(Originally published by The New York Times on March 22, 2026)

The sheer number of brazenly unconstitutional actions undertaken by the Trump administration this term has left the legal world dizzy. Each day seems to bring fresh depredations: the investigations and prosecutions of President Trump’s political opponents, the lawsuits against media organizations whose coverage he dislikes, the attempt to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States.

For those who care about the rule of law, there is an understandable impulse to feverishly track the fate of these actions in court, tallying losses and wins, parsing judicial opinions, searching for signs of effective opposition from a besieged legal order. But that impulse is largely misplaced.

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