Story highlights Julian Zelizer says the lesson for Democrats from the Sally Yates firing is that they have to do everything they can to oppose the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and to block Trump's agenda

(CNN) The resistance to President Trump's controversial ban on refugees is growing. What started at the grassroots level with spontaneous protests at airports and on city streets is now reaching into higher levels of government.

Frustrated with a President who seems to be running roughshod over American policy, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama appointee, announced she would not defend the order. Yates said she would refuse to put the power of the Department of Justice behind this measure in the courts. Human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties supporters were bolstered by her defiance.

Then Trump fired her by a hand-delivered letter, revealing the fragility of the opposition to this administration. Even with this blowup, it still does not seem that the Republican Senate, eager to secure this moment of unified government, will do anything to jeopardize Senator Jeff Sessions' confirmation as Attorney General. And from everything we know, Sessions will be much more than merely willing to enforce this order and anything else that comes from the Trump White House involving immigration and refugees in the coming years.

For the baby boom generation, the string of events brings back painful memories of the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973 when Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus refused to carry out President Richard Nixon's orders to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox who was investigating the Watergate scandal that ultimately forced Nixon from office. "Nixon discharges Cox for Defiance; Abolishes Watergate Task Force; Richardson and Ruckelshaus Out," read the headlines of The New York Times.

The flareup at the Justice Department reveals the high stakes for Democrats in the confirmation hearings. Until now, the Democrats have been remarkably passive as the Trump administration threw red meat to conservatives in Congress with appointees who promise to move forward with what is shaping up to be a radical agenda on domestic and national security policy.

Read More