Election results have been announced: Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States.

Trump’s victory came after a campaign in which he repeatedly targeted immigrants, transgender youth and other vulnerable communities with hateful rhetoric. He also threatened reprisals against dissidents and political opponents.

I know many of us fear what these consequences mean for our communities, our nation, and ourselves. We know that a second Trump administration will be much more aggressive and effective than the previous one because Trump has said this over and over again.

As stated in Project 2025Under a second Trump administration, our federal government will deport immigrants with crackdowns, target political opponents, spy on private citizens, encourage discrimination against marginalized communities, and control what we can and cannot do with our bodies. This dystopian view of American life threatens our fundamental freedoms. We know from previous experience that our fear is real.

We also know this Despair and resignation is not a strategy. At the ACLU, we choose to turn our fear into action. Together, we are strong enough to change the course of our nation’s history and defend our most fundamental rights and freedoms. That’s why the ACLU has a concrete plan to fight. When President-elect Trump comes for our communities, he has to transcend all of us.

During Trump’s first term, the ACLU filed 434 legal challenges against Trump’s administration, successfully blocking some of his most egregious policies, such as the Muslim ban and separating immigrant families. As Trump sets his sights on the White House once again, ACLU’s legal and advocacy experts We prepared a road map to directly challenge his administration. On day one, we are ready to:

Once the 119th Congress is sworn in, we will call on our members to use their constitutional authority to provide oversight, investigate corruption, and reject restrictive executive branch policies. We will work with a legislator at the state level. firewall for freedom and pass laws that protect people from government abuse. We seek to educate people in our communities about what is at risk, what will happen next, and how we can fight together for our freedoms.

This is my sixth presidential election as executive director of the ACLU, and there is no doubt in my mind that our organization is best equipped to meet this moment. We have more than a century of experience fighting political oppression, we have some of the nation’s best legal and political advocates, we have a nationwide network of ACLU members, and we have you all.

The Trump administration’s anti-freedom and fundamentally anti-American policies will be met with the full firepower of the ACLU, the strength of our allies, and the determination of the American people. First of all, this gives me hope. The next four years will be challenging, but we are ready to fight the fight of the century. You can trust this.