Remember the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and all the attention that was focused on so-called “front-line workers”?

They risked their health and safety to provide groceries, deliver health care and keep the world working while the rest of us sheltered in place. In cities like New York, residents would signal their gratitude by cheering and banging pots and pans at 7 p.m. every night.

Today, there is a new category of front-line workers who, alas, are not receiving such acclaim. They are the judges who staff the nation's 94 federal district courts and risk their safety and reputations to stand up to the Trump administration.

Throughout American history, being a federal district judge has generally been a cushy gig, as well as a reward for supporting a winning presidential candidate. But in the Trump era, all that has changed.

The president regularly takes those judges to task in the harshest terms if they rule against him. And all over the country, federal district judges have received bomb threats and other alarming reprisals for their rulings.

Comparing them to the COVID-19 front-line workers is not just my flight of fancy. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, speaking at a judicial conference in........

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