[SpicyLemonZest]

I'm not sure I follow the questions. The success of a long-term project can be ensured through the procedures described in the source article: you set up a durable judicial system, and invest them with the power to require that the country uphold its end of the bargain, no matter how much its current political leaders might want to change course.

[aboardRat4]

>success of a long-term project can be ensured through the procedures described in the source article: you set up a durable judicial system, and invest them with the power to require that the country uphold its end of the bargain, no matter how much its current political leaders might want to change course.

That's an abuse of the judicial system. Politicians are elected exactly because the voters perceive a need to change the execution of government's functions.

The thing is, you cannot beat human moral qualities with formalist means. People who come to power by raising hatred towards their political opponents will always find a way to subvert policies even if not cancel them.

Long-term policies should be established through consensus among all parties, not though legalistic bureaucracy.

[watwut]

That is not an abuse of the judicial system. That is actual rule of law rather the rule of the whim.

Elected politicians can change laws and rules going forward, but there should be obstacles at changing past laws.

[PearlRiver]

Sure but they will still need to pay up the agreed contract price.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Perhaps you don't think legalistic bureaucracy should matter, but the voters' representatives in Congress don't agree. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, government agencies must produce legalistic bureaucratic reasons for their actions; they may not act capriciously to suit the whims of political leaders or transient desires for a change.

Congress certainly has the power to change this if they want to. But without something like the APA, private businesses exposed to federal regulation would struggle to make any plans beyond the current US Presidential term. So they do not want to.

[aboardRat4]

>Under the Administrative Procedure Act, government agencies must produce legalistic bureaucratic reasons for their actions; they may not act capriciously to suit the whims of political leaders or transient desires for a change.

Well, this is sort of against the spirit of the US constitution, at least as explained in the Federalist. I might even call it an abuse of the Legislative system.

I'm not speaking very confidently here, but by the spirit of it, the Congress should not do this much of micro-management of the Executive.

Surely the Congress should pass the laws which _prevent_ the Executive from doing stupid things, in particular collecting too much taxes, but it shouldn't really tell the Executive "do this, in this particular way".

To be honest, I suspect that the actual _reason_ every administration tries to undo as much of the actions of the previous administration as they can is because due to the amount of limits imposed on them by the Congress they they cannot do much else. Fighting the Congress is much harder than fighting the previous administration.

I seriously suspect that if the amount of regulation is decreased, it will actually be beneficial to long-term policy stability, because instead of fighting the decisions of the previous administration the current one would be busy with it's own projects.

[CamperBob2]

you set up a durable judicial system, and give them their own army.

That's the only way to work around Trump. According to the Constitution, no one can actually make the executive branch do anything it doesn't want to do.

[SpicyLemonZest]

No, that's not accurate. The courts frequently make Trump and his cronies do things they don't want to do, and prevent them from doing things they do want to do. Multiple such cases are described in the source article.

[vel0city]

> That does not end the Court’s concerns, however. Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted. This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230...

This is absolutely nuts to read, and yet isn't the first time we've read such kind of language in court opinions and publications with this administration.

[CamperBob2]

That state of affairs is seen as a bug, and is being fixed. [1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society

That aside: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/21/trump-cou...

Edit due to rate-limiting: that makes two of us.

[SpicyLemonZest]

If Trump defies 1 in 3 of the court orders against him, that still means judges successfully stopped him 2 times out of 3. I'm not interested in a discussion where we equivocate between what's true today and worst case scenarios that could become true in the future, sorry.

[fuzzfactor]

Yes, this particular court case could end up completely against Trump, that would be better than zero progress when it comes to making energy more affordable.

>raises the possibility that the order halting construction will ultimately be held to be arbitrary and capricious.

But guys like Trump aren't arbitrary or capricious.

There's a pretty good consensus that he would have to be a lot more sensible by nature to reach that level of sophistication.

[bdangubic]

you should have learned by now what trump et al are doing… these “cases” they are “losing” are just smoke&mirrors for the general public to go “see, they obey the law” on things they do not particularly give a hoot about. the ones they do care about no one is “stopping” - the way you can tell which one is which is when they completely ignore the constitution and any existing law(s) or when they hit up the judicial extension of their party - the scotus - to rubberstamp something. even there, once in a while, they’ll make a call to (often temporarily) “lose”

[SpicyLemonZest]

It seems to me that we're seeing precisely the opposite. Trump enjoys the appearance of inevitability, so whenever he finds something he cannot force through, he pretends that it doesn't matter to him and he never really cared about it in the first place.

I'd encourage you to make a list of the top 10 things you're worried he's about to do now, and check back in a few months to see how many of them came true. One big transition point in my thinking was in July of last year, when I remembered how much he'd bragged in March that the Department of Education would soon be shut down. He does a large number of terrible things, yes, but he also can't do most of the terrible things he says he's going to do.

[CamperBob2]

I'd encourage you to make a list of the top 10 things you're worried he's about to do now, and check back in a few months to see how many of them came true.

I don't have to "check back in a few months." Look at what he's accomplished in only one year: https://www.project2025.observer/en . Far more than he was able to do in his four previous years in office.

Trump is basically doing all the things that he wanted to do in his first term, but that were slow-walked, stonewalled, and sandbagged by the so-called "adults in the room." There are now very few if any of those adults left, and that includes judges who are willing and able to put a leash on him.

If you're not deranged, you're not paying attention.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I looked at this site, and a number of the items have a big red gavel marker with a label saying "Court Orders: Blocked". To me this sounds like it's saying court orders are capable of blocking Trump and have in fact blocked Trump from completing the marked items. Am I misinterpreting?