There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with watching the American executive branch treat the rule of law like a ‘Terms and Conditions’ agreement—something to be scrolled past and ignored in the frantic rush to click ‘Accept’ on more chaos. Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative and resident architect of our impending fiscal immolation, recently signaled that even if the Supreme Court finds the administration’s tariff tantrums unconstitutional, the response will be ‘immediate.’ Translated from the original Bureaucratese, Greer is essentially telling the highest court in the land that their robes are decorative and their opinions are merely suggestions that can be bypassed with a fresh coat of legislative paint and a new set of acronyms. It is a stunning display of administrative hubris, though entirely predictable in an era where the separation of powers has the structural integrity of wet tissue paper.

The premise is as simple as it is terrifying: if the judicial branch decides that the executive branch has overstepped its bounds by taxing the American public under the guise of 'national security,' the administration will simply wake up the next morning and find a different, equally flimsy justification to do the exact same thing. It is the legislative equivalent of a toddler being told they can’t have a cookie, so they immediately rename the cookie a ‘fortified flour disc’ and claim it’s a medical necessity. Greer’s confidence isn’t just an insult to the judiciary; it is a profound admission that the modern state no longer views ‘legality’ as a boundary, but rather as a minor speed bump to be navigated with enough creative paperwork. The Right, which spent decades screaming about the 'Imperial Presidency' and 'judicial activism,' now cheers for a trade czar who treats the Supreme Court like a pesky HOA board. Meanwhile, the Left—when they aren't busy trying to figure out which micro-aggression to cry about next—quietly realizes they’ll likely keep these same tariffs once they’re in power, because protectionism is the ultimate drug for politicians who want to pretend they’re saving jobs without actually doing the hard work of, say, educating a workforce.

Let’s deconstruct the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of the tariff obsession itself. We are told, with a straight face, that taxing our own importers is a brilliant way to make China suffer. It is a logic that only makes sense if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy or a career in Washington. It’s the fiscal equivalent of bloodletting to cure anemia—if we just drain enough resources from the American consumer, surely the economy will eventually become robust and healthy. Greer’s ‘immediate’ replacement plan ensures that the cycle of self-flagellation remains uninterrupted. If the Section 232 'national security' excuse is struck down, they’ll pivot to Section 301, or perhaps they’ll invent Section 666: The Tax on Everything You Love. The goal isn't economic health; the goal is the performance of strength for an electorate that has been conditioned to mistake spite for policy.

The Supreme Court, for its part, continues to exist in a state of delusional self-importance, seemingly unaware that the administrative state has already built a bypass around their mahogany bench. When Greer speaks of an immediate response to a court loss, he is signaling the death of finality. In a functioning republic, a court ruling marks the end of a dispute. In our current post-literate circus, it’s just the opening bell for a game of whack-a-mole where the mallet is a 2,000-page regulatory filing. The cynicism required to plan for your own illegality is, in a way, almost admirable. It takes a certain kind of dark genius to look at the Constitution and see not a framework for governance, but a list of obstacles to be circumvented by 'immediate' bureaucratic agility.

Ultimately, the American public is the punchline to a joke they aren't even allowed to hear. Whether the tariffs are 'legal' or 'illegal' is a semantic game for people with law degrees and no souls. To the person trying to buy a car, a washing machine, or a piece of steel, the result is the same: you are being looted by your own government so a politician can stand in front of a shuttered factory in Ohio and promise that the 1950s are coming back any day now. They aren't. Those jobs are gone, replaced by automation or moved to countries that don't view trade as a zero-sum war. But Greer and his ilk don't care about reality; they care about the 'immediate' pivot. They care about ensuring that no matter what the law says, the machine keeps grinding the bones of the economy to make its protectionist bread. It’s not a trade policy; it’s a hostage situation where the hostages are being told to thank their captors for the privilege of being tied up.