Trump Signals He Might Ignore the Courts

The United States is sleepwalking into a constitutional crisis. Not only has the Trump administration seized for itself extraconstitutional powers, but yesterday, it raised the specter that, should the courts apply the text of the Constitution and negate its plans, it will simply ignore them.

The Spanish political scientist Juan Linz once theorized that presidential systems are more likely than parliamentary systems to undergo constitutional crises or coup attempts, because they create dueling centers of power. The president and Congress both enjoy popular elections, creating a clash of popular mandates when opposing parties win simultaneous control. “Who has the stronger claim to speak on behalf of the people,” Linz asked, “the president or the legislative majority that opposes his policies?” Presidential systems would teeter and fall, he argued, when the president and Congress could not resolve their competing claims to legitimacy.

A dozen years ago, when Republicans in Congress presented their majorities as having negated Barack Obama’s electoral mandate and began threatening to precipitate a debt crisis to force him to accept their domestic economic plan, Linz’s ideas began attracting renewed attention among liberal intellectuals. And indeed, the system is teetering. But the source of the emergency is nearly the opposite of what Linz predicted. The Trump administration is not refusing to share power with an opposing party. It is refusing to follow the constitutional limits of a government that its own party controls completely.