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The Federal Courts Will Not Stop Trump [1]
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Date: 2025-02-06
I’m not talking about the Supreme Court, even though it’s largely in Trump’s pocket. Most federal cases never get there; the appellate level decision is usually final. I’m talking about the whole attitude Trump has always taken toward the law, which he is now openly flaunting: obeying the law is for losers.
This was brought out in a NYT dialogue this morning with Binyamin Appelbaum: Trump Is Failing the Marshmallow Test. Again.
[Appelbaum] I’ve watched with sort of bleak fascination this basic faith many Democrats seem to have that if the right lawsuit is filed, this will all stop. There’s just this real conviction in the Democratic Party that the necessary response here is to go to court and to find a judge who will tell Trump to stop doing these things.
This won’t work, he says. One reason is time:
On the most basic level, just because the courts move more slowly than the Trump administration, and once things are broken they’re hard to put back together.
But there is a more dangerous reason:
[Trump] doesn’t accept the idea that there are rules that are binding, irrespective of whether you have the power to break them. In his view, the power to break a rule is justification for doing it.
We saw this in his years as a developer in New York; we saw it in the 2016 campaign when he brushed off Hillary’s observations about his contempt for law by saying it was what “makes me smart.” And all this was before his Supreme Court lackeys gave him immunity for just about anything, all this before he made it clear that anyone committing crimes on his behalf could expect a pardon.
Actually, it won’t even get that far. Prosecutions for federal crimes are brought by the Department of Justice, and Trump has just weaponized DOJ not just to go after his political enemies, but to protect his political lackeys. (See my earlier diary, US Attorney in DC Threatens Anyone Who Challenges Musk - and also Threatens Senators.)
Plus, Trump has already dropped signals he will ignore the courts. Trump's Justice Dept. indicates he's 'ready to ignore the court' in new filing: expert. Also this: Trump could ignore TikTok ban, solicitor general suggests.
One potential counter is to use the state courts. The reason I suggest this route is that state court decisions are enforced by state law enforcement officials, not the feds. Yes, the feds have more firepower, but an open clash can and should be used as messaging to the country just how out of control Trump has become. Another is more protests, and especially a resolve by Democrats not to cooperate any more with this lawless administration and its Congressional and judicial enablers.
A thought along those lines from Karen Tamulty in WaPo: The Constitution is collapsing. A lack of character is to blame.
Not so long ago, there were still figures in Congress who might have tried to stop all of this. . . . Those statesmen of an earlier era, all Republicans, recognized the reason that the Constitution’s authors focused its first article on defining and elevating the role of Congress.
But now
Trump is getting not even a whisper of pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill. . . . “We’re getting a pretty intense lesson in how much our constitutional order depended on people’s character,” McCain’s former chief of staff Mark Salter told me. “Donald Trump is a character test that Republicans, almost to a person, have failed.”
It’s up to Congressional Democrats, as well as the press and the people in the streets, to show the country what true character looks like. Minority leader Schumer — finally — made a start in this direction yesterday: Schumer Urged Democrats to Oppose Trump Nominees in Protest of His Policies. Yes, he should have done it a lot sooner, but let’s not chastise him for coming late; let’s support him and urge him on.
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