A new Marquette Law School Poll found that 57% of adults surveyed said the Supreme Court wants to avoid rulings that Donald Trump might refuse to obey, a sign that even the highest court in the land is being read through the lens of raw power and possible defiance. The figure was unchanged from a January survey, even after the court’s February decision striking down most of Trump’s tariffs. Two-thirds of adults surveyed this month said they supported the court’s decision that Trump lacked authority to impose sweeping tariffs.
Who Holds the Levers
The poll lands in the middle of a fight over who gets to set the rules and who gets to ignore them. Trump has been predicting that the court will not let him end automatic citizenship for babies born in the United States unless at least one parent is a citizen or permanent resident. In a social media post on April 21, Trump wrote, “No Country can be successful with such an anchor wrapped firmly around its neck, but based on the questioning by Republican Nominated Justices that I watched firsthand in the Court, we lose.”
That complaint was aimed at the justices appointed by Republican presidents, whom Trump said are letting themselves be pushed around by Democrats. Trump appointed three of the court’s six conservative justices, a reminder that the machinery of state power is not some neutral referee but a contest among elites over who gets to command the apparatus.
Trump attended part of the April 1 oral arguments on birthright citizenship, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to sit in on the court’s debate. During the arguments, the justices seemed inclined to find that Trump cannot change the rules for birthright citizenship through an executive order. Nearly seven-in-ten adults surveyed by Marquette Law School after the arguments said the court should rule that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional.
Who Pays for the Power Games
The people at the bottom are the ones forced to live with the consequences of these top-down battles over citizenship, tariffs, and executive authority. The poll shows broad support for the court’s decision that Trump lacked authority to impose sweeping tariffs, even as the same court is being asked to decide whether he can reshape birthright citizenship by decree.
The court is also deciding whether the president can remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, and two-thirds of adults surveyed want the court to rule against Trump. That puts another institution of concentrated economic power under the same struggle over presidential control, with the public again signaling distrust of unilateral rule from above.
What the Court Is Deciding
Decisions are expected by the end of June or early July. Until then, the dispute remains exactly what it looks like: a contest over whether one man can bend institutions to his will, whether the court will restrain him, and whether the public sees the whole arrangement as legitimate. The poll suggests many adults do not trust the court to stand apart from that pressure, and many more do not want Trump’s executive power to stretch any further.
The numbers also show the limits of the official channels that are supposed to settle these fights. The court can strike down tariffs, weigh birthright citizenship, and consider the removal of a Federal Reserve governor, but the underlying structure remains one where decisions affecting millions are concentrated in a few hands and then dressed up as constitutional order. Trump’s own words, his April 1 appearance at the court, and the public’s response all point to the same grim theater: power arguing with power while everyone else is left to absorb the fallout.