Three weeks and three days (it feels like three years) into the second Trump administration and everyone’s heads are spinning as executive order after order is issued from the Oval Office. The attempt at shock and awe, authority and might, was effective for about five minutes.
Then those impacted, those whose powers and legitimate authority were being subverted took a breath and did what our form of government calls for. They took their case/cases to the courts.
This is how our form of democracy works. For those who’ve forgotten high school Civics class, ours is a system of government with three branches, the legislative, the judicial and the executive. Each branch has its own powers which keeps any one branch from becoming too powerful.
Here is a simplistic explanation. Congress, the legislative branch, gets to make laws and spending decisions. The executive branch enforces laws, establishes foreign policy and commands the military. The judicial branch interprets and evaluates laws, ensuring they do not violate the Constitution.
As of January 20, we have an executive who seems to think that his victory in November gives him power to negate legislative actions that took place before he was sworn in. His authority – even if it did extend to Congressional spending decisions, which it doesn’t – didn’t begin in November 2024. It began on January 20, 2025.
All this freezing and slashing of federal funding and defunding of programming is not his prerogative until January 20,2025, so those challenging his actions in court are correct to do so. This is a correct use of our judicial system.
It’s appalling to listen to some of his sycophants, elected congresspeople whose own constituents are literally losing their farms over these deranged and illegal presidential spending freezes, rail on about liberal judges and activist judges who are upholding some purported agenda. The judges in question were appointed by Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and even Donald Trump himself.
Calling judges activists or liberals does not change how the separation of powers works in our government. It remains to be seen how those expressing such cavalier disregard for upholding the Constitution (including aforementioned congresspeople) will go forward and to whom they will pay their obeyance.
