ROGER KIMBALL: Federal judges crave the spotlight: In case after case, judges ruled to stymie the executive branch for one main reason.
Some of these injunctions and temporary restraining orders are still pending. Many, perhaps most, have been resolved by the Supreme Court in ways that favor the Trump administration, not always categorically but usually by affirming the broad scope of executive power envisioned by Article II of the Constitution. “The executive Power,” quoth that magisterial document, “shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.” “A president,” mind you, a single one. Not a president and hundreds of district court judges.
The rousing start to Article II of the Constitution is neatly put, isn’t it? But those judges took it as a challenge. Trump is an affront to what every right-thinking, i.e., left-leaning, person believes. He wants to make America more prosperous, freer and more secure than it has become in the hands of Democrats and other disciples of hegemonic bureaucracy.
He moved quickly to secure the border. Can you believe it? He is deporting scads of people who are here illegally. Outrageous. He outlawed the racist practice of DEI throughout the federal government and made federal funds contingent upon ending the scam. Horrible. He thinks that the military should be an institution specializing in fighting wars, not promoting “social justice.” Clearly he must be stopped.
Like many pro-Trump commentators, I have weighed in early and often on this legal-political charade. It is a legal charade because what we have witnessed since Trump took office again in January 2025 has been a mind-boggling misuse and hypertrophy of judicial power. Whoever would have thought that a lowly district court judge (there are some 700 of them) would successfully arrogate to himself the authority to tell the President what executive agencies he should pay for and which he should close?
The judiciary has substantially undermined its legitimacy in the past several years. It will not end well.