How Trump Lost the Courts

When the history of the narrow survival of American democracy is written, the renewed independence of the judiciary will be a big part of the story. Trump himself gets a lot of the credit. His plain contempt for court rulings and the rule of law has awakened the self-respect of federal judges, including the Supreme Court.

This took some doing. Chief Justice John Roberts started out all too eager to be Trump’s enabler. Not only was he a big fan of the unitary executive theory. His most disgraceful ruling...