While repeatedly losing in court has been an early theme of the Trump regime's project to install a fascist dictatorship in America, I don't think it's safe for anyone to assume the crux of the danger we're facing rests solely on to what degree the Swine Emperor and his cronies are willing to simply ignore court orders. Lost in the reality that so far the Supreme Court has held the line against the Trump administration on the question of due process for migrants the regime wants to deport, is the fact that this 6-3 fascist-high bench is the same body that granted president Trump virtual immunity from prosecution for "official acts" undertaken as president, without even bothering to define what an official act is.

That 6-3 fascist majority means the Supreme Court, which is dominated by Federalist Society appointees hand-picked by far right megadonor Leonard Leo, is very closely aligned ideologically with the Christian Zionist fundie fascist wing of the Trump cult, as exemplified by folks like Marco Rubio, and the Heritage Foundation. They might not agree with everything the more openly white nationalist and authoritarian elements in the Trump regime want to do, but guys like Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas are more or less in lockstep with the vast majority of reactionary right wing objectives Trump and his minions are trying to accomplish here. In practice that means that while the 'conservative" justices on the Supreme Court are prepared to align with the law and block some portions of the Trump regime's agenda, they are just as likely to piss on decades of legal precedent and make some bullshit up to advance that agenda; particularly when it aligns with the agenda of the Federalist Society and its donors.

A good example of what that looks like can be found in the recent unsigned shadow docket stay the Supreme Court issued allowing the Trump regime to effectively "fire" two executive branch officials working for consumer and labor protection agencies, while their formal cases against the government make their way through the courts. A ruling might I add that was issued despite the fact that the agencies involved operate independently of the US executive branch, and there is a clear SCOTUS precedent against removing members of independent boards "without good cause."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/supreme-court-wilcox-harris-humphrey-executor-ignore-roberts-trump/

The Supreme Court Makes Sure the Law Does Not Get in the Way of Trump’s Takeover

"On Thursday night, the Supreme Court’s six Republican-appointed justices allowed President Donald Trump to remove two executive branch officials: Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris of the Merit Systems Protection Board. In doing so, the court refused to enforce a major precedent. The decision indicated that, despite recent rebukes, the court is willing to disregard longstanding precedent for Trump to proceed with his overhaul of the federal government.

Before the court’s actions, a unanimous 1935 Supreme Court precedent called Humphrey’s Executor insulated both Wilcox and Harris, as members of independent boards, from removal without good cause. On Thursday, the GOP-appointees effectively cabined—or overturned—Humphrey’s Executor, in a glib order; they discarded the precedent that undergirds the modern executive branch in the same way they might toss out an old shirt they no longer feel like wearing.

The court offered a few justifications. First and foremost, it nodded at the Unitary Executive Theory. The theory rests on the idea that the Constitution vests all the executive authority in the president, and therefore it’s unconstitutional to place limits on how the president uses that authority. This theory was crafted by conservative lawyers in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Republicans seemed to have a lock on the presidency but couldn’t get control of Congress and therefore needed a justification for the president to act unilaterally. The Roberts court has spent the last 15 years embedding the theory into constitutional law—even though many academics argue it is an inaccurate and opportunistic reading of the Constitution and the nation’s history."

If the truth be told, the extraordinary lengths the Trump regime has undertaken to fire the National Labor Relations Board's Gwynne Wilcox in particular is an epic tale of authoritarian cracker fuckery in its own right, but we don't have the space to get into it here. The principle point to take away from this story is that a 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS isn't trying to thwart parts of Trump's agenda because they care about the law; they're doing it to retain legitimacy so they can play Calvinball for the American right whenever Trump's agenda aligns with Leonard Leo's, using the Unitary Executive Theory. This in turn means that Americans cannot count on SCOTUS to stop Trump's illegal fascist activities, even if the regime decides to obey a given court order.

One of the peculiar aspects of analyzing America's descent into overt fascism during the second Trump administration is the way frustration with liberal orthodoxy surrounding the effectiveness of "rules and norms" in curtailing governmental abuses of power, and the blatantly unlawful behavior the regime regularly engages in, have worked to tamp down criticism of all the awful things this administration does that are merely morally wrong, while still being entirely legal. Of course it is completely rational to ask why Trump's predecessors in government considered relying on tradition and "norms" to prevent abuses of executive branch power a viable plan in the first place, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't criticize the regime for doing objectively fascist cracker bullshit to punish "enemies" of the white American Volk just because it's not strictly illegal. Take for example ICE's recent habit of occupying courtrooms with immigration agents, and coordinating with government lawyers to allow the detainment and expedited deportation of otherwise law-abiding migrants, effectively without due process.

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/21/ice-agents-courts-arrests-immigrants-deport/

ICE Agents Are Camped Outside Immigration Courts to Make Arrests

"Reports began circulating on social media on Tuesday that ICE had begun efforts to get cases dismissed that had been pending for less than two years so that the agency could immediately apprehend immigrants and force them into an expedited removal process — effectively side-stepping the typical immigration court process.

“They’re moving to end those cases so they can move forward with a more aggressive form of deportation without the requirement to see a judge or request asylum,” Mackler said. “They’re basically circumventing due process.”

Although it's not clearly explained in this article, what's going on here is that the Trump regime has revived a 2019 policy that allows them to fast track deportations for migrants who can't prove they've been in the United States for loner than two years. This has then been combined with an ICE guidance issued in January that allows agents to conduct operations near courthouses “discreetly,” and active complicity by government attorneys, to create a cruel but effective trap. Migrants, even potential asylum seekers, can show up in court for their immigration cases, watch the government dismiss the charges, and then be detained for expedited deportation by masked Gestapo goons lounging around in the courtroom hallways for that purpose. Or, they can choose to skip the hearing, which will allow for immediate ICE detention and an automatic deportation order. Either way, the Trump regime gets to deport migrants without anything even resembling due process. Furthermore, just in case you think I'm being uncharitable and this is all just an unhappy accident caused by the interaction of shortsighted policy decisions, recent reporting in The Guardian indicates that this police state bullshit is entirely intentional on the part of the US Government.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/ice-arrests-immigration-courts

Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’

"Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work on Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom.

In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom."

Unfortunately, as far as I know and as I alluded to at the top of this post, this "tactic" to help facilitate an obviously white nationalist mass deportation scheme is completely legal. In fact, as this very article notes the Biden regime was using a similar expedited deportation process to rapidly deport migrants who'd be in the United States for less than two weeks, so in a round about way this is yet another example of America's long embrace of foundationally racist, xenophobic, and nativist immigration policies paving the way for Trump, a would-be fascist dictator, to circumvent the law and US constitution to do white nationalist authoritarian repression. Of course Biden wasn't sending masked goon squads full of Proud Boys with an immigration badge to trap migrants actively *trying* to obey US immigration law, and therein lies the rub. Just because America's long embrace of fascism, white supremacy, and police state repression allows Trump to do something, doesn't mean we have to pretend that he should do that thing, or that it's perfectly fine when he does so. This is fascism, legal or otherwise.

#Fascism #Trump #ICE #DHS #Courts #Migrants #Immigration #USConsitution #Gestapo #CivilRights #DueProcess #Norms #WhiteNationalism #Nativism #PoliceState