Summary
The Democratic National Committee and two other party committees have sued Trump over Executive Order 14215, which claims authority to seize control of the Federal Elections Commission.
The lawsuit argues this violates federal law and threatens free elections.
The order also claims power over other agencies including the SEC, FTC, and NLRB.
Democrats contend this executive overreach contradicts constitutional principles and a century of Supreme Court precedent upholding Congress’s authority to insulate certain agencies from presidential control.
So you concede that the courts can’t do anything when push comes to shove. It’s up to the guy in the tank, the rogue secret service agent, the personal chef with a grudge, etc…
There’s a reason why the main push of the first few weeks were purges of executive officials and telling all federal employees to quit. Anyone left has passed the acid test of loyalty to Trump or is meek enough to “just follow orders”.
Is it a foolproof plan for Trump? Time will tell where all loyalties lay, but their actions have shown where they think the true threat is.
Courts can stop some (not all) of what he is doing now. Which I think is what they are doing.
I don’t think Trump is going to turn the military loose against Americans, if that’s what you imagine as “push comes to shove”. That would be suicidal, for Trump. Especially because of his purges. The people in government who actually get things done had no loyalty to the president, and now they have no loyalty to their departmental leadership. Trump just made it far more likely that the people he needs will sit on their hands when he needs them most.
I mean, in one of the current Trump lawsuits the DoJ is literally pleading that their department is so understaffed and disrupted that they will all have to work overtime to meet a judge’s demands. The judge basically laughed in their face and said if the DoJ can’t get it together then they deserve to lose. Does that sound like a powerful DoJ that we should fear?
I don’t doubt that it wouldn’t end well, but the plan is to use the threat as far as he can take it. Do you want to be the judge to pull that trigger? Have you seen how many “stern warnings” and “last chances” he gets, how they struggle to issue a gag order? Any delay allows him to further solidify his power and insulate the executive from other branches.
An important note is that they don’t care if the government doesn’t get things done. If people sit on their hands, they get fired. As he nosedives the USA into economic depression it will be a harder and harder decision to give up your paycheck just to stick it to the orange guy. Being within the orbit of the dictator gives way more stability than any part of the country he tears down.
Again, judges are used to threats and I don’t think they would find “domestic drone strike” to be a particularly credible response to “pay your workers or I’ll write the check myself”.
Because that’s what we’re talking about here: paying people. If you expect judges to completely reverse what Trump is doing, you’re going to be disappointed. They can’t do it.
And yes, part of the legal process is that lawyers are allowed to delay and judges have to put up with it. But they aren’t allowed to openly defy the judge. And so far, no Trump lawyer has done so.