It begins like a d\u00e9j\u00e0 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 \u2013 to the will of the people, the president, to \u201cauthority.\u201d The courts, especially the lower ones, are out of control. They are, he says, \u201cliterally trying to overturn the will of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u2013 and no longer rule. The goal: dismantling the third branch of government. The method: moral blackmail in the name of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement \u2013 and the courts tell them they are not allowed to have what they voted for,\u201d Vance said. \u201cThat\u2019s where we are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what is happening now is something else. It is the courts that are upholding the fragile balance of a constitutional order \u2013 against a government that acts without regard for basic rights, against President Trump, who treats laws as suggestions and human rights as obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vance calls it democracy. In truth, it is the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is no misunderstanding in his statements \u2013 only calculation. When Stephen Miller, the former architect of mass deportations, claimed that \u201cillegal\u201d migrants have no right to due process, Vance at least contradicted him \u2013 only to explain in the same breath that it is not the courts\u2019 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 \u2013 who once said, \u201cThe Chief Justice has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, it was a radical fantasy. Today, it is government doctrine.\nExamples 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 \u2013 with no access to lawyers, no legal hearing. A judge called it \u201ca mockery of the rule of law.\u201d The Supreme Court halted the action \u2013 stating clearly that even individuals subject to the Alien Enemies Act have a right to judicial review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the administration had already tried it \u2013 by secret order, with no notification, no opportunity to defend themselves.
Another case: Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a young Salvadoran man who \u2013 despite having committed no crime \u2013 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, \u201cThe president of El Salvador doesn\u2019t want to send him back. So what are we supposed to do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer is simple: follow the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, 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 \u2013 with no charges, no contact with the outside world. Only after six weeks did an appeals court intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019t 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\u2019s executive orders. And 65 percent say the Trump administration is deliberately trying to circumvent court rulings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a remarkable number \u2013 and a quiet testament that the rule of law, even if weakened, still lives. Because the majority of people sense what\u2019s at stake. In this power struggle between the executive and the judiciary, Vance is not merely a radical ideologue. He is the intellectual fa\u00e7ade of an authoritarian project. He speaks in the tone of a scholar \u2013 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 \u2013 but a tool of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says it\u2019s about \u201cthe will of the people.\u201d What he means is the will of the president. What he ignores is the law.
And what remains is a country that must decide \u2013 between power and restraint, between democracy and dictatorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n
Es beginnt wie ein D\u00e9j\u00e0-vu aus jenen Zeiten, in denen Gewaltenteilung noch ein Begriff war, der etwas bedeutete: J.D. Vance, Vizepr\u00e4sident der Vereinigten Staaten, gibt in einem Interview mit der New York Times dem obersten Richter des Landes, John Roberts, \u00f6ffentlich Nachhilfe. Die Justiz, so Vance, m\u00fcsse sich endlich f\u00fcgen \u2013 dem Willen des Volkes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46,32,50,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dark-america","category-human-rights","category-rights-living","category-topstory"],"yoast_head":"\n