The Supreme Court just granted Trump’s request to limit and narrow injunctions that were blocking his birthright citizenship executive order. How will this affect our country?
NATIONAL INJUNCTIONS HAVE BEEN FRUSTRATING BOTH PARTIES
The 6-3 decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett says: Federal district judges “lack authority” to issue “universal injunctions,” District court judges across the country for decades have been issuing injunctions that apply across our country and act as a limit the power of a president at least until the Supreme Court gets to weigh in on the issue.
It is true that in the past, whichever party was in power and issued a game changing EO could expect the party that was out of power to shop around for a friendly judge who would be a sure bet to issue an injunction that would stop that executive order from being implemented across the country. Americans have gotten frustrated with this kind of gamesmanship which limits change. Government has seemed to be in a state of perpetual stalemate. Biden actually did get bipartisan legislation done that was hugely impactful but the lag time in implementation meant that Americans did not feel the effects fast enough to make a difference in their lives and their votes in 2024. Trump looks good to many Americans because he seems to be the first guy to break through the endless stalemate that has become synonymous with ineffective government.
When the Dems were in power national injunctions from rightwing judges in Texas, for example, bedeviled the president and curtailed HIS executive orders just as they have been frustrating Trump in his second term. Trump, however, far more than any other past president, has been trying to rule by executive order rather than engaging in the kind of bipartisan legislation that requires compromise and is the hallmark of a healthy democracy. Injunctions that have stopped or limited his unconstitutional impulses have been one of the most effective tools of the opposition. They have frustrated Trump’s shock and awe campaign to kill our democracy and move us rapidly into autocracy.
WHAT TRUMP HAS DONE THAT IS DIFFERENT TO INSURE HE IS DICTATOR-IN-CHIEF
Trump has been aggressively and relentlessly testing and enlarging the scope of presidential power in ways that violate precedent and blow-up norms. Because of his violation of rules, laws and norms, Trump has also, totally predictably!! invited lawsuits designed to stop him or limit his overreach. This is because much of what he is ordering is patently unconstitutional, illegal and/or undemocratic. Federal district court judges have been ruling at a relatively fast clip (for normally slow-as-molasses courts) that Trump’s actions are very probably unconstitutional and issuing injunctions that apply all across the country. This has frustrated Trump and Stephen Miller and the rest of the evil empire that is trying to break down our civil rights one step at a time, starting with immigrants.
WHAT THE OPPOSITION HAD BEEN DOING TO STOP OR SLOW HIM DOWN
Sweeping injunctions have blocked many of Trump’s second-term initiatives, not just his executive order on birthright citizenship. Rounding up US citizens who look Hispanic, beating them up, locking them up while they try to prove they are really US citizens, and expelling them to gulags to die in foreign countries- some without due process, is unconstitutional and illegal, just for starters. (Trump said he would only round up the criminals. Only 11% of the people being deported have any criminal record.) Sending national troops to LA when the governor of the state is not even consulted is another norm buster. I could go on. And on. And on. Because Trump and his team are moving fast and throwing everything at the wall to see what will stick. The injunction was an important tool in the opposition toolbox that maintained the status quo and stopped Trump’s EOs from creating more chaos and crazy in our country.
WHAT THE SUPREME COURT JUST DID TO HELP TRUMP
What the Supreme Court just did, however, was unleash Trump. They gave Trump a gigantic green light to issue more norm busting, law crushing, rights wrecking executive orders that federal district courts will struggle or be unable to stop or slow down across the country.
Why? How?
Thanks to this decision an injunction against a challenged policy will apply only to the individuals or organizations who sued. For everyone else, the policy can be implemented (across the rest of the country) even if a district judge believes it’s illegal.
LIMITING NATIONAL INJUNCTIONS EXPANDS BOTH PRESIDENTIAL AND SUPREME COURT POWER
By now it is very clear to anyone paying attention, and not in the rightwing alternate universe information bubble, that Trump and the MAGA Republicans have abandoned democracy for autocracy and are doing so with the help of the richest guys in the world and this Supreme Court.
The rightwing pre-gamed and pre-rigged and is still rigging the system to get what they want, which is to move this country further to the extreme right with an entrenched dictator at the helm. To that end they want to purge of Hispanics and other voters who are likely to vote for the Dems, destroy our education system and purge educated people from power (dumb people are more malleable), and eliminate the safety net for struggling and disadvantaged Americans. The Supreme Court is on their side thanks to Mitch McConnell, Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society who stocked the Court with judges who buy the idea of what they call a unitary executive (which is really a dictator). In this decision and in the immunity decision giving Trump the power to commit crimes without consequences, the Supreme Court has weighed in on the side of the insurrection against our democracy. This ruling about injunctions bestowed more power on the president to act without worrying about restraint. The Court also made themselves the arbiter of what is constitutional or not, eliminating the district level judges.
In short, this Supreme Court just gave mad king Donald MORE immediate and unstoppable power to blow up and deconstruct our democracy and rule of law with fewer limits or challenges in the opposition toolbox that could be used to either slow down or stop him from doing massive damage and doing it much faster.
It’s interesting that the Court suddenly discovered that nationwide injunctions “lack authority” because this Court had the chance to make that determination when Biden was our president and somehow, they didn’t do it then. Hmm…I wonder why.
JUSTICES SOTOMAYOR, JACKSON AND KAGAN ARE WARNING US ABOUT WHAT’S AHEAD
Justice Sotomayor read her entire dissent in Court. Here are key passages:
“This Court endorses the radical proposition that the President is harmed, irreparably, whenever he cannot do something he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law.”
Sotomayor argues that the equities at stake in the birthright citizenship executive order should alone force the court to rule against the federal government in this case. Newborns are poised to face “the gravest harms imaginable,” as they are set to lose one of the most vital rights afforded to them under the Constitution. Citizenship is an integral part of American society and enables parents to provide for their children via public programs like Medicaid and food stamps.
The only chance infants now have left, the justice writes, is if “their parents have sufficient resources to file individual suits or successfully challenge the Citizenship Order in removal proceedings.” That’s because the majority has left only one option for immigrants who were not part of the initial wave of lawsuits and now stand to be affected by Trump’s order: file a class action lawsuit.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OUR COUNTRY? WHAT’S NEXT ON TRUMP’S EO AGENDA?
Trump has already told us what he will pursue next:
Ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, terminating funding for “sanctuary cities,” suspending refugee resettlement, and blocking the use of federal funds for gender-affirming care. But that’s just the start, y’all.
When it comes to birthright citizenship, we can expect multiple contradictory decisions (a patchwork of inconsistent determinations) coming down from district courts in red and blue states that will jeopardize the futures of many newborn children born to immigrants in red states. Some of these children could be rendered stateless- with no ability to get a passport or social security card or any kind of lifesaving assistance simply because they their birth mother was not able to race across the border fast enough to give birth in a state that would recognize birthright citizenship. That outcome is insane. It’s a patchwork of laws that would be unsustainable.
When the Supreme Court finally reaches the issue of birthright citizenship on the merits (which it has not yet- no matter what Trump says), it is likely to decide that birthright citizenship is in fact a right that is granted by our constitution without depending on the state you are born in and allow an injunction to operate nationwide. But that final decision by the Court won’t happen overnight. Meanwhile…more chaos!
Also meanwhile, the Court has been Trump’s fairy godmother granting him his most deeply desired wish- the power to do whatever he wants even if it’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and repugnant to decent human beings by issuing more of his norm busting EOs.
WAKE UP AMERICA!
Look, I get it. Democracy is a messy, difficult thing especially when the country is so divided. Bipartisanship requires compromise. In a true democracy you don’t always get your way. But the answer is not to turn the country into an autocracy or dictatorship. Most Americans want the same thing – they want economically sustainable lives, support from their government when they need it with health care, disaster relief, federal agencies that work well and fairness in the way people are treated.
The answer to this extreme MAGA movement is to 1) combat rampant disinformation and lies that keep Americans from seeing what the billionaire class is doing to con them into voting against their own self-interest, and more 2) strong, compelling leaders rising up who offer an optimistic and fair future for all Americans especially working Americans.
The so-called big beautiful bill, which is close to passage, tells us what this administration really thinks about working Americans and ordinary people in our country. This bill will gut Medicaid, throwing an estimated 13 to 16 million Americans off of their healthcare plans, it will gut rural hospitals, move 50 million dollars to private companies to create prisons to house citizens the administration plans to go after and expel or shut up, it will add around 4 trillion to the national debt https://www.crfb.org/blogs/senate-reconciliation-bill-could-add-over-4-trillion-debt and is the single biggest shift of money from the poorest to the richest Americans in the history of our country.
With the recent 55 million dollar obscenely opulent wedding of billionaire Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sanchez in Venice, Italy, and Bezos and other billionaires sucking up to Trump at every chance they get to get more deals for their companies, juxtaposed against the Trump/MAGA mega bill that will crush working Americans, you might think Americans might finally figure out 1) who matters in Trump’s America, 2) who is not only expendable, but will be subject to assault, and 3) which political party is trying to help them instead of kill them.
SOME POSSIBLE GOOD NEWS EMERGING FROM THE RUBBLE
Barrett’s 26-page opinion leaves some potential for reprieve from this ruling. Nationwide injunctions are now a thing of the past, but there are some alternative routes to obtain some blocks of some policies that defy the law and the Constitution.
The court appeared to leave open three specific alternatives: Restyle the legal challenges as class-action lawsuits; rely on state-led lawsuits to obtain broad judicial rulings; or challenge certain policies under a federal administrative law that authorizes courts to strike down the actions of executive branch agencies.
But there are problems with each of these alternatives. They are not easy to obtain because of restrictions about who can use them and under what circumstances they can be used. Some of these remedies require a lot of money and that people join a class action they might not even know about.
EXPANDED PRESIDENTIAL POWERS COULD SOME DAY BE USED BY THE DEMS TOO
If the Dems ever get a president elected in the future, these new presidential powers will also be theirs to play around with.
Politico reports:
Here are 10 new precedents, all established with minimal GOP dissent, being set by President Trump + Congress + courts:
- Presidents can limit the classified information they share with lawmakers after bombing a foreign country without the approval of Congress.
- Presidents can usurp Congress’s power to levy tariffs, provided they declare a national emergency.
- Presidents can unilaterally freeze spending approved by Congress, and dismantle or fire the heads of independent agencies established by law.
- Presidents can take control of a state’s National Guard, even if the governor opposes it, and occupy the state for as long as said president wants.
- Presidents can accept gifts from foreign nations, as large as a $200 million plane, even if it’s unclear whether said president gets to keep the plane at the end of the term.
- Presidents can actively profit from their time in office, including creating new currencies structured to allow foreign nationals to invest anonymously, benefiting said president.
- Presidents can try to browbeat the Federal Reserve into cutting interest rates, including by floating replacements for the Fed chair before their term is up.
- Presidents can direct the Justice Department to prosecute their political opponents and punish critics. These punishments can include stripping Secret Service protections, suing them and threatening imprisonment.
- Presidents can punish media companies, law firms and universities that don’t share their viewpoints or values.
- Presidents can aggressively pardon supporters, including those who made large political donations as part of their bid for freedom. The strength of the case in said pardons is irrelevant.
The moral of this story might just be this: Beware what you wish for. Republicans may some day regret what they have unleashed. It could come back to bite them with a vastly more empowered Democratic president.
But for that to happen, Americans have to realize how serious the Trump/MAGA threat to their well being is. Americans better stop voting for Republicans if they hope to save themselves.