The Court Has Spoken — and Democracy Held
Justice has been served: one man alone cannot and must not decide for an entire people.
The gavel came down. Six justices — including two appointed by Trump himself — looked at the Constitution, looked at the president's claim of unlimited tariff power, and said what needed saying: no .
I'm writing this from Tirana, Albania, where I run FreeAstroScience, a science and cultural group. I'm a physicist in a wheelchair. I've spent my life studying the laws of nature — gravity, thermodynamics, electromagnetism — and if there's one thing the universe teaches you, it's that no single force operates without a counterbalance. Newton's third law isn't just physics. It's the architecture of every functioning democracy.
And today, that architecture held.
What the Ruling Actually Says
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote it plainly in a 21-page opinion: the president claimed "the extraordinary power to impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope," but the Constitution places that power squarely with Congress — the people's elected representatives . The International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 was never designed to be a blank cheque for rewriting global trade from the Oval Office .
The vote was 6 to 3. Roberts, Gorsuch, Barrett, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson in the majority. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh dissenting .
Trump called it "una vergogna" — a disgrace . He said he was "ashamed" of the justices who ruled against him, including the two he personally nominated.
I'll be honest: that reaction tells you everything.
Why This Matters Beyond America
I was born in Albania in 1986. My family emigrated to Italy in 1991 so I could receive medical treatment for dystonia, a movement disorder that put me in a wheelchair for life. I've lived through systems where one person's word was law — where institutions existed on paper but crumbled at the first test of power. Albania in the early '90s was a country learning, painfully, what happens when checks and balances don't exist.
So when I see the highest court in the world's most powerful democracy tell its own president — you don't have that authority — I feel something deep. Something that goes beyond trade policy or tariff rates.
It's the sound of a system working.
Not perfectly. Not quickly. The tariffs were in place for nearly a year. Roughly $175 billion was collected before the court acted . American families paid an estimated $1,000 extra per household in 2025 because of these duties. The damage was real, and much of it won't be undone by a court ruling.
But the principle — the principle is everything.
One Man Cannot Decide for an Entire People
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote a concurrence that reads like a love letter to the legislative process. "Yes, legislating can be hard and take time," he acknowledged. "But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design" .
Then he added a line that should be printed on the wall of every parliament, every congress, every assembly on Earth: "If history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today's result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is" .
Read that again. He's telling his own political allies: the power you want your president to have today is the same power someone else's president will wield tomorrow. Guardrails protect everyone — especially those who think they don't need them.
The Physics of Power
In physics, we talk about equilibrium — the state where opposing forces balance each other. A star burns because the outward pressure of nuclear fusion matches the inward pull of gravity. Remove one force, and the star either collapses into a black hole or explodes into a supernova.
Democracy works the same way. Executive power pushes outward. Legislative and judicial power push back. The system holds — as long as no one dismantles the counterweights.
Trump declared eight national emergencies in his first 100 days — roughly matching what other recent presidents declared in entire four-year terms . Each declaration was an attempt to bypass Congress, to act alone, to concentrate power in a single pair of hands. The court saw the pattern clearly: "Emergency powers tend to kindle emergencies" .
That's not just a legal observation. It's a warning about human nature itself.
What Happens Now
Trump has already announced a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — a law that limits such duties to 150 days without congressional approval. He's also signalled investigations under Section 301 and the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 .
These alternatives come with caps, time limits, and procedural requirements. None gives the president the unchecked authority IEEPA seemed to offer. And after today, every new tariff action will face immediate legal scrutiny .
The $175 billion already collected? The court left that question to lower courts . Business groups are demanding refunds. California Governor Gavin Newsom put it colourfully: "Cough up!". But as economists warn, even if importers get their money back, consumers won't see price drops overnight road ahead is messy. It always is when democracy does its work in real time.
A Personal Reflection
I've spent my life fighting battles that felt unwinnable. Multiple surgeries. A deep brain stimulation implant in 2011, then its removal in 2018. Years of rehabilitation. A degree in astronomy from Bologna, a master's in physics from Milan — each one earned from a wheelchair, each one a small act of defiance against a body that doesn't cooperate.
My philosophy is simple: never give up.
And that's what I see in this ruling. Not a partisan victory. Not a liberal or conservative triumph. I see a system that bent under enormous pressure — and didn't break. I see institutions that took their time, followed the evidence, and reached a conclusion grounded in law rather than loyalty.
As the Spanish artist Goya warned us — and as we remind you at FreeAstroScience — the sleep of reason breeds monsters. Today, reason was wide awake.
One man alone cannot and must not decide for an entire people. The Supreme Court said so. The Constitution said so first. And the laws of nature — the ones I've spent my life studying — have been saying it all along.
Every force needs a counterforce. Every power needs a check. That's not weakness. That's how the universe stays standing.
Gerd Dani — President, FreeAstroScience · Tirana, Albania · February 20, 2026
Post a Comment