POTUS is claimed to have a great deal of power that the position does not have, at least according to Law and the Constitution. However, the IDEA of POTUS and its power is ever growing and changing. How is it that grown congress members fear his ire? He can not impeach them. He can not censor them. He has no power to alter their laws, or make laws. He can’t even walk on the floor without permission. Whereas, Congress can impeach him, Congress can take away his money. Congress can not decide to accept his treaties.
An active example of how this happens — this growth of power POTUS is believed to have — is occurring right now, with Senator Adam Schiff, who posted today:
The supine Supreme Court majority again abets Trump’s efforts to interfere with the upcoming midterm election.
Another precedent-breaking validation of right-wing attacks on equal access to the ballot.
Such is the undeniable legacy of the Roberts Court.
Then, instead of ending with a link to the Supreme Court decision, he links to a CNN commentary — which is even more inaccurate and inflammatory. Here is my response and how I see this as harmful to our nation.
Sen. Schiff, I invest a lot of effort in your position and your office. And you personally. I do that because so far you have not required much defense. However, this is disappointing.
The Supreme Court did no such thing. They did not abet. It did not overturn or announce the abandonment of a named precedent.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a124_hgci.pdf
In Trump v. California, the Court voted 6–3 to suspend a lower-court injunction that protected 23 states and Washington, D.C. from Trump’s March election executive order.
The majority concluded that the states sued too early:
The executive order itself directly commands federal agencies—not the states.
At the time the lawsuit began, DHS had not yet produced its citizenship lists.
USPS had not yet completed its mail-ballot regulations.
Therefore, the states’ anticipated costs and disruption were too speculative to establish standing or ripeness.
The Court expressly said:
“This does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful.”
In plain language: Wait until the administration actually implements something harmful, then sue again.
Also, keep in mind that :
A second injunction, entered August 11 in a lawsuit brought by voting-rights organizations, applies nationwide.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to eliminate that obstacle too, but the Court did not do so. Therefore:
Today’s ruling removes the injunction obtained by the states.
The separate nationwide injunction still prevents implementation.
DOJ must appeal or separately attack that injunction.
The states can file a new challenge based on the completed USPS rule.
So headlines saying the Court has fully authorized Trump’s mail-voting system are overstated. It removed one barrier, while another remains.
What upsets me is that this is how the Trump insanity keeps growing into reality… this normalization of these outlandish claims by POTUS.
The major majority of the citizenship is not going to read what the Supreme Court actually decided, ever. They are going to hear from you, maybe, but not directly. They are going to get the version allowed by the media’s understanding of your words. Which boils down to Trump can do what he wants to do, again. And, the Supreme Court is in his back pocket. That’s what you are saying to them and that’s what they are going to believe. This is how propaganda works, and whether or not you are doing it on purpose, you are still doing it.
One look down the list of current comments on this post shows this effect to be consistent and the level of misleading information being accepted by the listener.
The President doesn’t have that level of power, Quit giving it to him.
The problem is describing a procedural ruling as constitutional “validation.” That language tells the public Trump possesses an authority the Court explicitly declined to recognize.
Fact checking is for Democrats. They are the interested ones. The ones who want to see the engine and the parts and understand the meaning. Republicans… well it’s in the name isn’t it. The whole real benefit of living in a republic is that you don’t have to know all of the issues under the rug, you hired someone to do that for you. So they are more susceptible to implied information, and implied facts.
In the field of propaganda it is well known that implied facts are far more affecting than real ones.
An explicit claim invites examination: Is this true? An implied fact slips past that checkpoint because the audience is encouraged to treat it as already established.
Schiff does not explicitly say, “The Supreme Court ruled that Trump possesses constitutional authority to control mail voting.” But his phrases—“abets,” “interfere,” and “validation”—collectively imply exactly that outcome. Readers begin their reasoning one step later:
The Court validated Trump’s power; therefore, the Court must be controlled by Trump.
The disputed premise disappears into the framing.
That is why implied facts are so effective in propaganda:
They are absorbed as background knowledge rather than evaluated as claims.
The audience supplies the conclusion themselves, making it feel personally discovered.
Corrections appear defensive because they challenge something the audience never remembers being told.
Repetition transforms the implication into shared common knowledge.
Emotional language fixes the interpretation before the underlying facts arrive.
In this case, Trump benefits whether Schiff intends it or not. Trump says, I possess this power. Schiff responds, The Supreme Court validated his use of it. Both descriptions install the same underlying premise: the power belongs to Trump.
The accurate opposition is more damaging to Trump: he claimed a power the Constitution does not grant him; the Court avoided deciding whether he has it; and a separate injunction continues to restrain the principal mail-ballot mechanism.
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