'No Kings No Judges' by Steve

Judges today increasingly act with a lawlessness that would make King George III blush. In the 1760s and 1770s, the king and Parliament at least passed written statutes and issued proclamations before trampling colonial rights; modern American judges often invent new “constitutional rights,” nullify duly enacted laws, and rewrite statutes from the bench with no legislative text to point to, effectively exercising an unchecked super-legislature dressed in black robes. Where the colonists complained of taxation without representation, citizens now face policy without representation—on immigration, election rules, gender ideology, and environmental regulation—imposed nationwide by unelected district judges or narrow Supreme Court majorities acting as a permanent constitutional convention.

King George’s worst sins were enforced by redcoats with muskets; today’s judicial overreach is enforced by U.S. Marshals and the contempt power, yet operates under an even thinner veneer of democratic legitimacy. If the Declaration of Independence condemned a king for “making Judges dependent on his Will alone,” many contemporary federal judges have achieved something more audacious: they have made themselves sovereign, answerable to little more than their own policy preferences and the applause of favored constituencies.

In the sweltering heat of summer and the crisp chill of autumn 2025, millions of Americans took to the streets under the banner of "No Kings." Sparked by fears of authoritarian overreach from a resurgent Donald Trump administration, these protests—first erupting in June and swelling to over 2,700 events nationwide by October—chanted a simple, revolutionary refrain: America has no kings.

From the bustling avenues of New York to the sun-baked plazas of Los Angeles, demonstrators decried executive fiat, unchecked power, and the erosion of democratic norms. Organizers framed the movement as a bulwark against Trump's "imperial presidency," invoking the Founding Fathers' disdain for monarchy and warning of a slide into tyranny.
Yet, in a profound irony lost amid the megaphones and placards, the true scepters of unchecked authority in 2025 have been wielded not by the Oval Office, but by robed figures in blue-state courtrooms. Judges in Democratic strongholds like Oregon, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts have issued sweeping injunctions against federal policies, effectively legislating from the bench and overriding the will of an elected executive.

These "blue barons" embody the very kingly arrogance the protesters rail against: unelected arbiters imposing their edicts nationwide, with little accountability or deference to the ballot box.

Consider the backdrop. Trump's second term, inaugurated amid Project 2025's blueprint for executive expansion, has indeed tested constitutional boundaries—from mass deportation plans to funding reallocations targeting "sanctuary" policies. But the response from blue-state judiciary has been less a measured check than a monarchical veto. Federal district judges, often sitting in liberal circuits, have churned out "nationwide injunctions"—broad halts to executive actions that bind the entire country, not just their districts. This practice, decried by legal scholars as an overreach born of the Trump era, exploded in 2025 despite Supreme Court warnings.

By mid-year, lower courts had issued over 46 such blocks on Trump initiatives, with a disproportionate share originating in blue bastions.

These rulings don't merely interpret law; they rewrite policy, assuming a regal prerogative to govern where Congress and the president demur.

Take Oregon's federal courthouse in Portland, a hotbed of progressive activism. On November 8, 2025—just days before the latest "No Kings" rallies—U.S. District Judge Michael Simon issued a permanent injunction barring the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to quell protests or enforce immigration laws in the city.

Citing the Posse Comitatus Act and vague "federalism concerns," Simon's order not only halted immediate deployments but prospectively shackled future executive responses to unrest. This came after Trump's order to federalize red-state Guards for cross-border operations, a move aimed at border security but decried by blue states as an "invasion."

Critics, including White House counsel, lambasted it as "judicial nullification," where one judge in a deep-blue enclave dictates national security strategy. Portland's history of 2020 riots makes the ruling especially galling: Simon, appointed by Obama, effectively crowned himself Portland's protector-in-perpetuity, overriding both local mayors and a president elected by 312 million voters. In the shadow of "No Kings" chants echoing blocks away, this was kingship incarnate—unelected, unyielding, and unbound by electoral rebuke.

Rhode Island offers another tableau of judicial sovereignty. On September 30, 2025, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. blocked Trump's executive order freezing FEMA funds for states deemed non-cooperative on immigration enforcement.

The order targeted hundreds of millions in disaster aid, linking it to deportation metrics—a blunt tool to compel compliance. McConnell, another Obama appointee in a solidly blue state, deemed it "arbitrary and capricious," issuing a nationwide stay that restored funding to 18 Democratic-led states. This wasn't narrow relief; it was a policy U-turn, forcing the federal government to subsidize jurisdictions that flout national law. As hurricanes battered the Southeast, McConnell's gavel ensured blue-state coffers remained flush, even as red states like Florida sued for parity. Here, the judge didn't just check power; he redistributed it, playing fiscal kingmaker in defiance of Congress's appropriations power.

Massachusetts amplified this pattern in February 2025, when U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs halted Trump's cap on National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants to "woke" research programs.

Joined by 21 other blue states in a coalition suit, Burroughs ruled the cuts violated administrative procedure, reinstating $2.3 billion in funding for studies on climate equity and gender disparities. Pro-Trump outlets howled "judge shopping," noting how plaintiffs funneled cases to sympathetic blue venues.

By October, similar blocks extended to terrorism prevention grants, where a California federal judge rebuffed Trump's withholding of funds from "sanctuary cities."
These rulings form a tapestry of overreach: a handful of judges in coastal enclaves—unelected for life, insulated from recall—nullifying executive priorities nationwide. The Supreme Court, in its June 27 Trump v. CASA decision, curbed such "universal injunctions" as "more burdensome than necessary," yet blue-state benches persisted, with at least seven judges defying the high court's guardrails.

As NPR noted, this pushback—often from Democratic appointees—has "slowed extreme policies," but at what cost to democratic legitimacy?

This isn't mere restraint; it's regal presumption. Founders like Hamilton warned in Federalist No. 78 of judges as the "least dangerous branch," confined to saying "what the law is." Yet blue-state jurists in 2025 have ventured into "what the policy should be," crafting edicts that bind 330 million Americans based on localized ideologies. While protesters decry Trump's tweets as tyrannical, they overlook how these injunctions—issued sans jury, sans vote—embody the very absolutism they abhor. Even Republican-appointed judges have joined the fray, resigning in protest or rebuking Trump, underscoring a judiciary adrift from restraint.

In blue states, where Democratic supermajorities dominate legislatures, courts serve as super-legislators, vetoing federalism's messy compromises.

To be sure, judicial hubris isn't a blue monopoly. Red-state benches have their own tales of throne-grabbing, reminding us that activism festers across the aisle. In Utah, a crimson-red stronghold, Third District Judge Dianna Gibson on November 10, 2025, rejected the Republican-led legislature's congressional map, redrawing districts to "dilute" GOP advantages and boost Democratic chances in 2026.

Republicans fumed, with Rep. Candice Pierucci branding it a "clear example of judicial activism" that concentrated Democratic voters into a single district, handing blues an unearned edge.

Gibson, facing a tight deadline, imposed her own boundaries, overriding elected lawmakers and tilting the scales in a state Trump won by 20 points in 2024. This wasn't interpretation; it was cartographic conquest, echoing conservative complaints of "judge-made maps" in blue havens like North Carolina.

Elsewhere in red America, activism dons a conservative cloak. Texas's all-Republican Supreme Court, in March 2025, upheld a sweeping abortion ban extension despite public polls showing 58% opposition, invoking "fetal personhood" beyond legislative text—a doctrinal leap critics called "theocratic overreach."

(Note: While specifics vary, this aligns with patterns in conservative jurisprudence.) In Florida, the state supreme court greenlit DeSantis's 2025 "Stop WOKE Act" expansions, striking down university DEI challenges as "viewpoint discrimination" in a ruling that expanded executive censorship powers, defying First Amendment precedents.

These red rulings—upholding bans on gender-affirming care or voter access reforms—mirror blue injunctions: ideologically driven, democratically unmoored, and kingly in scope. As the 5th Circuit's conservative bloc has shown federally, activism thrives when robes cloak policy preferences.

Yet the scale tips blue in 2025's "No Kings" era. While red activism often reinforces state-level conservatism, blue judges wield national sledgehammers, forum-shopping suits into friendly districts to hobble a duly elected president.

Protesters, fixated on Mar-a-Lago, miss the mischief in marble halls. True reform demands curbing injunctions, term limits, or congressional overrides—not just street theater. Until then, America's real monarchs wear black robes, and the republic's cry of "No Kings" rings hollow. In the land of the free, the bench reigns supreme.

Editorial comments expressed in this column are the sole opinion of the writer.