Supreme Court just gave Trump more power. Also the next Democratic president.

No one ever could accuse Trump of being a genius at predicting the long term outcome of his actions. Trump acts, or rather reacts, emotionally in the heat of the moment on the basis of gut feelings, not on any sort of deep analytical understanding.

So it isn’t surprising that Trump is glorying in a victory given to him by the Supreme Court today, as described in a BBC story.

Nearly 100 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have unchecked power to replace commissioners on regulatory agencies set up by Congress to be insulated from presidential authority.

On Monday, facing a challenge by Republican Trump, the court decisively scrapped that precedent.

“Subordinates who exercise the president’s power are subject to removal by him,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the president, and the president to the people.”

In this ruling, the court’s justices divided into familiar groupings. All six conservatives, three of whom were appointed by Trump, found in favour of the president. The three liberal justices, all appointed by Democrats, dissented.

The Supreme Court made an exception for the Federal Reserve board, since a statute says members can only be removed by “cause” — meaning, the member did something seriously wrong. So Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook was put on hold by the court, as she only has been accused of committing mortgage fraud by a Trump acolyte, with no evidence that Cook actually did anything seriously wrong.

What commentators, and Trump himself, are downplaying is something obvious that was mentioned in the BBC story: in expanding the ability of Trump to remove commissioners of regulatory agencies for any reason, or no reason at all, the Supreme Court has also given that power to all future presidents — including a Democratic president should he or she win the 2028 presidential election.

The court’s decision will give Trump, and all future presidents, broad power to remove and replace regulators from dozens of key agencies with whom they disagree.

The Federal Trade Commission was directly at issue in this case (as it was in Roosevelt’s), but the precedent the court sets here will apply to regulatory bodies interpreting election laws, issuing communications policies, resolving labour disputes and establishing financial and environmental regulations.

By now, Americans are used to dramatic policy swings when a president of a different political party takes over the presidency – from Barack Obama to Trump to Joe Biden and back to Trump. This court’s decision is sure to supercharge that trend.

Almost certainly Trump is going to use his newfound power to replace even more commissioners of regulatory agencies who aren’t sufficiently MAGA. That’s his right, now that the Supreme court has overturned almost a hundred years of precedent.

But if Gavin Newsom, or some other Democrat, assumes the office of the presidency in January 2029, it is even more certain that they will immediately replace all of Trump’s appointees with progressives and maybe even some Democratic Socialists.

So there’s a good chance Trump’s power grab is going to be reversed in a few years. And it’s very unlikely that even the shameless conservative majority on the Supreme Court would dare to overturn today’s ruling by saying, in effect, “We only gave Trump the power to replace commissioners of regulatory agencies; that doesn’t apply to the newly elected Democratic president.”

Trump and his cronies appear to believe they will remain in power forever, because they seem utterly unconcerned about how future presidents will use the power Trump has accrued to himself. While they’re going to keep on trying to rig elections in their favor, I deeply doubt they’ll succeed. Which is why I’m looking forward to the next Democratic president wielding the power Trump is enjoying in his second term.