The Supreme Court is failing at its most important job

In early November, a conservative Supreme Court justice showed a clear-eyed understanding of the threat that President Donald Trump poses to the constitutional order. During an oral argument in a case involving tariffs that Trump unilaterally imposed by claiming emergency powers, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested that the move could weaken Congress in an enduring way. “What president’s ever going to give that power back?” he asked.

Gorsuch’s realism in a case involving a signature policy of Trump’s second term raises the so-far-elusive prospect that the court may constrain his worst abuses of power. But it’s not clear whether a majority of justices share Gorsuch’s view, since the court has yet to rule in the case. And the comment was noteworthy because it was a rare sign of independence from