Law is useless without consequences

We are facing a lawless Trump administration, and everyone knows that. The problem is that what they do happens very fast, while the legal process can be very slow. That means they can de facto achieve so many things without facing any consequences.

First of all, after the SCOTUS ruling granting the president immunity, the law already became useless. Law exists because there are consequences and punishments. But if someone can break the law and still have immunity, then breaking the law doesn’t mean anything to him or her anymore. It basically means the courts’ ruling would only be: “This is not good, please don’t do it again.” And he would keep doing it.

Then the SCOTUS ruling that took away the national injunction is also bad. It further complicates and lengthens the legal process, and it makes law-breaking activities persist until the final rulings come. That can be years away, and in the meantime the damage is already done. They are de facto accomplishing the goal.

We have been seeing that in the federal government shake-up. Telework and workers’ rights have been taken away, even though it is clearly illegal. Many have been laid off and waited months to finally get a favorable decision. But by then, there are no longer job positions available to them, or they have simply moved on. The Trump administration broke the law, but faced no consequences. Meanwhile, the federal workers obeyed the law, and they suffered all the illegal consequences.

This is exactly what this administration is doing. They know they are breaking the law, but they flood the gates and keep doing it. Eventually, by the time a court decision comes, it is either too late—like “the building has been demolished,” or “people have already found a new job after the illegal layoffs”—or it becomes “oops, my bad,” with no consequences.

Therefore, after presidential immunity and the removal of national injunctions, we are seeing the true color of a lawless government firsthand. Executive orders become laws because, before they get deemed illegal, they function as law for at least a year or two anyway. And because there are no consequences, even if one EO gets struck down, the president can simply rewrite another EO, and we would have to fight another year to strike that new EO down.

And then it is close to the end of his presidency already, and the law becomes useless. The ironic part is that the highest court in the United States struck down and destroyed the rule of law.