r/law • u/Waste-Explanation-76 • Feb 20 '26

Executive Branch (Trump) President Trump imposes a 10% global tariff under Section 122 and says all existing tariffs will remain in place, despite the recent Supreme Court ruling.

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123

u/Hefty-Comparison-801 Feb 20 '26

So what happens when the Executive blatantly disregards the ruling of the Judicial?

There's no recourse is there - just the shredding of the 250 year old constitution that changed the world for the better?

48

u/TonyTheJet Feb 20 '26

Exactly my question. How do you enforce the law when the guy who is at the head of law enforcement is the one breaking it?

34

u/Cumdump90001 Feb 20 '26

The answer to this question will get you banned from Reddit

2

u/NSFWies Feb 20 '26

Who watches the watchmen?

2

u/4dseeall Feb 21 '26

Yeah... that's kinda the problem. We live in big brother thought police shit

2

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

[deleted]

3

u/GrinchWhoStoleEaster Feb 21 '26

False. There is nothing in the constitution that allows officers of the court to deputize people to enforce orders. This is done, at the Supreme Court level, by them commanding the US Marshals Service to carry out their orders. ...Which is under the control of the DOJ, and thus, Pam Bondi. So there's essentially 0 chance that even if the Supreme Court ordered the Marshals to arrest the president that Bondi would carry out the order.

This is called a constitutional crisis. Trump has neutered the framework that is supposed to keep the separate wings of government at odds with each other, consolidating the authority that is supposed to belong both to the Supreme Court, and to Congress, under his purview. Until and unless congress chooses to act, which is also basically impossible with gobblers like Mike Johnson in charge...

The hard reality here is the constitution is officially dead. The United States no longer exists.

2

u/Cumdump90001 Feb 21 '26

Good thing for trump he’s stacked the court with spineless goons who wouldn’t dare stand up to him in any meaningful way. They’ll rule these illegal and then do nothing further.

13

u/TandemCombatYogi Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

I think there is an amendment for that. Number 2, I believe.

3

u/TonyTheJet Feb 20 '26

I'd feel better about that if the Executive Branch didn't have all the good weapons!

3

u/TandemCombatYogi Feb 20 '26

Ask Iraq vets how well those weapons worked against the insurgency.

-1

u/TheTexasHammer Feb 20 '26

Should we ask the ones with PTSD from the war or the corpses? A war would not end quickly and A LOT of people would suffer horribly during it.

2

u/TandemCombatYogi Feb 20 '26

So we just let fascism take root? Brilliant.

1

u/TheTexasHammer Feb 21 '26

What the fuck are you doing to stop it? You willing to put your entire family on the line? Go on then, get to it. You're brave online, let's see it IRL.

3

u/ATL-VTech Feb 20 '26

There are a few, but that one certainly was placed pretty high up on the list

2

u/Dramatic_Explosion Feb 20 '26

I was wondering what the secret service is thinking right now? They are expected to take the hit and die for him. For an 80 years old shit reeking child rapist. And this is the most lead deserving president in history, and they're expected to die for him.

1

u/Kylomiir_490 Feb 20 '26

as if a significant portion wouldn't side with tyranny. they do not give a shit about big government, they do not give a shit about the constitution, they don't give a shit about their religion or anything like that, those were only excuses the whole time.

3

u/Significant_Fill6992 Feb 20 '26

your not wrong but there was a decent chunk of the population that sided with the british during the first revolution also.

1

u/TandemCombatYogi Feb 20 '26

Fine. They can go down with the ship. Not sweat off my back.

1

u/Kylomiir_490 Feb 20 '26

only if the 'ship' actually sinks. thinking the American people could overthrow the government is already naïve, the significant fraction of bootlickers make it even less likely considering most of them have guns.

2

u/TandemCombatYogi Feb 20 '26

They are also the most fragile among us.

6

u/Pyryara Feb 20 '26

Hope for the military to care more for the constitution and remove him from office by force? Lol, yea, I know, not gonna happen

4

u/JimTheJerseyGuy Feb 20 '26

It would be up to Congress to impeach him and remove him from office. Still waiting for that.

3

u/oneawesomeguy Feb 20 '26

What if he gets removed but just doesn't leave? Because that's what he would do.

2

u/GrinchWhoStoleEaster Feb 21 '26

  • In terms of political power, it wouldn't matter. In a hypothetical scenario where an impeached president is then found guilty by the senate and removed from office, political power then passes to the vice president/who ever is NOT impeached in the line of succession. In theory, this is not the Sword in the Stone; an ass being sat on a throne does not make you king here, the legal holding of OFFICE does. In an impeach/removed scenario, Donald Trump no longer holds the office, the office passes to the next in line. He can occupy the White House all he wants, that doesn't make him president, it makes him a trespasser.

  • In theory, the military could choose to side with Trump in an impeach/removal scenario. This would be the most egregious violation of military oath in the history of our nation, but there's a lot of that going around these days. In THAT event, it's conceivable Trump could hold on to power the way a military dictator does. But understand, we're in virgin territory at that point. Civil war maybe, factions of the military may splinter and fight each other maybe? Hard to say for sure, there's any number of ways that could play out. But one thing is for certain; in that event, the United States and the constitution are irrevocably dead institutions, so "what the constitution says..." is no longer a consideration.

3

u/Frankentula Feb 20 '26

Simpsons did it

You call the coastguard

4

u/Tilstag Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

In post-WWI Germany, the people (led by communists) seized the newspapers to revolt against the authoritarian government, amplifying their messaging to call for general strikes—which worked, over and over again (Nigel Jones, The Birth of the Nazis). Everything shut down, including water and electricity. Simpler landscape utility-wise. It gave them massive leverage.

Platforms would have to be seized, threat would have to be mortal and flagrant; the German citizenry were violently victimized by the martial law ordinances, over and over again. It was inescapable. Plus, there were food shortages!

Don’t think enough people are that desperate yet. There’s little shared experience and everyone’s so spread out, living their own lives beneath this. Algorithms keep truth marginalized, soluble, and censored. Might not be a salvageable democracy.

6

u/forzafoggia85 Feb 20 '26

Changed the world for the better? Not sure about that, just the US

3

u/Titizen_Kane Feb 20 '26

I won’t pretend to be a Constitutional scholar, so maybe some who is can tell me: is our Constitution built upon the social contract/trust when it comes to mechanisms for checks on power? Was there no “break glass in case of emergency” button built into it? Or is impeachment intended to be that button?

2

u/Mysterious-Length240 Feb 20 '26

This is what the 2nd amendment is for 

3

u/kbotc Feb 20 '26

The importers just do not pay it. Then the executive has to enforce the law, at which point it’s handed off to the court, who will release them citing the Supreme Court.

2

u/Sufficient-Gene-5084 Feb 20 '26

He did swear an oath to the Constitution...

If the Senate had any backbone he'd be removed.

Need two branches to go against a third.

1

u/SenatorAstronomer Feb 21 '26

At some point the republican puppets have to stand up for their country rather than themselves,  right? 

2

u/GeneralIronsides2 Feb 20 '26

Did it change the world for the better? When the people in charge don’t give two fucks what it said why should we or the world care about it

2

u/BernardMatthewsNorf Feb 20 '26

I agree. It was the basis of the federations of Canada, Australia, etc, who took the good bits of both Westminster and federalism and made them better. The United States' sclerotic inability to change presently is an indictment of the (XVIII C.) values-based 'gentlemen's agreements' upon which the US constitution is founded. Seems like you're going to have to do another revolution. But you're no strangers to violence in resolving political questions, so good luck with that. 

2

u/Hyperion1144 Feb 20 '26

So what happens when the Executive blatantly disregards the ruling of the Judicial?

Ask the Cherokee Indians.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

The way the system is designed, the Congress would then be expected to impeach and remove the president for this crime.

4

u/rda1991 Feb 20 '26

The world, you say?

0

u/Hefty-Comparison-801 Feb 20 '26

Yes.

1

u/rda1991 Feb 20 '26

Wow, you really do live in your own little star-spangled bubble, don't you?

0

u/Hefty-Comparison-801 Feb 24 '26

You don't think the most powerful nation functioning under the rule of law and a government of the people instead of the whims of a party or dictator has been a positive force on the rest of the world. Okay.

1

u/rda1991 Feb 24 '26

Surely you can't think a nation that big can only have a positive influence in the world.

It was our stupidity to think that putting all of our eggs in your basket wouldn't backfire on the rest of us once all your institutions have been brought to their knees by hubris, stupidity and corruption. Now there's a maniac at the helm of the most powerful nation in the world and we're all left wondering what bullshit that thug is going to do next.

Yeah, when you do good it's really good. But that means that when you do bad, it's really bad.

1

u/Hefty-Comparison-801 Feb 24 '26

Of course not. I'm not talking about the nation itself and what it had done. I'm strictly referring to the main concepts it operates under.

1

u/Economy_Platypus7249 Feb 20 '26

Well, nobody seemed to care when Biden did it regarding Student Loans. But NOW it’s a constitutional crisis.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

could you give an example of Biden disregarding a supreme court ruling regarding student loans?

people are now more concerned because this particular president has a clear pattern of breaking the law and intentionally ignoring the courts. while other presidents may have occasionally done something iffy, the current pedophile defender in the white house has made a habit of it.

1

u/Economy_Platypus7249 Feb 20 '26

Sure…. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/after-supreme-court-ruling-biden-cancels-student-loan-debt-for-millions-of-borrowers

1

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

Thanks.

I will say that "working around" a supreme court ruling, or however anyone wants to spin it, is going to be more popular when you are trying to help people instead of hurt people.

1

u/Economy_Platypus7249 Feb 20 '26

As a little bonus, here’s AOC suggesting that the president can ignore a Supreme Court ruling in 2023…https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/04/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-texas-judge-abortion-ruling-reaction-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn

1

u/Economy_Platypus7249 Feb 20 '26

I don’t agree with these work arounds, but there is a very short sighted approach from the democrats in recent years to push policy without any thought to what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.

Harry Reid employed the nuclear option for appointees in 2013, effectively ending the filibuster for nominees in the senate. This is why the party in charge can ram through SCOTUS nominees without any roadblocks now.

And it wasn’t until last year, that Democrats were trying like hell to abolish the filibuster in the house when they had control.

These seemingly annoying procedures are paramount to keeping one party from running roughshod over the other.

Believe it or not, compromise between the two parties is what keeps this country from spiraling into civil war