Alan Zendell, Frberuary 22, 2026

When Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court on January 31, 2017, he described Judge Gorsuch as having, “a superb intellect, an unparalleled legal education, and a commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its text.” In other words, he described Gorsuch as a traditional, conservative Republican. His description was accurate, but it was also one of many examples of Trump practicing Orwellian Doublespeak.

As with the nominations of Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh, Trump cared about their education and other credentials only as a cover for his real reason for selecting him. Always transactional, Trump’s criteria were their loyalty and their commitment to strike down Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing Trump’s support from evangelists. But striking down Roe, while it reversed fifty years of precedent wasn’t a challenge to the Constitution, which doesn’t even mention abortion.

Trump throws around words like Conservative as if he actually were one, but he has no ideology at all except greed and an obscene lust for power. He proved that, yesterday, when he attacked Gorsuch for defending the Constitution because he joined five other Justices to rule that Trump’s tariffs were illegal. Gorsuch lived up to Trump’s 2017 words, but Trump had other intentions. He doesn’t want the Court to defend the Constitution, especially the part that assures Separation of Powers. He wants it to demonstrate its loyalty and gratitude by allowing him to do anything he wants to.

Yesterday, Trump described Gorsuch as a FOOL and a LAPDOG. The same Gorsuch whom he praised for being an originalist who would interpret the Constitution literally, he now labeled a RINO, Republican in name only. That, too, was classic Trump, who changed the definition of “Republican” to suit his narcissistic personality. Gorsuch is the same kind of Republican Barry Goldwater was. And like Goldwater, whose integrity assured that Richard Nixon was held accountable for Watergate and the ensuing coverup,

Gorsuch went the extra mile to lecture Trump about bypassing Congress. His message was clear if indirect. He told Trump and his Heritage Society handlers that the Court will not permit them to skirt or undermine the Constitution. The Guardian put it differently. ”After an agonizing year in which the U.S. Supreme Court has stood aside and allowed Trump to run roughshod over the constitutional separation of powers, [it] has finally stirred itself to set boundaries on the president’s increasingly regal pose.”

The Guardian noted that in 2025, the Court issued twenty-four emergency rulings from its “opaque shadow docket…collectively [giving] the benefit of the doubt to Trump…[allowing] Trump, at least in the short term, to trample over powers reserved for Congress.”

Justice Gorsuch did more than join Justices Roberts and Barrett to vote with the three liberal Justices. He issued a concurring opinion of his own which directly rebuked Congress for failing to defend itself against Trump’s power grabs, and subtly told Trump the days of his imperial presidency are over, a moment the great majority of Americans were awaiting. He also attacked Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh for abandoning the “major questions doctrine,” under which any attempt by the executive to wield extradinary power must be preceded by an unambiguous delegation of the authority to do so.

The New York Times described Gorsuch’s concurring opinion as “a paean to Congress that read like a requiem for a bygone era of legislative power.” Gorsuch was explicit about the behavior of the Trump administration. “…[I]t can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.” The deliberative nature of the legislative process is also the polar opposite of the knee-jerk whims of Donald Trump, who once changed the level of tariffs he imposed on China four times in one day.

America’s power in the world has depended on the stability and dependability of its policies. But that is anathema to Donald Trump who prefers feints and bluffs. Note to Donald: the future of the world is not a poker game. He brags that his unpredictability is his most powerful weapon. That might work when he’s being sued for breach of contract or fraud, but it’s not the way powerful nations conduct diplomacy. Diplomacy, and by implication, respect for other nations’ sovereignty, requires that diplomats understand each other. In 1962, lack of clarity about Nikita Khrushchev’s statements about removing missiles from Cuba almost led to a nuclear confrontation.

Trump’s governing is a reckless, high-risk attempt to change the structure of the American government and rework the world economic order. The hubris of a small group of right-wing extremists is remarkable. To succeed, they had to hijack a major political party, intimidate both the Congress and the Supreme Court, and then bully their way through the rest of the world, threatening other nations with our economic and military power.

They almost got away with it, and we can only hope that the Court’s decision on tariffs and Justice Gorsuch’s remarkable rebuke of both Congress and Trump will be enough to turn the tide for good.