Congressional Republicans are already engaged in quiet quitting -- they're exercising their constitutional power to appropriate funds by choosing not to exercise it. They're choosing to stand by and allow Donald Trump and Elon Musk to exercise it for them. That's because Republicans categorically oppose Democratic participation in government. It doesn't matter that the people elected Democratic presidents in the past and regularly elect Democrats to half or nearly half the seats in Congress. Republicans believe that only Republicans have a legitimate right to wield public power, so laws passed by a Congress that includes many Democrats are illegitimate and ought to be subject to Republican veto.
What do we do when a court issues a final ruling -- not just a temporary restraining order -- that prevents the Trump administration from doing whatever it wants and Trump's people go ahead and do it anyway? It would be nice to think that some part of the system can constrain the Trumpers, but if the best idea we have is what's proposed by Joyce White, a lawyer and MSNBC contributor, we're doomed:
Now we will see just how far Trump is willing to go and whether anyone in his own administration will try to function, if not as a guardrail, then at least in protest by resigning to focus public attention....Imagine being so naive that you actually believe this could happen.
What happens if we hit that stage? Everyone, from the Attorney General to the White House Counsel and others, should write a “resign” email if Trump refuses to obey a lawful court order.
We can protest and we can keep suing. Protesting will become dangerous soon, because Trump will eventually want to use force against peaceful protesters. I'm not sure the public will respond to this the way he hopes -- middle-of-the-road Americans might simply conclude that we elected Trump and now there's chaos in the streets, blaming him (correctly) for the unrest. But he'll make protest very difficult, and he's likely at some point to invoke the Insurrection Act.
Lawsuits will still be possible. Musk and others are talking about impeaching judges:
A corrupt judge protecting corruption.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2025
He needs to be impeached NOW! https://t.co/zgnwZuOz2Y
But while it takes just a simple majority in the House to impeach a judge, a two-thirds vote in the Senate is required to remove the judge. Republicans would need 67 votes in the Senate and have only 53. I don't even think John Fetterman or Ruben Gallego will vote to remove these judges, much less both of them plus 12 other Democrats.
(It's fascinating that the de facto president of the United States doesn't know this.)
Or would Congress simply abolish the specific lower courts on which Trump-skeptical judges sit, and then reestablish new courts to which Trump could appoint loyalists? I think that could happen.
I suspect that the people with the most power to stop Trump are the plutocrats. Our political culture doesn't care what Democratic officeholders think. It doesn't care what ordinary citizens think unless they're white heartlanders who vote Republican. But it does care what people with money think.
There's an op-ed in The New York Times today written by five former treasury secretaries -- Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Tim Geithner, Jacob Lew, and Janet Yellen-- titled "Our Democracy Is Under Siege." They're upset because Muskovites are tinkering with the federal payment system.
And a story in The Wall Street Journal (free to read here) warns that "Trump’s Next Round of Tariffs—25% on Steel and Aluminum—Won’t Be So Easily Averted," while another Journal story (free to read here) carries the headline "For CEOs and Bankers, the Trump Euphoria Is Fading Fast." From that story:
It took less than a month for the second Trump administration to cool the enthusiasm of chief executives and dealmakers.They thought electing a Republican president would let them pursue unlimited mergers and other deals, but that's not the case:
Consumer sentiment is down and inflation expectations are rising, driven in part by worries about the impact of a threatened trade war....
Corporate bigwigs are now using phrases like “fragility,” “volatility” and “wait and see” to describe their outlooks.
The recent whipsaw on tariffs seemed to hit hardest on business leaders’ confidence. President Trump announced plans to stick 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, only to delay them for a month a few days later. A number of executives, as well as top investment bankers and other industry advisers, have said that priorities have shifted in recent days to navigating tariffs and other policy issues.I haven't heard that Hewlett Packard paid the standard million-dollar bribe to Trump's inauguration fund, which probably explains why the deal is being held up.
They need to settle supply routes, discuss whether to raise their own prices and figure out what is even happening. That doesn’t leave much room for thinking about big bet-the-company deals.
The reaction is evident in the deals market. Just under 900 deals were announced in the U.S. in January, according to data from LSEG. That compares with more than 1,200 transactions in the previous January and over 1,500 two years ago. Even the hope of a lighter regulatory touch has taken a knock. The Justice Department sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion deal to buy Juniper Networks.
Remember how Trump announced tariffs on Mexico and Canada, then immediately postponed them after small concessions by the two countries? Axios suggests that Canada will be hit by the new tariffs:
It's not yet clear how blanket tariffs on steel and aluminum would impact the ongoing negotiations with Canada and Mexico, against whom tariffs were paused until March 1.And did Trump actually proclaim that his administration doesn't consider itself obliged to pay the value of some Treasury bills or bonds? Josh Marshall thought that's what Trump was suggesting yesterday:
... Doug Ford, the premier of Canadian steel-producing hub Ontario, on X accused Trump of "shifting goalposts and constant chaos, putting our economy at risk."
On Air Force One ... en route to the Super Bowl, Trump told reporters that DOGE analysts (whatever that means) had found “irregularities” in U.S. treasuries and that the U.S. may not be obligated to pay some of them. “Maybe we have less debt than we thought,” he said....This was quickly walked back:
If financial markets actually thought Trump was serious about this, that he would follow through on this, they’d probably go completely haywire. As I said, I think — unless and until we hear more — they will think this is just the old man ranting.
So he's claiming that certain payments are fraudulent, not that the U.S. government will default on some of its debt.
Right now, the markets are shrugging all this off. But the plutocrats are probably the only people who scare Trump, and they don't seem happy. Their disgruntlement, and the disgruntlement of ordinary consumers, might be the only thing that can save us if all the other guardrails are gone.
