In a Nation of Law, What the Hell Does ‘Presidential Immunity’ Even Mean?

It’s become a meaningless mantra: “no one is above the law, not even the president.” We say it and say it and say it, but no one enforces it against presidential violations.

The Supreme Court needs to relocate the Constitution’s teeth. They’re not false teeth in a glass by the bedside.

We just witnessed a highly successful national No Kings Demonstration, as millions turned out peacefully across 2600 locations in all 50 states. Signs were great, but one was outstanding:

FIRST THEY CAME FOR
THE IMMIGRANTS AND
I SPOKE UP, BECAUSE
I KNOW THE REST OF
THE GOD DAMN POEM

We must demonstrate similarly in front of the Supreme Court, as well as at each of the justices’ residences.

Peaceful, for sure.

Silence would be best, enforcing the occasion with the presence of bodies, holding signs then lighting candles as the sun sets, dispersing like smoke at 8pm to stand in candlelit silence at the homes of justices until 10pm. Returning every day for a month. All fifty states should be represented.

The issues are Presidential Immunity, Voting Rights Access, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the Civil Rights Act itself, illegal deportations, sending Americans to foreign prisons and gerrymandering in Republican majority states. According to Gallup Polls, the Supreme Court approval ratings are below used car salesmen. Only 42% of American citizens approve, 52% disapprove, and the remaining 6% didn’t understand the question.

“We got a Supreme Court? Man, I thought the Supremes were 60s singers from Motown.”

The Orange Man polled even lower, and that was before No Kings. A Reuters/Ipsos Poll conducted between October 3–7 found that only 40% of Americans approve of the prez’s job performance, while 58% disapprove. Richard Nixon once polled lower than Trump, but only after Watergate. Under an actual nation of law, 51 years ago, Tricky Dick had no immunity and resigned from the presidency rather than face impeachment.

In any case, Trump replacing Congress by Executive Order is illegal.

But the Supreme Court weighed in on the matter and found him immune while in Office. How Chief Justice John Roberts squares that circle is beyond me, as well as 58% of my fellow Americans.

Constitution be damned, the Roberts’ court found:

· Immunity for actions as President (Trump v. United States (2024), finding that a former President has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions that fall within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority (those core official functions of the presidency), and at least “presumptive immunity” for other official acts, but no immunity for unofficial acts. Parse that and see if it agrees with ‘no one is above the law, not even the president.’

· Ballot eligibility / Insurrection Clause. The Court ruled that states cannot disqualify a federal candidate from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause (the attack on the Capitol) without Congressional action, reversing a Colorado decision that disqualified Trump from its primary ballot.

157 years ago, Mark Twain wrote,

“I hate to hear people say this Judge will vote so and so, because he is a Democrat -- and this one so and so because he is a Republican. It is shameful. The Judges have the Constitution for their guidance; they have no right to any politics save the politics of rigid right and justice when they are sitting in judgment upon the great matters that come before them.”

· Nationwide injunctions & “universal injunctions” limitation. The Roberts’ Court granted the government’s application for a partial stay of a district court’s universal injunction blocking a Trump-era executive order regarding birthright citizenship, on the ground that the injunction was broader than necessary. Apparently, a good deal broader than John Roberts’ mind.

· Multiple “shadow docket” emergency stays in favor of the administration. In numerous emergency applications (on the Court’s so-called “shadow docket”), the Court has granted stays or relief siding with Trump’s administration, thereby allowing his policies to go forward despite lower-court rulings blocking them. Outrageous bits of hum-diddly-dum.

· Other notable “wins” (procedural or partial) There are various other decisions favorable to Trump’s administration cited in legal commentary. For example, a Courthouse News Survey found 18 Supreme Court rulings favorable up to September 2025. Analyses argue that the Court has been “enabling” Trump’s executive power, especially via use of emergency relief and limiting the ability of courts to block his policies.

· In short, Yes. These rulings matter because they strengthen presidential power (or at least shield it) and reduce certain checks and balances from courts, or states. They don’t mean all of Trump’s policies get upheld, or that all legal challenges against him are lost — but they tilt the playing field more in his favor than might otherwise be the case. We have a Constitution, and it’s being dragged in the dirt.

That’s just the enabling, but the chaos created is international.

Illegal mishandling of tariffs, a subject over which Trump has not the slightest knowledge, is being used as blackmail in place of diplomacy. In a demonstration of ignorance-enabling-power, he declared tariffs across the world. Clearly illegal (only Congress can determine tariff policy), the move upset stock-markets worldwide. His put-and-take tariff policies—putting, then taking again, destroyed businesses and supply chains worldwide. Insider trading (the foreknowledge of his actions) enabled $billions to change hands among those in the know. Who those might be, who were in the know, is conjecture. But surely members of Congress and his donors took part.

Universities and law firms (illegally) lost funding and contracts, federal agencies (USAID, as an example) were closed, both of which are powers of the Congress, not the President. News sources (both print and online) faced $multi-billion lawsuits, and caved for lesser amounts rather than fight. Mergers were thus enhanced, comedians cancelled, and all critical commentary deemed ‘fake.’

A genocide is underway in Gaza, supported by the United States Veto Power, including US manufactured munitions and support. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is starved of aid, and the threat made to take the United States out of NATO.

All of these, and countless other illegalities, were (and are) committed by a president who successfully gerrymandered a conservative, complacent, enabling majority in the Supreme Court, America’s final arbiter of the laws upon which it is built.

I understand and support the No Kings movement.

We absolutely must demonstrate in favor of the Constitution similarly (and permanently) before the Supreme Court.

The seating of Kings begins when the laws of the land are ignored. Germany learned that in the 1930s.

It’s now or never, and ‘never’ is beyond comprehension.