Because of Donald Trump and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the United States has become the land of Calvinball.
Calvinball is a game in the comic strip “Calvin & Hobbs” in which players make up the rules for whatever game they are playing. Rules for one game cannot be used for another one. You have to make up new rules for every game. That way everything is kept off balance all the time.
Trump’s been playing Calvinball since he entered politics. Now the Supreme Court has apparently taken up the game.
That’s how Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson describes the latest ruling of the conservative majority on the Court.
The majority decided the Trump administration could proceed in cancelling National Institutes of Health grants while a law suit challenging the cancellations is ongoing. The majority also said that should the plaintiffs prevail, they are not entitled to regain any funding lost in the interim.
Justice Jackson argues that the ruling is self-contradictory in ignoring both the law and precedent as if the majority is making up the rules as they go. ” For all practical purposes, she says, the conservative majority is practicing “Calvinball jurisprudence” in order to ensure that “this administration always wins.”
This significantly raises the stakes for the future of our democracy. It seems we, the people, are now fighting Donald Trump and the Supreme Court while a lame, cowardly Republican Congress sits by and does nothing about it.
The goal here is obvious. Trump wants an imperial presidency without any accountability. He wants the power to do whatever he chooses to do. And for some unknown reason the conservative majority on the Supreme Court seem determined to help him.
Of all the dangers the founders sought to avoid, not having a king was their top priority. But this Court’s conservatives apparently believe they know better.
Thankfully, lower court judges all across the country, some of whom were appointed by Trump himself, are doing just the opposite. In ruling after ruling they are saying no to Trump’s grab for power. They are refusing to play Calvinball with the Constitution, and are serving as the nation’s primary defense against Trump’s quest for unlimited power.
Based on their Calvinball approach to the Constitution, we are likely to see the Supreme Court conservatives render rulings in the near future that will finish off the 1965 Voting Rights Act it started neutering in 2013., do to gay marriage what it did with a woman’s right to choose – turn it over the the states, and perhaps affirm Trump’s executive order banning the use of mail-in ballots should he issue one.
As discouraging as it is to see the conservative majority of the nation’s highest court make rulings that enhance Trump’s power rather than keeping it in check, those of us who hate everything about the Trump presidency still have reason to believe we will stop him.
For one thing, most lower court rulings never reach the Supreme Court. This means most of them will stand. What is more, these rulings expose the fraudulent basis on which Trump’s action are often based.
As long as the lower court judges maintain their commitment to the Constitution and personal integrity, democracy has a good chance of prevailing.
Another reason for hope that Trump will fail is the power of voting. This one is the key to everything else.
The reason Trump wants to rig the 2026 mid-terms in anti-democratic gerrymandering in Republican states like Texas is because he knows he will not win a fair election. He fears the power of the people’s vote because it is real.
We must give him reason to fear our power next year by rejecting his grab for power in the mid-terms. Here is where Republicans who say they believe in democracy must stand up and be counted. A non-MAGA Republican Party no longer exists. Trump is in total control and has driven most traditional Republicans out of the party.
This is what Republican voters must understand. Voting Republican means voting for Trump, and that in turn means voting against the survival of American democracy. There is no in-between. He is the head of a fascist political party right here in the United States of America.
The nation needs traditional Republican voters to understand that, to understand that in the next election they will be voting for democracy or against it.
This is the new reality. At the moment the traditional two-party system is dead. Members of both major political parties once shared a commitment to the fundamental principles our constitutional democracy established, but MAGA Republicans no longer do. They don’t want to share power. They want it all.
There is only one party left that is committed to American democracy and that is the Democratic Party. It’s not what any of us wants, but it is what we’ve got, and pretending otherwise makes saving democracy that much harder.
The good thing is that Democrats, independents, and some former Republicans now realize Trump and his MAGA Republican Party are playing Calvinball. Playing by the old rules means having no chance to win.
It is a good sign that California Governor Gavin Newsom is leading his state Democrats in seeing Calvinball for the threat it is to free and fair elections across the country. Other Democratic governors will have to do the same thing.
This is the nature of our current political war here in the United States. I use the word “war” intentionally. War is about control, about power, about who rules and who doesn’t. If Trump wins, the United States will no longer be among the world’s democracies. He will align us with Russia, Hungary, and other authoritarian states.
In this environment every American who votes for a MAGA Republican in 2026 is voting against the future of the America our founders established. No one can stand on the sidelines in this fight because everything about who we are as a nation is at stake.
That is not hyperbole. Trump has forced every American into a choice between tyranny and democracy that has divided families and broken friendships. Tragically, this is the hand history has dealt us.
What makes this moment unique is that never before has our own president been the enemy of democracy. Trump is, and anyone who believes otherwise is aiding and abetting him.
That is how we got here in the first place. Last November too many voters refused to see Trump for who and what he is.
That can – and must – change in the 2026 mid-terms. If we the voters are truly serious about stopping Trump, we will resoundingly defeat Republicans by electing Democrats and independents in sufficient numbers to reassert congressional oversight of Trump and his administration.
Even better would an anti-Trump mid-term vote that would give a new Congress sufficient votes to impeach, convict, and remove Trump from office should he become more and more extreme.
That would be a fitting end to his Calvinball political career, and at the same time serve notice to the conservative majority on the Supreme Court that we will no longer tolerate them engaging in Calvinball jurisprudence either.
When Elizabeth Willing Power asked Benjamin Franklin as he was leaving the 1787 Constitutional Convention, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” he famously responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
It is no exaggeration to say that exactly 238 years later we are the Americans who will determine whether we keep the republic the founders established or allow Donald Trump to replace it with his own monarchy wherein Calvinball will be the only game in town.
It’s all up to us. No one else. We cannot afford to pretend otherwise.
linnposts.com 