It begins like a déjà vu from times when the separation of powers still meant something: J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States, publicly offers advice to the Chief Justice of the country, John Roberts, in an interview with the New York Times. The judiciary, according to Vance, must finally submit – to the will of the people, the president, to “authority.” The courts, especially the lower ones, are out of control. They are, he says, “literally trying to overturn the will of the American people.”
What sounds like the opening of a dystopian novel is part of the political reality of the United States in May 2025. Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, former bestselling author, and ideologue with messianic conviction, promotes a vision of democracy in which judges obey – and no longer rule. The goal: dismantling the third branch of government. The method: moral blackmail in the name of the people.
“You cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement – and the courts tell them they are not allowed to have what they voted for,” Vance said. “That’s where we are right now.”
But what is happening now is something else. It is the courts that are upholding the fragile balance of a constitutional order – against a government that acts without regard for basic rights, against President Trump, who treats laws as suggestions and human rights as obstacles.
Vance calls it democracy. In truth, it is the opposite.
There is no misunderstanding in his statements – only calculation. When Stephen Miller, the former architect of mass deportations, claimed that “illegal” migrants have no right to due process, Vance at least contradicted him – only to explain in the same breath that it is not the courts’ job to control presidential actions. He said the same thing back in 2021: Trump should replace the entire bureaucracy, ignore judges, and, if necessary, act like Andrew Jackson – who once said, “The Chief Justice has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”
Then, it was a radical fantasy. Today, it is government doctrine. Examples of this contempt for the judiciary abound. The most recent: a deportation flight to South Sudan, in which migrants were informed less than 24 hours in advance – with no access to lawyers, no legal hearing. A judge called it “a mockery of the rule of law.” The Supreme Court halted the action – stating clearly that even individuals subject to the Alien Enemies Act have a right to judicial review.
But the administration had already tried it – by secret order, with no notification, no opportunity to defend themselves.
Another case: Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a young Salvadoran man who – despite having committed no crime – was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned there. In defiance of a court order. To this day, he sits in a prison in Ilopango, even though the Supreme Court has ordered his return. Trump, Vance, Bukele? They ignore it. Vance said dryly, “The president of El Salvador doesn’t want to send him back. So what are we supposed to do?”
The answer is simple: follow the law.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, also became a victim. After publishing a government-critical op-ed in the university newspaper, her visa was quietly revoked. She was arrested in a nighttime raid by six masked agents, taken to Vermont, then Louisiana – with no charges, no contact with the outside world. Only after six weeks did an appeals court intervene.
These are not isolated cases. This is a system. A quiet hollowing out of legal principles by an administration that does not submit to the law but redefines it. But the American people, whom Vance so often invokes? They don’t seem to be following him. A CNN poll shows: over half of respondents demand the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A Washington Post/ABC/Ipsos poll: 67 percent of Americans believe federal judges should retain the power to suspend Trump’s executive orders. And 65 percent say the Trump administration is deliberately trying to circumvent court rulings.
It is a remarkable number – and a quiet testament that the rule of law, even if weakened, still lives. Because the majority of people sense what’s at stake. In this power struggle between the executive and the judiciary, Vance is not merely a radical ideologue. He is the intellectual façade of an authoritarian project. He speaks in the tone of a scholar – yet pursues the goal of a demagogue: a democracy in which judges no longer rule, but execute. A country in which law is no longer a safeguard – but a tool of power.
He says it’s about “the will of the people.” What he means is the will of the president. What he ignores is the law.
And what remains is a country that must decide – between power and restraint, between democracy and dictatorship.
Perhaps, one could say, J.D. Vance is not the end. But only a very dangerous transition. Yet anyone who declares the judiciary the enemy has already betrayed the republic.
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