MAGA’s Leftist Attitude Toward the Law
The Trump Administration and its allies are adopting a progressive legal mindset they once claimed to have opposed.
President Trump and the MAGA movement are heading down a perilous path, embracing an “ends justify the means” mentality in which policy goals triumph over law. Legal objections—even from the very allies who helped build Trump’s judicial legacy—are now met with suspicion and scorn, as if fidelity to the rule of law were a betrayal rather than a conservative virtue.
The trigger for Trump’s latest outburst was a May ruling from the U.S. Court of International Trade, which struck down his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs for exceeding his authority. Rather than criticize the legal reasoning, Trump took to Truth Social to blast the Federalist Society and its former executive vice president Leonard Leo, calling him a “sleazebag” who “probably hates America.” Trump accused FedSoc of giving him “bad advice” on judicial nominations, though none of the judges on the panel were FedSoc-affiliated Trump appointees. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), Congress granted the president limited economic powers to deal with emergencies that threaten national security. It did not grant the president the power to impose universal tariffs on the world to address trade deficits. The ruling simply enforced the relevant statute. But that was enough to provoke MAGA world into turning on the very institution that built Trump’s most important legacy.
Trump’s allies echoed his sentiments with equal vitriol. Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, appeared on CNN the following day, condemning the Federalist Society for creating a “broken system” and declaring that the administration would no longer rely on the group for judicial nominations. Miller’s rhetoric framed the organization’s commitment to judicial independence as a flaw, accusing it of vetting “rogue judges” who fail to align with Trump’s agenda. Similarly, Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, accused the Federalist Society of abandoning Trump during his legal battles, positioning his own organization as a MAGA-friendly alternative to vet “bold and fearless” judges loyal to Trump’s vision.
The irony is profound. The Federalist Society was instrumental in achieving Trump’s most enduring accomplishment: reshaping the federal judiciary. Through decades of cultivating principled jurists committed to originalism, textualism, and constitutionalism, the organization helped Trump appoint three Supreme Court justices and over 200 lower-court judges, cementing a conservative judicial legacy that overturned erroneous landmark cases like Roe v. Wade. The Federalist Society helped steer the courts back toward the Constitution, a feat that stands as Trump’s most significant contribution to the Republic. Indeed, the organization may have saved the Constitution.
Yet, this cornerstone of Trump’s judicial legacy is now derided by MAGA influencers as a swampy relic, an establishment club obstructing populist action. The trade court ruling, which found Trump’s tariffs unlawful, was not an isolated incident but a flashpoint in a broader clash. Trump and the MAGA movement’s lack of fidelity to the law is nothing new. The administration has attempted to sidestep statutes in various areas, including immigration and the so-called “TikTok ban.” On the latter, Trump has chosen to simply ignore that statute’s requirements, refusing to enforce the law.
Many originalists, including those tied to the Federalist Society (most of whom voted for Trump), have raised concerns about the president’s disregard of legal boundaries. For this, they are smeared as “weak,” “establishment,” or “deep state” operatives. The logic is stark: if you question the legality of Trump’s plans, you are the enemy.
This mindset mirrors the progressive left’s approach to the law, which conservatives have long opposed—treating courts as mere instruments of policy, scorning constitutional limits as antiquated obstacles to their agenda. The right was rightly up in arms at President Obama’s “pen and phone” approach to the law. MAGA now adopts this same framework, albeit for different ends. But when these are the means, the ends won’t matter. When you abandon constitutional principles to achieve your policy goals, you haven’t saved the country—you’ve paved the path to its ruin.
Conservatives once understood this. And many still do. The conservative legal movement has largely acted as the steadfast guardians of the Constitution, recognizing that the law must restrain not only our opponents but ourselves. Our allegiance is not to any man, and our policy goals cannot supersede the law. Our fidelity belongs to the Constitution. Without constitutional principles, America has nothing.
What MAGA fails to grasp is the precedent they set. If we bend, bypass, or bulldoze the Constitution to enact “America First” policies, progressives will seize that precedent when they regain power. They will wield it to dismantle what remains of our Republic. The tools forged for your champion will be turned against you by your enemy.
The claim that we can’t afford to “disarm” ourselves against a lawless Democratic Party is unpersuasive. One side’s disregard for the Constitution does not justify abandoning it ourselves. Constitutional decay cannot be a partisan arms race. The populist right overlooks a fundamental truth: fidelity to the Constitution is not a tactic to be discarded when inconvenient, but the source of our nation’s prosperity. The rule of law is not merely a tool to advance our goals; it is the very goal we must defend.
Pushing aside the law to get things done is shortsighted and misguided. This moment is a dangerous one as it could open the door for progressives to plunder our Constitution and our Republic with it.
We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to a rebirth of conservative constitutionalism, resolute in policy convictions but anchored in the rule of law. The other leads to a strongman populism, unmoored from legal constraints and indistinguishable from the leftist legal approach we have long resisted.
If we lose the Constitution, we lose the country. The breach is open. If conservatives abandon it, there will be little left to defend the Republic’s adherence to the rule of law.
I leave you with my favorite scene from A Man for All Seasons:
William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”