The Dictatorship
Trump taps an enemy of voting rights to lead the DOJ’s civil rights division
Donald Trump’s pick of far-right lawyer Harmeet Dhillon for a top post at the Justice Department leaves little doubt about his intent to use the department to undermine democracy during his second term.
On Monday, Trump announced that he had selected the MAGA-aligned lawyer to be the assistant attorney general for civil rights. If Dillon is confirmed by the Senate, the DOJ division responsible for defending Americans’ most precious rights — including, importantly, the right to vote — would be led by someone who has supported trampling on those very rights.
Over the past couple of years here on The ReidOut Blog, I’ve been reporting on Dhillon as a key player in MAGA world’s vision for “lawfare” — that is, weaponization of the law against one’s political enemies. In 2020, Dhillon co-chaired the group Lawyers for Trump, and she and her law firm have arguably been as rabid as anyone in attacking Americans’ voting rights and pushing bogus claims that Trump was cheated out of a victory four years ago.
Dhillon is a peddler of the conservative movement’s “anti-woke” propaganda that seeks to marginalize racial and ethnic minorities and demonize LGBTQ people.
Dhillon also launched a failed insurgent bid to oust Ronna McDaniel as chair of the Republican National Committee back in 2022. This bid was supported by far-right activists like Charlie Kirk, who has openly railed against the Civil Rights Actwhich prohibits discrimination against marginalized groups. Dhillon’s main argument was that Republicans needed to invest in a larger army of lawyers to help conservatives carry out their lawfare dreams and restrict Americans’ access to the ballot. Dhillon is a peddler of the conservative movement’s “anti-woke” propaganda that seeks to marginalize racial and ethnic minorities and demonize LGBTQ people.
Put plainly: She is just about the worst person imaginable to have in a position tasked with defending democracy and stemming real oppression.
But Trump has already made clear he wants to upend the concept of civil rights. He has said he expects his administration to attack diversity efforts and prioritize rooting out anti-white discrimination (which hasn’t actually been shown to exist in any systemic way). Dhillon’s résumé and rhetoric suggest she’s up to the task.
Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”