The voters responded to Trump’s recession and foreign policy failures by giving the Democrats a mandate for fundamental change in 2028. AOC took power in January 2029 and promised to make America fair and prosperous again. Citing “emergencies” involving poverty, environmental decline, inequality, immigration, and gun violence, she immediately enacted a blizzard of new rules that were applauded by the left.
The right predictably used the judicial system to fight back. It won a string of victories in the Supreme Court. But AOC threw Justice Barrett’s words back at the Court. The correct response to executive overreach was not judicial overreach, according to the new president, and the Court’s jurisdiction was limited to the parties in front of it; the government would no longer treat its decisions as the equivalent of forbidden nationwide injunctions.
The McConnell Project was truly dead. The red team and the reactionaries on the Court were outraged. But what could they do? The template had already been established during the Trump years. They were reaping what they had sowed.