| When Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky used contradictory justifications to give Donald Trump two of his three Supreme Court picks in his first term, Democrats warned that the Kentucky Republican’s unapologetic violation of Senate norms would have tectonic consequences. On Friday, in the high court’s usual end-of-term reveal, one of those consequences arrived. The court’s six-member GOP-appointed supermajority curtailed one of the few powers federal judges have to restrain Trump’s effort to consolidate power in a fashion unseen in the nation’s 249-year history. Trump’s picks, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, joined fellow Republican-appointees in ruling that lower courts in most cases can no longer issue nationwide injunctions, even when—as in the case of Trump’s attempt to deprive some babies born on American soil of citizenship—they are intended to halt facially unconstitutional measures. Barrett, writing for the majority, said such orders “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.” Shortly afterwards, the president said he would immediately exploit the ruling to move forward with an array of measures that had been blocked as likely illegal or unconstitutional.  US President Donald Trump, left, and Amy Coney Barrett, associate justice of the US Supreme Court, on Oct. 26, 2020, eight days before that year’s presidential election. Photographer: Ken Cedeno/CNP Barrett was appointed in the final days of Trump’s first term. McConnell, then Senate majority leader, pushed her nomination through in the weeks after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, and only days before Joe Biden was elected president. Four years earlier, McConnell laid the groundwork for Gorsuch’s appointment by blocking President Barack Obama’s nominee, future US Attorney General Merrick Garland, for eight months before the 2016 election. The supermajority has in recent years moved to grant unprecedented powers to the president and lend judicial support to conservative policies, including eliminating the federal right to abortion, expanding gun rights and gutting Trump’s prosecution for allegedly attempting to hang on to power following his 202o election defeat.  Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP The dissenting justices in today’s ruling, all Democratic-appointees, warned that the high court is encouraging Trump to violate the Constitution and disregard the judiciary—except for the Supreme Court. “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. “Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York condemned the supermajority, writing on social media that its “decision to limit courts of their long-held authority to block illegal executive actions is an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court.” —David E. Rovella | 
