They’re making the same mistake they did during the election. Committing too much of their forces too early instead of picking their fights and keeping their powder dry for the right time.
In two weeks we’ve already seen endless protests, riots against free speech, and now political power plays from the judiciary. What unplayed cards will they still have up their sleeves in two months?
They can have media outrage over everything President Trump does or says. They can try to hold up his confirmation hearings for his cabinet just ’cause. They can have judges declare it’s unconstitutional for him to tie his own shoelaces. They can never “normalize” him or examine the possibility that he’s anything other than Hitler or the devil incarnate.
The thing about effective use of power though is it needs to used like a tool, with precision and in the pursuit of decisive objectives.
Using a frantic scattershot approach is bound to lose. Try winning at chess or go behaving like that!
If the opposition had chosen key times and places to block Trump spaced out over the next couple of years, they may have succeeded in sapping his momentum and the popular support he requires to stay in power when both parties hate his guts. This indiscriminate shitshow though will backfire. A hundred million Americans are watching this happen with shock and the quick succession of events is keeping their attention.
If the judiciary shows it is just another political body without any sense of impartiality or fair play then it loses its legitimacy. Even if they succeeded in stopping Trump cold from now on, no one would take them seriously anymore as keepers of the law.
This corrosion would leave them vulnerable to a new wave of demagogues that would have them begging for the good old days of a center-right moderate like Trump.
Their total inability to keep the long game in mind or even to approach issues right in front of them with a coherent strategy reminds us why they are falling from power in the first place. Their ineptitude is great enough, if Trump doesn’t clear them out, someone else far worse for them will.
Today, there will be a hearing in the 9th circuit court over a judge’s ruling that prohibits Trump to mandate the exercise of his most basic constitutional duties. We are about to see how far they want to escalate this right now and whether they have any basic common sense. If this goes to the Supreme Court we are entering Dredd Scott decision territory. It wouldn’t be the first time the courts have been openly co-opted as a political weapon and once that is done, the rule of law itself is undermined.
Update 2/9/17: They really did it. They ruled against the ban and this escalates further…
FORWARD BASE B 
6 replies on “Trump vs. The Courts”
I don’t like calling the globalists the left or the nationalists the right. The terms left/ right come from the French revolutionary factions, and though intellectuals today like to pretend that they are the heirs of one or another, the issues are completely different. Even taking the claims seriously, today’s “right” has more in common with the Jacobins and todays “left” has more in common with the Bourbons, in both style and their substantive positions.
But the globalists really seem to be freaking out and I can’t figure out why.
You may notice I rarely refer to “leftists” and refer to the “right” sparingly. I often distinguish between progressives, populists, and racial blocs instead. I’ll talk about the alt-right, but understand that to be a politicized version of the red pill/conservative internet that’s populist.
Like you I find left/right unsatisfactory because even my own views could be considered all over that outmoded spectrum.
The globalist progressives are freaking out because they are being challenged on a meta level. The whole mentality that’s held sway since the 60s is unraveling and that terrifies them, it’s literally the end of the world as they know it.
It has severely impaired their ability to respond rationally and proportionally.
Yay, Civil War 2.0 is on the way!
Can’t wait to see what Trump will do about this. This is the first time I see a newly elected president face some kind of serious controversial.
The idea, if there is one, is to knock back anyone who supports the new order and wait until the current executive runs out of steam. It’s working much better than they had any right to expect.
The importance of de-legitimizing the courts in the public eye cannot be overstated. If most people come to see judges as mere politicians, they become little different from neighborhood kids arbitrating games of tag. In that sense, forcing them to reveal their hand so soon has been a victory for Trump, especially as preparation for the 2018 midterms. His base is energized and infuriated; he can sell the necessity of more sympathetic republican seats as a means of cracking down on recalcitrant judges.
While a Seattle judge and the 9th circuit in San Francisco have successfully wielded incredible power. This victory will ring hollow. They can interfere with individual orders but not the wider exercise of office. Trump has turned ICE loose with his blessings, preparations for the wall continue unabated. And when his temporary limited ban has served its purpose in prying the system open, the way will be open for a permanent, wider ban.