So I wake up this morning to a headline saying MAGA extremists made a deal with other MAGA extremists to advance the massive tax cut bill proposed by THE MAGA extremist (yeah, I’m talking about Comrade Trump, and while we’re at it, how creepy is it that they’re now referring to him as ‘Daddy’?).

What was included in the deal? You don’t want to know. I mean, it’s so fucking discouraging. But it’s also probably almost exactly what you expected. So what the hell, here’s JUST ONE facet of that deal. Florida Senator Rick Scott (you know him as the Guy Who Looks Like Gollum Became a Vampire and Got a Job on Wall Street) said he wanted to “do more to reduce the amount of money spent on able-bodied adults who are allowed to enroll into Medicaid.”

You may not know this about Rick Scott. He co-founded a hospital corporation which eventually became Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest for-profit health care company. That sounds sorta impressive, doesn’t it. BUT (there’s always a ‘but’ with these motherfuckers), Scott had to resign from Columbia/HCA. Why? You know exactly why (it’s always fraud with these motherfuckers). Columbia/HCA was found guilty of defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. Bill Clinton’s DOJ prosecuted the company and they were convicted of 14 felonies and fined $1.7 billion. At the time, it was the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.

What did Rick Scott’s healthcare corporation do under his leadership? 1) They billed for tests that weren’t necessary and/or hadn’t been ordered by doctors physicians, 2) they attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals, 3) they falsely claimed marketing and advertising costs as community education, and 4) they billed for home health care visits for patients who didn’t qualify to receive them. And that’s why Rick Scott was forced to resign.

Now that he’s no longer getting that sweet sweet Medicare fraud money, Scott wants to reduce funding for Medicare to prevent fraud. If you tried to write that into a movie script, nobody would believe it.

BUT that’s not all (it’s never ‘all’ with these motherfuckers, there’s always more). Scott said he and other MAGA conservatives want to “stop Blue State governors from taking advantage of Red States.” He actually said that, right out loud (these motherfuckers are always saying stupid stuff right out loud). That’s bullshit, of course. If you’re not already aware of this, blue states contribute nearly 60% of all federal tax receipts. Blue states generally pay more in taxes than they receive in government spending. Red states receive more money from the government than they pay in taxes. Red states leech off of blue states.

Rick Scott knows this; but he’s not the sort of person who is constrained by truth. Or fact. Or honor, or a sense of shared humanity, or any notion of decency, or or or. They’re all hypocrites, these motherfuckers. All of them. Every single one.

Anyway, that was the first headline I saw. I haven’t read any more news this morning. I don’t think I need to.

Here’s a terrifying thing that’s almost certainly going to happen. At some point in the not-too-distant future, SCOTUS is going to be forced to decide on the limits (if any) of Comrade Trump’s authority. I don’t know what the issue will be. Maybe it’ll be about marriage equality, maybe about immigration or birthright citizenship, maybe about his authority to dismantle entire federal agencies without Congressional approval.

But at some point, THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN. SCOTUS and POTUS will face off with the Constitution on the line. Maybe SCOTUS will just give up and agree Trump is king/dictator. That’s horrifying, but possible. But they may also rule there are limits to his authority. I like to think that’s more likely (but then I didn’t think it was likely that Trump would be re-elected, so what do I know?).

The question is this: what will happen when Trump ignores SCOTUS? Because he almost certainly will. I’m just going to remind you that SCOTUS has no power to enforce its rulings. In fact, the entire judicial branch of government at every level–municipal, county, state, and federal–depends on the executive branch of government to enforce its decisions. When a judge says, “Do this thing,” it falls to law enforcement agencies (which are part of the executive function of governance) to see that the thing is done.

But what happens if/when the court says, “Do this” and the executive branch says, “Nope”? What happens if/when the Supreme Court of the United States says, “Do this” and the President of the United States says, “Nope”?

Let’s say, for example, that Comrade Trump issues an executive order ending birthright citizenship and further orders people born in the US to immigrant parents be deported. Let’s also say SCOTUS rules those orders are clearly unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” And finally, let’s say Trump says, “Yeah, I’m deporting them anyway” and follows through on that.

What happens?

There aren’t many remedies. The 25th Amendment of the Constitution allows VPOTUS and the Cabinet to remove POTUS if he’s “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” But what if he’s just unwilling to do his duty? And what if the Cabinet agrees with POTUS (which, after all, is exactly why he picked those corrupt fucks)? The 25th Amendment assumes a Cabinet comprised of people with integrity and a firm belief in representative democracy. We don’t have one of those. So what else can be done?

There’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, which would remove POTUS from office. But how likely is that? There’s also the 2028 election. But even if there’s a free and fair election, we know Trump is unlikely to willingly leave office.

That’s basically it. Those are essentially the only legal options if POTUS defies SCOTUS. The less-than-legal options? A military coup. Citizen rebellion, insurrection, revolution. Before the 2024 election, these would have been unthinkable. Now…who knows?

Let’s say Trump refuses to follow a decision by SCOTUS. What happens? I can see mass protests by citizens. I can see Trump ordering US troops to help state and local law enforcement to suppress those protests. I can see him ordering them to fire on protesters. I can see some commanders/troops refusing to follow those illegal orders.

Again, such a scenario was unthinkable a few months ago. Now it seems possible. Now it seems almost inevitable. Because Trump IS assaulting the US Constitution. And SCOTUS will eventually have to deal with that. And IF they rule against Trump, it’s exceedingly likely he’ll ignore them and do whatever the fuck he wants.

And if he ignores them…well, then. Here we are.