Courts Want Deference – After Decades of Legal Gaslighting

Justice Amy Coney Barrett just grilled the Trump admin over rogue activist judges' national injunctions.

Barrett: You’re saying you would respect the judgment, but not necessarily the opinion of a lower court? pic.twitter.com/bn7MkytzII

— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) May 15, 2025

Julie Kelly:

I’m baffled by ACB hectoring here.

So executive branch has to not only abide by court orders but also must agree with underlying opinion? I’ve listened to this over and over and still don’t understand what she’s getting at.

Further—it’s literally SCOTUS’ job to assess and determine the legitimacy of orders and opinions of lower courts. That’s ok for them but not the other 2 branches?

Also different circuits have different precedents on same question (for example most recently the constitutionality of special counsel appointment.)

Maybe someone smarter than me—or who speaks ACB—can explain.

Erick

I don’t think Barrett’s question was really about disobedience. It was deeper than that. She was pushing on whether the executive still sees judicial reasoning as something with real authority, or just treats it like commentary attached to a command. That’s not a separation of powers debate. That’s a crisis of shared epistemology. And the executive’s response, basically “we’ll comply with the judgment but not the opinion,” isn’t rebellion. It’s recognition that the courts themselves broke the mirror.

Because once the postmodern left redefined law as narrative and power, not meaning and structure, the whole system started drifting. You can’t tell everyone law is a construct, then expect other branches to treat it like scripture. What Barrett’s feeling is the downstream effect of decades of legal relativism. Now the executive plays by the same rules the courts do. Interpret selectively, act strategically, and treat truth as negotiable.