An Andrew Jackson moment

Trump is now openly defying the Supreme Court... and calling them traitors while he's at it

Trump’s press conference following the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the tariffs he’s imposed was, unsurprisingly, a mess. It’s long been clear that he just makes stuff up on the spot and that he doesn’t really understand what tariffs are. Yet reporters have to go through a whole charade pretending that his words matter. But as I saw it, there were two main takeaways:

Trump is openly defying the Court

He has waded into this territory previously, in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, with SNAP benefits, and other areas, but usually when he defies a court it’s a matter of slow-walking compliance. Not today. The administration is saying it’s going to work around the Court’s ruling and impose basically identical tariffs by fiat using other laws, and Trump said he’s going to tack on an additional 10% global tariff under a 1974 law.

The thrust of the Court’s ruling is that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 did not empower the President to impose tariffs, and, more generally, that Congress has not delegated its tariff authority, as clearly delineated in Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution, to the presidency. Andrew Jackson is often quoted as saying, in response to a Supreme Court ruling on Native American sovereignty, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Trump is now pursuing the same cavalier approach, undermining constitutional rule.

Trump is calling members of the Court disloyal Americans

Many presidents have criticized the Supreme Court, some quite harshly, but today Trump described them as “very unpatriotic and disloyal to the Constitution.” He added, several times, that he believed Court members who ruled against the tariffs were “swayed by foreign interests.”

This, of course, is not exactly new for him, as he’s described Democrats in Congress as disloyal and seditious, even calling for them to be tried and executed.

A key thing to remember here, as I’ve written on previously, is that Trump simply does not view the rule of law or the Constitution as neutral entities that deserve respect and adherence. They are tools to be used by whomever is in power. Similarly, he does not view his own interests as at all separate from those of the United States. Anything that is bad for him is bad for the country, and anyone who is disloyal to him is thus disloyal to the country and a traitor.

I don’t need to tell you how dangerous that is. On one level, it simply delegitimates checks and balances and the basic underpinnings of our constitutional democracy. On another, it dehumanizes his critics, even those in positions of substantial public trust. We’ve seen what happens when Trump declares a governmental process illegitimate. His actions today corrode democracy and make political violence more likely.