Like many populist leaders, Trump accuses judges of being illegitimate obstacles to safety and democracy

Federal judges and at times Supreme Court justices have repeatedly challenged – and blocked – President Donald Trump’s attempts to reshape fundamental aspects of American government.

Many of Trump’s more than 150 executive orders, including one aimed at eliminating the Department of Education, have been blocked by injunctions and lawsuits.

When a majority of Supreme Court justices ruled on May 16, 2025, that the Trump administration could not deport a group of Venezuelan immigrants without first giving them the right to due process in court, Trump attacked the court.

“The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This is a bad and dangerous day for America!” he continued in the post.

As the Trump administration faces other orders blocking its plans, the president and his team are framing judges not just as political opponents but as enemies of democracy.

Trump, for example, has called for the impeachment of James Boasberg, a federal judge who also issued orders blocking the deportation of immigrants in the U.S. to El Salvador. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that Boasberg was “trying to protect terrorists who invaded our country over American citizens,” and Trump has also called Boasberg and other judges who ruled against him or his administration “left-wing activists.”

“We cannot allow a handful of communist, radical-left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States,” Trump said at a rally in April 2025. “Judges are trying to take away the power given to the president to keep our country safe.”

As a scholar of legal and political theory, I believe this kind of talk about judges and the judicial system is not just misleading, it’s dangerous. It mirrors a pattern seen across many populist movements worldwide, where leaders cast independent courts and judges as illegitimate obstacles to what they see as the will of the people.

By confusing the idea that the people’s will must prevail with what the law actually says, these leaders justify intimidating judges and their sound legal rulings, a move that ultimately undermines democracy.

Thwarting ‘the will of the American people’?

In the face of judicial rulings against them, Trump and other administration officials have suggested on multiple occasions that judges are antagonistic to what the American people voted for.

Yet these rulings are merely a reflection of the rule of law.

Trump and supporters such as Elon Musk have characterized the rulings as a sign that a group of elite judges are abusing their power and acting against the will of the American people. The rulings that enforce the law, according to this argument, stand in opposition to the popular mandate American voters give to elected officials like the president.

“If ANY judge ANYWHERE can stop EVERY Presidential action EVERYWHERE, we do NOT live in a democracy,” Elon Musk posted on X in February 2025. “When judges egregiously undermine the democratic will of the people, they must be fired,” Musk added.

And U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said in March 2025, “We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court.”

Framing judges as enemies of democracy or as obstacles to the people’s will departs sharply from the traditional view – held across political lines – that the judiciary is an essential, nonpartisan part of the American constitutional system.

While previous presidents have expressed frustration with specific court decisions or judges’ political leanings, their critiques mostly focused on specific legal reasoning.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned against the Trump administration’s charge that judges were actively undermining democracy. In late April 2025, she said during a conference for judges that “relentless attacks on judges are an attack on democracy.”

So, are judges obstructing democracy – or protecting it?

Are unelected judges a sign of democracy?

The U.S. Constitution established an independent judiciary as a coequal branch of government, alongside the legislative and executive branches. Federal judges are appointed for life and cannot be removed for political reasons. The country’s founders thought this protection could insulate judges from political pressures and ensure that courts uphold the Constitution, not the popularity of a given policy.

Yet as the federal judiciary has expanded in size and power, the arguments about the relationship between democracy and judicial independence have become louder among some political scientists and legal philosophers.

Some critics take issue with the fact that federal judges are appointed by politicians, not elected to their positions – a fact that others argue contributes to their independence.

Federal judges often serve longer on the bench than many elected officials.

Why, some critics argue, should a small group of unelected experts be allowed to overturn decisions made by elected officials?

Other democratic theorists, however, say that federal judges can act as a check on elected leaders who may misuse or abuse their power, or pass laws that violate people’s legal rights. This indirectly strengthens democracy by giving people a meaningful way to have recourse against laws that go against their rights and what they actually voted for.

A common story across countries

The argument that judges are an enemy to democracy is not unique to the U.S.

Authoritarian leaders from across the world have used similar language to justify undermining the courts.

In the Philippines, then-President Rodrigo Duterte in 2018 told Maria Lourdes Sereno, a top judge who was an outspoken critic of Duterte’s war on drugs, “I am now your enemy.” Shortly after, the Philippines Supreme Court voted to oust Sereno from the court. These judges cited Sereno’s failure to disclose personal financial information when she was first appointed to the court as the reason for her removal.

Filipino protesters and outside critics alike viewed Sereno’s removal as politically motivated and said it undermined the country’s judicial independence.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s allies in the legislative assembly similarly voted in May 2021 to remove the government’s attorney general as well all five top judges for obstructing Bukele’s plans to imprison, without proper due process, large numbers of people. Bukele replaced the attorney general and judges with political loyalists, violating constitutional procedure.

Kamala Harris, then vice president of the U.S., was among the international observers who said the removal of judges in El Salvador made her concerned about El Salvador’s democracy. Bukele justified the judges’ removal by saying he was right and that he refused to “listen to the enemies of the people” who wanted him to do otherwise.

And in April 2024, a minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet called Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara an “enemy of the people,” blaming her for protests outside Netanyahu’s home. This disparagement was part of Netanyahu’s broader efforts to weaken judges’ role and independence and to remove judicial constraints on executive power.

Pushing against democracy

In the name of weakening what they call undemocratic institutions, these and other leaders try to discredit independent judges. This attempt helps these leaders gain power and silence dissent.

Their attempts to disparage and discredit judges misrepresent judges’ work by asserting that it is political in nature – and thus subject to political criticism and even intimidation. But in the U.S., judges’ constitutionally mandated work takes place in the realm of law, not politics.

By confusing the idea that the people’s will must prevail with what the law actually says, these leaders justify intimidating judges and their rulings, a move that ultimately undermines democracy.

Independent judges may not always make perfect decisions, and concerns about their interpretations or potential biases are legitimate. Judges sometimes make decisions that are objectionable from a moral and legal standpoint.

But when political leaders portray judges as the problem, I believe it’s crucial to ask: Who truly benefits from silencing judges?