From Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Big Tech to Republican members of Congress to universities to law firms, President Trump is using bullying intimidation tactics to get his way. His targets can push back or give in, but capitulation to a bully only brings more bullying.

Zelenskyy now agrees to what Trump offers (although that still won’t make Trump’s pal Vladimir Putin a peacemaker). Republicans line up to confirm his awful nominees and support his reckless policies. Silicon Valley billionaires bow down as Jeff Bezos changes the Washington Post opinion pages’ stances and Mark Zuckerberg ends Facebook’s and Instagram’s third-party factchecking.

Columbia University agrees to a series of demands from Trump, who is withholding federal money.

The big New York law firm Paul Weiss, targeted by executive action, bends the knee as Trump trashed former partner Mark Pomerantz and the firm pledges $40 million in pro bono services to support Trump-friendly initiatives.

Everyone acquiescing to Trump might think that these moves are safeguarding them, but that’s only true for now. He will demand more fealty, more demonstrations of loyalty. Be wary, as setting the precedent that compliance is something Trump can expect makes it more, not less, likely that he’ll go to the hilt.

This makes a terrible long-term strategy not only for these specific institutions but for everyone. Smaller nonprofits, businesses, schools, news organizations, think tanks and other planks of civil society are looking to these, our supposedly most revered and powerful institutions, as a model. If the nation’s most powerful institutions fold like a cheap suit, what hope is there for anyone else?

Other organizations have demonstrated what respect for democratic values and opposition to this power grab can look like. Perkins Coie, another law firm targeted by Trump, filed suit, correctly saying that an executive order meant to strip them of security clearances and prevent them from working with government contractors was “an affront to the Constitution.” A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, calling the move a “chilling harm of blizzard proportions across the legal profession.”

Perkins Coie and their own representation, Williams & Connolly, are doing what must be done to safeguard our way of life and system of government, even if it feels risky in the short term.

So are organizations like the Institute of Peace, a nonprofit entity established by Congress that came under the crosshairs of Elon Musk’s ruinous DOGE initiative. The independent organization rebuffed DOGE’s efforts to take over for days before Musk’s operatives returned with federal agents and forced their way in. Now the Institute of Peace is also suing, reasserting their rights even after this significant setback. Gov. Hochul has made the right call in refusing to shut off congestion pricing just because this has become an obsession of Trump’s.

We can’t be cavalier about the power of the federal government, especially one whose leader has apparently zero commitment to democratic values and the rule of law and which a captured Congress seems to have given up on checking and balancing. Trump can and will cause real disruptions for individuals and institutions inside and outside government. But the solution simply will not be to lay down and hope you can appease him sufficiently enough that he’ll get distracted and move on. The bully always comes back.

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