Have Any Of The MAGA Scholars Ever Read Marbury v Madison In High School?

Yalie JD Vance claimed yesterday that federal courts “aren’t allowed” to overrule Señor T (and Musk and Big Balls) and their executive orders after judges from coast to coast have slapped down their unconstitutional power grabs. We all saw this coming when Project 2025 clearly advocated for challenging the judiciary's authority to review and potentially overturn executive orders, highlighting a broader strategy to assert executive power while challenging the traditional checks and balances established by judicial review. With a supine and cowardly legislative branch, the only protection the country has before the midterms is the judicial branch.

Presumably Trump, who never actually went to college, forced poor Vance, who did, to take the lede on the “courts aren’t allowed” nonsense. What Vance knows and Trump doesn’t(either know or care about) is that Jefferson opposed Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case that established judicial review— the power of courts to strike down executive and legislative actions as unconstitutional. Jefferson and his allies argued that unelected judges shouldn’t have the final say over the actions of elected officials— just what  Vance is saying now. However, Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling cemented the judiciary’s role as a check on executive power.

Thirty years later, Trump’s favorite president, authoritarian genocidal maniac Andrew Jackson famously defied the Supreme Court’s ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, which held that the state of Georgia had no authority over Cherokee lands. Jackson growled, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” This is one of the most blatant examples of executive defiance against judicial authority and if someone told Trump about it, I’m sure it’s his model for his current activity. Or maybe it was a less villainous president. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus without congressional approval. When Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled in Ex parte Merryman that only Congress had that power, Lincoln ignored the decision, justifying his actions on national security grounds. This echoes Vance’s argument that the executive has legitimate authority that judges shouldn’t interfere with.

More recently, Nixon argued that executive privilege protected him from having to turn over the Watergate tapes. In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled against him, reaffirming that even the president is subject to judicial review. Nixon complied— and resigned soon after. And during Señor T’s first term, courts repeatedly blocked executive orders, especially on immigration (Trump v. Hawaii) and attempts to dismantle DACA. While Trump often railed against “so-called judges” and questioned judicial authority, he ultimately complied with court rulings. Vance’s current rhetoric, though, suggests a more extreme approach—questioning whether courts should even have this power at all.

Vance’s argument that courts shouldn’t interfere with the executive has historical precedent, but it has almost always been rejected in favor of judicial review. The judiciary is designed to be a check on presidential power, and efforts to undermine that balance have faced strong resistance. Vance’s position is particularly worrying because it echoes authoritarian tendencies seen in history, where executives have tried to erode judicial independence. The pushback from legal scholars today mirrors past conflicts, reinforcing the idea that the judiciary’s role is essential to preventing the abuse of power.

Martha Raddatz hosted Chris Murphy on This Week yesterday and he began by telling the audience that he thinks “this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate. The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes. The president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends, he can punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy. You stand that next to the wholesale endorsement of political violence with the pardons given to every single Jan. 6 rioter— including the most violent, who beat police officers over the head with baseball bats— and you can see what he's trying to do here. He is trying to crush his opposition by making them afraid of losing federal funding, by making them afraid of physical violence. This is a red-alert moment.”

He further noted that “the pace of this assault on the Constitution in order to serve the billionaire class his absolutely dizzying and you have to run a full-scale opposition. You can't just rely on the courts. Ultimately, you've got to bring the American public into this conversation, because we need our Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate, ultimately, to put a stop to this. You cannot just rely on the court system when the challenge to the Constitution and the billionaire takeover is so acute and so urgent."