The Nation

07/31/2025

We see the truth of this country’s descent into lawlessness every single day. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper, turn on the television, or go to Trump’s social media account. Nearly every “news” story you’ll see falls into one of two categories: Trump did something, or Trump threatens to do something. Nobody can reliably say whether those actions or threats are “legal” because everybody knows (whether they will admit that to you are not) that rules and laws no longer apply to the Trump regime.

I’m a freaking expert on “the law” and I can no longer tell you if the latest thought bubble out of Trump’s mouth is “constitutional.” Anybody who claims they can is straight-up lying to you at this point. I can perhaps tell you how the Supreme Court will make whatever thing Trump wants to do legal. What I can’t tell you is what would happen if the court told Trump “no.” Would such a ruling stop him? Would he ignore it? Right now, there just isn’t a lot of evidence that Trump would be stopped by an adverse Supreme Court ruling. To the contrary, there is a mountain of evidence that Trump would ignore a decision that he didn’t like: A new study showed that the Trump administration has defied one in three judicial orders.

When it comes to the rule of law, two out of three is indeed very bad. You do not live in a lawful society if the laws apply only two out of three times. A rule that works only 66 percent of the time is not a law but a suggestion. The fact that Trump follows the law sometimes, but not other times, means that laws only matter if Trump thinks they should.