Donald Trump is appealing the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution to the Supreme Court (or to be technical about it, lower court decisions relying on the 14th amendment to block Trump’s executive order overturning birthright citizenship[1]). The relevant text states, unambiguously, “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.”[2]
According to Solicitor General D. John Sauer, “The lower court’s decisions [upholding the 14th amendment] invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security. Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”[3]
This, of course, opens up a huge can of worms: Who is “unqualified?” Will it be Black and brown people? Will it be anybody Trump doesn’t like?
In earlier times, I would laugh this off. Of course the Supreme Court will reject Trump’s argument, I would say. But we no longer live in a constitutional oligarchy. It is now an aconstitutional broligarchy[4] and the Supreme Court has instead been allowing Trump to do pretty much whatever he wants.[5]
[1] Devan Cole and John Fritze, “Trump asks Supreme Court to decide whether he can end birthright citizenship,” Cable News Network, September 26, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/26/politics/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-appeal
[2] U.S. Const., Amend. XIV, § 1.
[3] D. John Sauer, quoted in Devan Cole and John Fritze, “Trump asks Supreme Court to decide whether he can end birthright citizenship,” Cable News Network, September 26, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/26/politics/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-appeal
[4] David Benfell, “It’s an aconstitutional broligarchy now,” Not Housebroken, September 23, 2025, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/its-an-aconstitutional-broligarchy
[5] Ian Millhiser, “The overwhelming evidence that the Supreme Court is on Donald Trump’s team,” Vox, September 5, 2025, https://apple.news/A4mYLPFs8RtKHqbQlENPtQQ