Trump’s tweets are temporary, the rule of law is permanent

Unless you live under a rock, you’re aware that President Trump routinely tweets his way up to and over the edge of what is traditionally accepted as proper presidential conduct. Some even view this as a threat to the republic.

But the much greater threat is that members of the judiciary and attorneys in positions of power seem intent on using his intemperance to destroy the rule of law itself, and to assert a new standard, nowhere in the Constitution, by which some presidents are more equal than others.

This idea underpins opposition to the president’s so-called travel ban, which was argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. There isn’t much substance to the opposition’s legal argument. With the Immigration and Nationality Act, Congress explicitly granted all future presidents plenary power to impose just such a ban if they saw fit. The law reads: “[The president] may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

Congress might have erred here. Perhaps it should not have granted the executive such wide-ranging powers. Perhaps Trump’s travel ban is unwise or even immoral. If so, then Congress should change the law. But the idea that judges could arbitrarily curtail such clear-cut presidential powers, established in black and white, is an affront to the rule of law, and a much bigger threat in the long run than Trump’s impropriety.

When an elected Congress and an elected president implement a plainly constitutional law and the legal resistance actually reaches the Supreme Court, it’s clear that multiple judges have gone rogue.