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The Rockies could collapse and Gibraltar could roll. But if Donald Trump obeys the court, the U.S. Republic will stand. The American system is designed to accommodate almost anything except for almost all de facto monarchy. Whether the U.S. president wants to make the judiciary irrelevant is the key to the fate of the Republic. Is Trump going to conduct a small experiment?
To some extent, he is already. Last month, a U.S. court blocked Trump’s blanket freeze on federal spending. Trump only partially complies. On his first day, he almost tore up last week’s Supreme Court ruling, which insisted on Congress’s ban on Tiktok. His vice president JD Vance and his chief operating officer Elon Musk both openly challenged the court’s writ. Musk even called on the impeachment judge, who denied his minions using the federal payment system.
This threat might be ignored if it weren’t for their inevitability. They will definitely get bigger and bigger. Although Trump has been in office for more than three weeks, he has not paid Congress yet. Some observers compared Trump’s range of action to Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days or Lyndon Johnson’s big social agenda. They lack focus. The FDR and LBJ issued major legislation to Congress. Trump starts with the pipeline of executing orders. If the court hinders those, they will block his agenda. His strategy depends on a huge judiciary.
Trump has two ways to enforce what legal scholars Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith call “radical constitutionalism.” First of all, it scares courts acquiesced. If the judge thinks Trump is ready to call up the judiciary’s bluff, it is in their interest to pretend that he is just acting because he allows him. Instead of obeying the court, they politely got rid of his way. In this way, they will at least retain the fiction that becomes an independent branch of the government. Another option is Trump’s daring courts to enforce its confrontational ruling. Vance and Musk are both working to summon the judge’s time. The same goes for Russell Vourch, head of the Trump Office of Management and Budget and lead author of the infamous 2025 project.
A fair bet is that Trump wants the judiciary to disarm. But he is also ready to play Russian roulette. He believes that American voters have given him unrestricted tasks. Therefore, any intervention in his exercise of power—including Alice’s style belief that the American Constitution means his choice—is equal to the obstacles to democracy. Can he put 30,000 illegal immigrants in the modified Guantanamo Bay? certainly. The American people speak. Which creditors he might choose to repay and declare fraudulent creditors? Very likely. Trump, not a judge, will be the decision-maker.
Until recently, Trump people were eager to remind critics that the United States has been a republic rather than a democracy. The line moved 180 degrees. New, antique furniture in the Republic is hampering Trump’s democratic mandate. The Republican-controlled Congress has evacuated from Trump’s path. Unelected judges are the problem. Among them are nine judges from the U.S. Supreme Court. This is their inbox, and this dilemma is on the trend. Threats are the reason for their existence.
Turkey is allegedly against Thanksgiving. However, in July last year, the Supreme Court granted the U.S. president immunity for almost all “official” actions. It is hardly imagined that this may ignore the court. Six judges named themselves the ruling and may now regret their loose wording. They could have edited themselves into a consulting agency. The problem facing the court is that there is a strong wind on Trump’s back. Constitutional lawyers warn that he can destroy the separation of power in the United States. But Trump received 53% of CBS-Yougov approval rates last week were the highest he has ever seen.
In addition to bad poll ratings, Democrats are slowly blending their behavior. For reasons he is best known, Joe Biden boasted last year that continued to forgive student debt even after the Supreme Court ruled against it. Both Biden and Barack Obama resort to execution of orders to get around the deadlock. The difference is that Trump can push most of what he wants through Congress. He hasn’t tried it yet to be a feature of his rules, not a mistake.
edward.luce@ft.com
