It’s been a rough few days for liberals in America.
On Thursday, they had to watch President Joe Biden’s abysmal debate performance, one of the worst in history, confirming to most who watched that he lacks the stamina to serve as president for another four years.
Liberal commentators are now officially in panic mode, with virtually no one defending the president’s performance, and many former Biden staunch supporters explicitly urging him to drop out of the race so that anyone, anyone, capable of defeating former President Donald Trump Can participate in elections.
So today the U.S. Supreme Court jointly decided two cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerceending the long-standing doctrine Chevron Deference – A judicial rule requiring courts to give substantial deference to an administrative agency’s judgment of the legality of its statutes.
The always hysterical Mark Joseph Stern, slateLegal writers declared the decision a “major blow to the ‘administrative state'” and “constituting a major transfer of power from the executive to the judiciary.”
Stern offered a similar assessment of the Supreme Court decision SEC v. Jarkesyin which the court held that persons prosecuted by administrative agencies for civil violations were entitled to a jury trial.
He’s not the only one feeling desperate. Liberal legal critics are furious about the new restrictions the federal bureaucracy must now endure.
Personally, these various bizarre behaviors may make sense; Democrats don’t want Democrats to lose the presidential election. Liberal big-government proponents don’t want additional limits on the power of federal regulators to set sweeping national policies.
All in all, the two scares are frustratingly incoherent. Liberals are angry about the diminished ability of the executive branch soon to be controlled by Donald Trump to set policy unilaterally.
Given concerns about what a second Donald Trump administration will mean for liberal political priorities, one would think that a Supreme Court ruling limiting executive power would be viewed as a good thing for American liberals.
Of course, they should view it as a good thing that Trump’s administration will face increased scrutiny from the courts when enacting regulations that are not expressly authorized in statutes passed by Congress. Likewise, it seems likely that Trump haters should think it’s a good thing that people charged by independent agencies appointed by Trump benefit from jury trials.
This was supposed to be the liberal thinking of the first Trump administration, but it wasn’t.
Instead, Democrats have thrown their weight behind the idea that Trump is an illegitimate president. All they have to do is organize harder, vote harder, and become more militant until they finally take control of the White House again.
While in office, Biden has been willing to further expand his executive power by forgiving student loans, extending an eviction ban and mandating vaccinations for private sector workers, all without a vote in Congress.
With Biden likely not to be president for much longer, this looks like a bad strategy.
Liberals readily accept limits on executive power. We were never in charge of the federal government, nor did we expect it to do much. People across the ideological spectrum should also embrace the wisdom of this attitude, even if they want a more active federal government.
Policy wins resulting from unilateral administrative action can also be easily offset by administrative action. The more power a president has, the more worrisome it becomes when you think the president is dangerous or even insane.
All the more reason to limit the president’s power, even if it means enacting his preferred policies through Congress and the states.
The case before the Supreme Court will place severe limits on liberals’ ability to implement their policy vision through the executive branch. They would also impose severe restrictions on Donald Trump doing the same thing.
Anyone who was hoping for a Biden win and watched last night’s debate should see a glimmer of hope.
