It’s no secret that public confidence in some of America’s leading institutions — Congress, the federal government, the news media, higher education — has been slipping over the years. What is striking about the early days of the second Trump administration is that some of those same institutions seem to have lost faith in themselves. Which raises the question of why the American people should believe in institutions that no longer believe in their own values.

We need not dwell long on Congress. According to a Pew Research Center survey published last fall, seven out of 10 Americans hold an unfavorable view of the legislative branch. Justly so. Its abject surrender of the constitutional power of the purse and its oversight responsibilities has left the country with effectively only two branches of government — the executive and the judicial, which are increasingly at odds.

This dereliction of duty is largely the work of the Republican majorities that control both the House and the Senate. But when Senate Democrats had a chance to apply the brakes to Trump’s destructive juggernaut by forcing a government shutdown, enough of them instead rolled over and played dead at the behest of their leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, to help pass a Republican spending bill. (Maybe they really are dead, not just pretending.) With notable exceptions, many members of Congress betray a shocking lack of respect for the institution’s prerogatives.

More puzzling is the case of big business. Steven Rattner, a former financial journalist who now runs a major investment firm, took the temperature of his contacts for a New York Times essay last month headlined, “What Big Business Leaders — Including Democrats — Say Privately About Trump.” Rattner found them “quietly cheering his move-fast-and-break-things approach.” Although some mentioned an unfavorable regulatory climate under Joe Biden (despite the economic gains on his watch), their main beef seems to be that Biden was not sufficiently deferential to the (big) business community and didn’t appoint corporate executives to key positions in government, as Trump has. (Business people yearn not only to be rich but also to bask in public esteem.)

OK, but . . . . What about tariffs? Free trade in a global economy has been the lodestar of big business, on the belief that it leads to widespread prosperity that lifts all boats. And as far as breaking things goes, business people have long sworn that they can adapt to anything except uncertainty, which Trump is seeking to trademark. More abstractly, the rule of law, now under siege, has rightly been regarded as the prerequisite to the operation of efficient and fair markets under capitalism.

And what about prestigious law firms? When Trump issued a blatantly unconstitutional executive order threatening big law firms with sanctions for filing “frivolous” lawsuits (that is, representing clients the president doesn’t like), a few came to heel like obedient puppies instead of vigilant watchdogs. Instead of fighting, Paul, Weiss agreed to steer $40 million of free legal work to causes Trump supports. The price of capitulation rose to $100 million for Skadden, Arps, and Milbank.

To be sure, other firms that were targeted filed suit to enjoin the executive order on constitutional grounds, with support from other firms not directly at risk. But given that this order clearly violates the First Amendment, overthrows due process and threatens the constitutional right to counsel, why did not the legal profession present a united front? Probably for fear of losing business. For partners in elite firms who earn millions each year, that prospect apparently was worse than acquiescing in undermining the rule of law. We conclude that the frivolous suits are not those filed on behalf of unpopular clients, but those who populate the upper echelons of some major law firms.

Appalling as that all is, it pales in comparison with the groveling with which elite educational institutions have met Trump’s threat to cut off funding. Columbia, for instance, acceded to almost every demand the administration made after it lost $400 million in federal funding.

Appeasement is one way that colleges have adapted. Willing collaboration is another. Dartmouth hired as its general counsel Matt Raymer, a Trump ally and former top lawyer at the Republican National Committee. His contribution to academic discourse is an op-ed supporting an end to birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment and which Trump is trying to abolish.

What’s missing is a ringing defense of academic freedom and free speech, and institutional support for dissenting students. To the extent that elite universities have become organizations largely dedicated to perpetuating their obscenely rich endowments, that’s understandable. But still shameful.

Moral courage seems to be in short supply among those who could most effectively summon it — the leaders of powerful institutions — even as time is running out on American democracy.