During the first two months of his second term, Donald Trump has frequently deployed the power of the executive branch to attack those who stand in his way. He has, for instance, sought to financially cripple law firms that have previously opposed him, opened investigations into media companies whose coverage he views as unfavorable, retaliated against citizens and institutions in states whose public officials have criticized him, and attempted to undermine non-profits who oppose his agenda by making their employees ineligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. So far, this strategy has proved disturbingly effective—with institutions either explicitly bending the knee or laying low in hopes of avoiding unwanted attention.
But not the courts. The Trump administration has been losing legal cases at a remarkable clip, and, as my colleague Adam Bonica has recently shown, these losses have come in front of judges from across the ideological spectrum.
Such judicial opposition helps explain why Donald Trump has recently launched a series of attacks on individual federal judges who are challenging his more unlawful initiatives. It might be tempting to dismiss these increasingly vicious attacks as an erratic actor lashing out, perhaps even as a sign of weakness. But that would be a mistake. The politics of public opinion—and the ways in which norms of judicial compliance are constructed and potentially malleable—suggest that his inflammatory rhetoric may serve a larger purpose.
As much as we might not like to admit it, public opinion plays a key role in reinforcing expectations about compliance with court orders. Currently, polling data suggest that an overwhelming majority of Americans—around 83%—expect Trump to abide by a Supreme Court ruling. This includes large majorities of Republicans and Democrats. While the idea that 17% of Americans might condone Trump defying the courts may seem alarming at first glance, this is actually a very low number and very much a fringe view. For context, more Americans believe in telepathy (24%) and in the possibility of channeling spirits (21%).
That said, even strong norms about constitutional governance—even ones in which 83% of people agree—are not immune to change. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his impressive ability to shift the Overton window, moving once-fringe ideas into mainstream political discourse. Consider birthright citizenship: for most of U.S. history, it was widely accepted as a constitutional given. Yet recent polling indicates that this once-stable consensus is fracturing, particularly among Republicans, who increasingly believe that children born to unauthorized or temporary immigrants should not receive citizenship.
Another example is the claim that the U.S. should annex Greenland. When floated during Trump’s first administration, it was ridiculed as absurd. Yet in just a few years, the idea has gained traction, with prominent Republican figures—from cabinet officials to the vice president—treating it as a serious policy proposal. Just this week, Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, were set to visit Greenland to make overtures about future annexation. What was once laughable has, through repetition, entered the realm of plausible policy debate.
So while most Americans—including a strikingly large share of Republicans—currently believe in the necessity of Supreme Court compliance, that belief is not immutable nor impenetrable. For example, a recent poll showed that a majority of Republicans now believe that Trump should be able to defy court orders when it comes to deportations of people deemed a “risk.” For this reason, Trump’s attacks on the judiciary are best understood as an effort to lay the groundwork for a gradual public opinion shift—to normalize the idea that defying court orders is not only acceptable but maybe even expected among his base and on certain issues.
There is, however, an internal contradiction in this strategy: over the past decade, the federal courts—especially the Supreme Court—have shifted significantly to the right. While overall public trust in the judiciary has declined, Republican support for the courts has stayed high. Many Republican-identifying voters now see the judiciary as an ally, one that has delivered major policy victories on issues ranging from abortion (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) to civil rights (SFA v. Harvard). For conservative elites over the past two decades, a central objective of the Republican Party has been to achieve meaningful policy change through the courts, and decisions like Dobbs and the rollback of Chevron in Loper Bright represent major victories for the conservative legal movement. Conservatives stand to gain much more policywise from continued patronage in conservative-leaning courts than they do from their cratering public trust and legitimacy.
This creates a strategic dilemma for someone in Trump’s position. On one hand, Trump’s supporters have been told that he successfully transformed the judiciary. On the other, they are now being told that the very courts that have delivered stunning conservative victories are rigged against him and, possibly, that he should be able to ignore them.
Reconciling these conflicting messages poses a challenge. That is not to say Trump cannot succeed in delegitimizing the judiciary among his base, using his formidable skills in shifting the Overton window to open the possibility that the public will tolerate noncompliance. But it does mean he is working against the very institutional changes Republicans have worked hard very hard to usher in. While cratering public trust in the courts may make it easier for Trump to engage in non-compliance, it is not clear that this is a good strategy for Republicans beyond Trump.
