Supreme Court reshapes the government and the country

The nation’s 250th birthday provides the opportunity to examine the state of our national affairs and how it has changed in the last decade. Many students of government will point to the numerous and profound changes wrought by executive fiat as the most significant recent changes to our government, and they may be right. Even a partial list of executive actions—the subordination of the Justice Department to presidential whim; the elimination of Congressionally created agencies; the undermining of federally funded research in nearly all scientific fields; the reduction of the federal workforce and, with it, a nonpartisan civil service; the imposition of massive tariffs on friend and foe alike; the conversion of our rich history of welcoming immigration into a forced deportation system—presents a strong case for the preeminence of the Executive Branch. 

But what has been achieved by executive fiat can be dismantled by executive fiat, at least in part. Policies can be changed. Executive Orders can be rescinded. Agencies can be restaffed. Grants can be refunded. Even departments can be rejuvenated. Some losses may not be reversible: The “soft power” and humanitarian labors of USAID, for example, cannot soon be rebuilt. Whether trust in government can ever be restored is quite another matter, but that can, at least, be addressed without overcoming legal impediments. Other matters, however, cannot be altered “with all deliberate speed,” such as the rulings of the Supreme Court. 

Court empowers itself