How the Supreme Court Navigated a Momentous Term With Trump
The president notched both sweeping wins and losses as the court’s conservative majority marched on.
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A conservative majority that still checks Trump when he overreaches is not a flaw, it is the Court doing its duty. The law is bigger than one man, and that matters now more than ever, especially after years of Trump treating institutions like they exist to flatter him.
It is a good thing to have a conservative majority on the Court that understands the Constitution. That's why President Trump got them there. The leftists have been trying to weaponize the courts against him for years and it's high time we had judges who actually follow the law instead of making it up as they go along. This is what we elected him to do.
Notched wins and losses is accurate and also kind of boring. The more interesting story is which wins held and which losses were actually losses versus strategic retreats on cases they didn't want to touch before midterms. The conservative majority is doing what majorities do, which is decide cases according to their legal philosophy. The WSJ framing of Trump "notching" things implies the court is running plays for him, which is the same logic liberals used to discredit Kagan and Sotomayor for years.
Six of those nine justices either clerked for, were nominated by, or were personally handed to Trump by the Federalist Society pipeline. The "legal philosophy" is the politics. You can dress it up in neutral language but Thomas, Alito, and the rest are not above the fray, they ARE the fray. Comparing that to Kagan and Sotomayor is the kind of false equivalence that keeps people confused about who is actually pulling the levers. When a court built by one political project consistently delivers for that political project, what exactly are we supposed to call it?
Me MAGA Me Big Brain!!
Kagan and Sotomayor ALSO pick by political project!! Obama pick them!! You think he look for neutral judge?? NO!! He pick LEFT judge!! Every president do this!!
Federalist Society teach CONSTITUTION!! Original meaning!! Not make up new rights!! This not political!! This CORRECT reading!!
When court say Constitution mean what it say, you cry "political"!! But when court make up abortion right from nothing, THAT not political to you?? Me see the trick!!
Thomas and Alito read old document and follow it!! Kagan and Sotomayor read old document and make it say what CNN want!! Who REALLY pulling lever?!
What in tarnation are you talkin like a caveman for, speak English son cause you got a good point buried in all that grunt talk and nobody can hear it.
The conservative majority "marching on" is WSJ's way of saying six justices who weren't elected by anyone are quietly doing what the Republican platform couldn't get through Congress. "Wins and losses" makes it sound like a tennis match when what we're actually watching is a constitutional court that shields a convicted felon from prosecution while systematically dismantling every guardrail voters thought they had. The Journal approves, obviously, because the court's wins tend to be the kind that help corporations and the court's losses are ones they'll revisit next term.
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Wins and losses is about right but the framing undersells what actually happened. The court held the line on executive power, on religious liberty, on the administrative state. Those are not small things. Every business owner I know who has spent years drowning in agency rulemakings nobody voted for cares more about those structural wins than whatever Twitter is screaming about this week.
The losses sting, no question. But a conservative majority that keeps chipping away at the regulatory apparatus that has strangled small business for thirty years is doing something real. I did not build my company from nothing to watch unelected administrators run the whole country from cubicles in DC.
Trump won the ones that mattered for anyone who actually has skin in the game. The commentators losing their minds are the same ones who have never signed the front of a paycheck.
"Anyone who has skin in the game" and "signed the front of a paycheck" as if workers don't also have skin in the game. As if my parents, who worked thirty years in jobs that would have been far more dangerous without OSHA, didn't have skin in the game. The regulatory apparatus you hate so much is also the thing that keeps your employees from breathing asbestos.
The "unelected administrators" framing always conveniently skips over the part where Congress delegated that authority, where those agencies have public comment periods, where there are actual courts reviewing their rules. What you want is for business owners to be the only check on themselves, which, no thank you, we tried that, it was called the Gilded Age.
And "chipping away at the regulatory apparatus" sounds a lot better than what it actually is: making it harder for workers to sue when they get hurt, harder for the EPA to respond to new pollutants, harder for any future administration to do anything without going back to Congress for permission every single time. That benefits large corporations way more than your small business, by the way. They have the lawyers. You don't.
Trump won the ones that mattered for people at the top. That is not the same group as people who have skin in the game.