Everyone But MAGA Believes Trump Should Follow Court Orders

What I find funny about the MAGA contingent is that they’re quick to yell about the rule of law when it comes to protests, police brutality, and anything any politician of the opposing party does. Yet when it comes to their own, none of that energy can be remotely found. Case in point: a recent poll shows that the majority of people believe President Trump needs to follow court rulings. Who are the holdouts, you ask? 

The MAGA faithful, of course! Why are you asking me questions you already know the answer to? 

The poll, conducted by NBC News, found that 81% of respondents believed that if a legal ruling is issued against the Trump administration, they would have to follow it. The other 19% believed it was optional for the president to be bound by the same laws that everyone else is governed by. 

When split across party lines, Democrats overwhelmingly believe the president has to follow court orders at 96%, with Independents at a close second with 87%. When it comes to Republicans, they’re split 50-50 with the MAGA contingent believing the president can behave with impunity, which tracks if you’ve ever spent any amount of time listening to Trump’s core base. I live in Arizona, so unfortunately, I can’t slum it in a dive bar without hearing at least one person go off on a cognitively dissonant spiel about how the “woke left” are the true fascists. 

It’s an alarming, if not somewhat obvious, portrait of where America is right now. The Trump administration is engaging in a strange game of doublespeak when it comes to the legal system. Through its hardline, and in this writer’s opinion, inhumane, approach to immigration, the administration constantly hammers home the principle of law and order. 

The Trump administration has even shown a willingness to arrest and file charges against politicians actively protesting against its immigration moves. Yet whenever hit with a court ruling they disagree with, the administration is quick to demonize the American legal system. 

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a man who can only be described as a sentient thumb, called a court ruling preventing the Trump administration from banning foreign student admissions at Harvard “a judicial coup by communist, Marxist judges.” Mind you, this is the same man who said the Trump administration was looking into suspending habeas corpus for immigrants. 

So clearly he’s bringing a totally chill, respectful, and not at all authoritarian approach to the legal system. 

By the way, do you know how crazy a white man has to be for me to go “okay, calm down” when they’re slandering the American legal system? Slandering the American legal system is like my fifth favorite hobby! 

It’s not just words, either, as we’ve seen the Trump administration drag its heels when it comes to acting in accordance with the courts. The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the country after he was wrongfully deported. The Trump administration made no effort to return him, and he was only brought back to the country two months after the ruling to face trial for alleged human trafficking offenses. 

In April, a federal judge found probable cause that the Trump administration acted in contempt of the court after it ignored an order to turn around two deportation flights holding alleged Venezuelan gang members. 

So as you can see, it’s not just Trump voters who think the president doesn’t have to comply with the law. The administration itself is also in agreement with that line of thinking. 

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