So what will the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, which Trump helped build, have to say about Trump’s view that upholding the country’s laws and its founding document is optional?

Some legal scholars suggest the Court’s majority could still push back against some of Trump’s more unconstitutional impulses. In an essay in the New York TimesStephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on the federal courts, wrote that “there will be at least some cases in which his behavior goes too far for the majority of the current court.”

Will there be? There are three major reasons not to count on it:

First, the Court’s current majority has made clear that precedent is not an obstacle to achieving the desired result.

Second, at least some judges have openly rejected the idea of ​​checks and balances, particularly when it comes to the court being controlled.

Third, this court clearly had a chance to rein in Trump based on his past acts of authoritarianism, and instead gave him more power.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of reasons, but you get where I’m going with this.

Let’s start with stare decisis – or what’s left of it. It is the legal doctrine that the court must follow its own precedent unless there is a major change in the law or circumstances, or the previous decision is so difficult to apply or fundamentally flawed that it justifies its cancellation.

A look at the 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned the nearly half-century-old decision in Roe v. Wade for no real good reason other than the majority of the court didn’t like it, tells you that this court doesn’t care about keeping things consistent. Of course, the court the last mandate overturned the previous one to strip federal agencies of the deference they once had in interpreting their own regulations — which could theoretically backfire on Trump as he begins to dismantle and reshape the executive branch in his image. But this is a court that seems more than willing to change its mind when it suits it, and there’s no reason to believe it won’t do so again if it likes what it does. he does.

After all, on the question of checks and balances, Justice Samuel Alito, author of the Dobbs decision, told the Wall Street Journal this summer that Congress did not have the power to regulate the court. This is false on its face: There are rules – such as those requiring judges to submit financial information, those setting the court’s schedule and providing it with funding –– created by Congress. If a judge or justice is accused of misconduct, that jurist can be impeached, tried, and convicted, all by Congress. But Alito’s statement, made as demands for the court to implement a binding code of conduct have reached a crescendo, shows you where his head is at.

And finally, it’s really hard to argue that the court has any interest in holding Trump accountable after his immunity decision. This decision prevented Trump from being held accountable in federal criminal court before the election for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on our democracy. Today, the electorate has made it virtually impossible for that accountability to be met.

Vladeck noted that the real problem lies less in the court’s willingness to stand up to Trump than in the fact that there is little the justices can do if Trump ignores any ruling that dares to stand in his way, especially since the The court’s own position has taken such a beating in recent years.

Call me cynical, but I don’t think the majority of the court cares much about what people think. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have overturned Roe, and he certainly wouldn’t have granted Trump broad immunity, thereby giving himself the black eye he has today.

Given that Trump will soon be able to make even more judicial appointments, he has very little incentive to view the Court as anything other than a figurative rubber stamp.

I hope the judges prove him wrong. But I’m not holding my breath.

Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @KimberlyEAtkins.