Have you heard the news? Unless you are lucky or savvy enough to live in Florida, it’s cold and getting colder in late January of 2026. East Coasters are hunkering down for a massive snow and ice storm set to hit over the weekend, but the arctic gusts have already begun to blow their way through the upper Midwest, sending temperatures plunging to −7 degrees here in Chicago, and −27 with the wind chill factored in. (Reports are spotty right now, but there are apparently no survivors in the state of Wisconsin.)
Being trapped indoors like this — and watching my D.C. and New York colleagues “prep” furiously for tomorrow like postapocalyptic survivalists — offers great opportunity for the idle mind to wander, and my thoughts cannot help but turn to a far more serious storm that has been brewing since April of last year. One of these days, the Supreme Court is going to rule on Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump.
For those unaware of it by name, that is the tariff case: The Supreme Court is going to rule on whether Trump’s use of tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — and thus the entire basis of his foreign and domestic economic policy — is constitutional or not. Will the ruling come in February? Over the summer? It is pointless to speculate. But we can be assured of one thing: No matter which way the Court rules, the walls of the American civic settlement will bend and shake.
If the Supreme Court upholds the Trump administration’s wildly expansive interpretation of executive branch power, I foresee little but disaster: Bond markets will probably crater, and Trump will be emboldened to wield tariffs as a child wields crayons. Further and greater executive overreaches seem sure to follow such a ruling. (And that’s before the Newsom/Spanberger administration takes office in 2029 with all the precedents and laws of the land newly laid low before them.)
If the Supreme Court rejects the Trump administration’s arrogation of taxing power . . . then what? Does anyone expect Donald Trump to meekly submit to having his entire political agenda declared unconstitutional? I expect a wholesale rhetorical war of the most destructive and toxic sort imaginable. Set aside the very real possibility that Trump might pull an Andrew Jackson and simply openly defy the Court. Imagine instead the language that MAGA would suddenly be required to direct at the one last truly conservative political institution in America. It has long been the object of the left to destroy the credibility and prestige of the Court, over which they lost ideological control. Imagine a world where they are joined by the most voluble activists and grifters on the MAGA right.
Batten down the hatches, Washington — the true storm is coming, and perhaps sooner than you think.