter, but general strikes change the game

• FRAME it correctly—this isn't left versus right; it's democracy versus authoritarianism

None of this is easy. Protecting democratic institutions rarely is. But history shows us both paths clearly. Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence\ did so because civil society failed to unite quickly and forcefully enough. When mass protests defended courts, because people recognized the threat early and acted decisively. they were also defending democracy.

When leaders start labeling judges as "enemies" and "USA haters," they're reading from a very old, very dangerous script. The question isn't whether Trump's attacks threaten democracy. It's whether we'll mobilize before it's too late. Because democracy, as it turns out, is a verb.