John Robert’s Monster

Guardrails

When Donald Trump was first elected President in 2016, there was a lot of talk about “guardrails”.   Those guardrails were supposed to keep the “rookie” President Trump from getting too far out of the “norm” of the American Presidency.  First, there was the “grow in the job” historic theory, that held that the responsibilities of the Presidency would “make the man”.  Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman were the examples,  “common” men who became powerful Presidents, almost by accident.   

Second, there were the people surrounding Trump.  They were highly qualified and successful on their own. There were folks like Generals Mattis, Kelly, Milley and McMasters, and men of their own power like Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus, Steve Mnuchin CEO of  One West, and Gary Cohn, CEO of Goldman Sachs.   Even normally obeisant Vice President Mike Pence, was a former state governor and Congressman.  They were independently “qualified” for their roles in the Presidency, with their own “power bases”.  

Institutional Balance

Third, there was a Congress willing to stand against the President if necessary, even those in the Republican Party.   John McCain was the “poster boy” for those “renegades”, who stopped many of the extremes of the first Trump Administration.  And by the second half of Trump’s first term, there was a House controlled by the Democrats, led by the formidable Nancy Pelosi, who not only curbed the President, but even impeached him, twice.

Then there were the “accepted norms” of what a President would or would not do.   These were the “traditions” that Americans expect of their President, a series of precedents that started with George Washington and come down to the present day.  They are not “written rules”, not statutory laws, but rather traditions that every President has honored.

And finally there was a Supreme Court, narrowly divided between the “liberals” and the “conservatives”.   For most of Trump’s first term in office; there was Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Roberts on the “right”, and Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsburg or the “left”, with Justice Kennedy straddling the middle.  

Extremes

So whatever extreme advice the Stephen Miller’s  and Rudy Giuliani’s were giving the President, there were more cautious voices inside the room.   And while the Trump first term was still controversial and disruptive, the extremes were muted by all of those “guardrails”.

The final days of the first Trump Presidency showed the strain.   Most of the “voices of reason”, Mattis, Kelly, McMasters, Priebus, and Cohn were gone.  John McCain was dead, and other Republican Senators willing to stand up to the President out-of-office (Jeff Flake of Arizona, Bob Corker from Tennessee).  The Supreme Court balance shifted with the resignation of Kennedy and the death of Ginsburg, replaced by Kavanaugh and Barrett, both “on the right”.  

And Trump proved that  “norms” no longer mattered.   His repeated unfounded claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him and undermined American confidence in the electoral system.  Trump “sowed the winds” of insurrection, and reaped the whirlwind of January 6^th.  It was by a narrow margin that Congress held the institutional line.  Only the courageous decisions of the leadership of both parties, including Mike Pence, kept the Constitutional process intact.  

Biden

President Joe Biden, well aware of his slim margin of victory, tried to return to “normalcy”.  Biden wanted a Presidency of achievement, not one of crisis.  So his response to the Trump years was that “it’s over, let’s move on”.   But, of course, it wasn’t over at all.  Trump continued to undermine American confidence in institutions, and for a long time was not even held accountable for his actions.  When the Biden Administration was finally forced (by the January 6^th Committee) to reckon with Trump’s actions, it was too late.

Whatever you think of the Trump legal team (and after reading their Court filings, I don’t think much of them), they were incredibly successful at one thing.   They were the masters of delay.  When the cases involving the then-former President finally reached the Courts, we were perilously close to the 2024 election.  At that point, his attorneys argued that instead of “trial”, the decisions about Trump should be “put to the American people” on the ballot.

But it was the US Supreme Court itself that removed the final guardrail to Trump hegemony.   And they did it with purpose, and intent.  They made the President of the United States immune from criminal prosecution for any “official” action they might take in office.  Total immunity:  the President could act without regard for legal consequences, either in office or in the future.  And the author of that decision was Chief Justice John Roberts.

Today

Trump learned a lot from his first term experience.  He had already proved that “norms” were not a problem.   If they weren’t laws, they could be ignored.  And this time, he didn’t pick “independent” leaders to serve in his administration.  Clearly, the primary qualification to serve as a Trump advisor today is, to misquote an old Monty Python line, “Fanatical devotion to the President”.  Look at his cabinet, second-rate leaders at best, from Pete Hegseth to Bobby Kennedy to Pam Bondi to JD Vance.  But they all have one thing in common:  sycophancy.  Even Secretary of State Marco Rubio, once a man who could stand on his own, “kisses” the Trump ring.

Congress also “drinks the Kool-Aid”.    Few Republicans stand up to Trump, because of his total control of the Republican primary base and Republican fundraising.  To vote against Trump is to invite defeat in the next primary election.  And since Republicans hold narrow margins of control in both Houses, Congress itself is now on the sidelines.  Impeachment, even for “high crimes and misdemeanors”, is not even a consideration.

Immunity

So Trump makes every decision an “executive order”, what in other forms of government would be called an “edict” or “decree”.   That’s not an accident:  if every act is “official” Trump is guaranteed by the Supreme Court to be immune from legal responsibility.  So when he ignores a Supreme Court ruling, as he is doing today, there can be no legal consequences.  And if the Court determines to enforce its order on lesser officials, Trump has the ultimate “Trump card”.  He has the absolute power of pardon:  any underling who follows Trump’s orders and runs afoul of the Courts is “safe”.

And finally, Trump has surrounded himself with extremists.   Not only are his “official advisors” beholden to him, personally, but they are signed onto an extreme agenda.  We were warned about it during the 2024 election campaign:  Project 2025.  Trump denied any knowledge of it at the time, but that Plan is now the blueprint for many of his administrative actions.  

Chief Justice Roberts, the critical vote granting Presidential immunity, may have thought he was putting Trump “behind us”.   It might have been his mistaken attempt to “return to normalcy”, avoiding an “out of the norm” trial of a former President.  That may be too charitable.  Regardless, what Roberts did was to remove one of the last guardrails restricting executive action. He created a Presidency that resembles something so far out of American norms, it might not even be a democracy.  

Yesterday, Trump and his minions sat with the dictator of El Salvador, discussing how they would ignore the Supreme Court.   It was a President sitting with a dictator. But it might foreshadow what the American Presidency is becoming:  the once elected dictator of the United States.  In large part, that scenario is John Robert’s fault.  He created this monster.