An Emboldened Executive: The Second Trump Administration and the Rule of Law

This paper investigates how the rule of law has been reconstituted, rather than dismantled, during the first nine months of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Drawing on an aggregate quantitative analysis of federal court rulings, it finds that while district and, to a lesser extent, appellate courts have frequently rebuked the administration, the Supreme Court has repeatedly intervened through its emergency—or “shadow”— docket to legitimize expansive assertions of executive authority. These interventions have not only consolidated presidential power but also altered judicial procedure and intensified divisions within the judiciary itself. Rather than signaling the collapse of legality, the Court’s jurisprudence amounts to a broad redefinition of lawful executive power, with the Supreme Court emerging as a willing architect of the president’s agenda. The paper concludes that this convergence portends a critical reordering of the American constitutional system—an illiberal turn that, paradoxically but in keeping with historical precedent, may provoke a renewed reckoning with executive power.