It’s no surprise that an expanding group of federal district judges, appointed by presidents of both parties, are systematically blocking President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s power grabs. This is, after all, how the system works.
Yet Trump’s advisors are outraged. “If a district court judge wants control over the entire executive branch…he should run for president,” Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller tweeted Tuesday.
For those of us who lived through the reigns of Judges Matthew Kacsmaryk and Reed O’Connor (so, like, we who were alive six months ago), this is a surprising turn of events.
The Kacsmaryks and O’Connors thwarted the Biden administration constantly, and on much hackier grounds than the bipartisan swath of judges are acting on now. The resulting epidemic of right-wing litigants challenging federal government actions in the random corners of Texas under the control of these friendly judges grew to such proportions that both congressional Democrats and the administrative bodies of the courts halfheartedly gestured in the direction of doing something to fix it.
Republicans, though, were just fine with the blatant gaming of the court system. At worst, the amenable district judge would get overturned months down the line; they still got sand thrown in the Biden administration’s gears in the meantime.
In a stunning turn of events, it turns out Miller et al. don’t at all like being on the other end of this dynamic.
But like much in the Trump era, the administration is going to such extremes that pointing out the hypocrisy almost feels beside the point. Miller’s grousing takes on a darker patina when contextualized in the reality that Trump and his cohort are actively softening the ground to ignore a court order — which would spark a full-blown constitutional crisis.
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Um, no: it simply confirms the core principle that there is an in-group that laws are meant to protect and not bind while binding and not protecting others; this is consistent. Insisting judges get the unbound in-group right is the trick.
ETA: there is only one principle essential to democracy and that is laws effect all equally; so goes that principle, so goes democracy, which is why oligarchs and tyrants strive to reverse it.
Judge orders FBI to release some information in Trump documents case
His immunity does not protect him this time.
Rolling corruption, rolling coup, rolling authoritarianism. Some headlines suggest we are on the verge of a Constitutional crisis. Verge? We are already deeply in a crisis!
“If a district court judge wants control over the entire executive branch…he should run for president,” Deputy Chief of Staff for
PolicyAryan White Supremacy Stephen Miller tweeted Tuesday.FIFY
Stephen Miller should be required to sit in a large tub of roaches on a regular basis to make his exterior more like his soul.