Steve Bannon Decides to Attack and Defeat the Federal Judiciary

Crisis time, of many to come:

Andrew Jackson’s confrontational attitude toward the courts, particularly on matters of race, war, and human decency, bears particular scrutiny. Jackson hated the courts, making every attempt to limit their power and even instigate clashes with the judiciary. Jackson felt that judges had no authority to place any limits on majoritarian rule. Both states and the federal government attempted to nullify or simply refuse to enforce judicial rulings, and various crises were only resolved when majorities who favored court decisions protecting minority interests once again won elected office and created a government culture in which the judiciary was better respected.

Fast forward to the recent Muslim ban. Bannon had to know that the courts would immediately step in to halt the deportations on multiple legal grounds. But not only did Bannon seek that confrontation, he did so in the most provocative way possible: it was Bannon’s idea to overrule the Department of Homeland Security and include green card holders in the immigration ban.

And, in fact, a Constitutional crisis has already arisen: some border patrol have been defying court orders by detaining legal residents without access to attorneys, in spite of direct personal pressure from United States senators and armies of lawyers.

It’s possible that this chaos is simply a result of overzealousness and incompetence on the part of the Administration. But Bannon is known to be a cunning a strategist who doesn’t show his hand and doesn’t like to openly talk about his tactics. His actions are seldom random and always deliberate.