The Supreme Court Brought This on Themselves
That turn of events is also unsurprising. The president, like every abuser, is angrier about what he can’t do than happier about what he can do. Can he impose his beloved tariffs on anyone for any reason at all? No, says the Supreme Court. Can he fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors? No, says the Supreme Court. Can he send troops into American cities? No, says the Supreme Court. Can he rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause in Stephen Miller’s image? No, no, no, no.
Nor do these bit-by-bit rejections of Trumpism spur any goodwill or reassessment on the left. If anything, they only underscore how far to the right the court has moved. Yes, it’s true that Roberts’ sterling opinion in Trump v. Barbara upheld birthright citizenship. But it also exposed that only two conservative justices (Roberts and Barrett) would endorse the Citizenship Clause’s plain meaning without reservation. The high court’s ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump kneecapped Trump’s plans to levy tariffs without Congress’s assent. It also reaffirmed the long-standing suspicion that the major-questions doctrine exists only to sabotage Democratic presidents when only half of the conservatives would vote to use it against Trump. The president can fire any Senate-confirmed official in the executive branch, frustrating liberals who favor independent regulatory agencies, but can’t seize control of the Fed, enraging a president who probably wishes that he could install a big dial that says INTEREST RATES on the Resolute desk.
The Supreme Court is not an elected branch of government, obviously. The justices enjoy lifetime tenure, so they don’t have to worry about their approval ratings on a day-to-day basis. But they do have to keep an eye on it in the long run. The court’s role in our constitutional order depends on the assent and approval of the legislative and executive branches, which can wipe out much of the court’s power or simply ignore its ruling. Those branches are only kept in check, at least for now, by a deep cultural respect for the American judiciary that is older than the republic itself.
