The progressive legal class has long treated district court rulings as cudgels—wielded with fanfare, amplified by media allies, and then quietly discarded when overturned. But this time, the cudgel broke in their hands.

Yesterday evening, a unanimous Ninth Circuit panel—including a Biden appointee—rebuked Judge Charles Breyer and stayed his overreaching attempt to strip President Trump of command over the California National Guard.

Breyer’s injunction, celebrated by Governor Gavin Newsom and his legal entourage, ordered Trump to relinquish control of the Guard. The theory? That the president violated the Tenth Amendment and failed to transmit a federalization order “through” the governor properly.

In reality, the orders were delivered exactly as required—through California’s adjutant general, acting “in the name of the Governor” as state law mandates. No amount of robe-clad hand-wringing or gubernatorial swooning into a constitutional safe space—heretofore unknown in American jurisprudence—changes that.

Breyer’s ruling was not a sound judgment. It had a mawkish tone—more a performative rebuke than a legal rationale—one that slid past controlling authority and historical precedent, ignoring constitutional command in favor of political poppycock, no doubt served up by Newsom’s Ferragamo-fitted legal phalanx.

Because how dare heartland America elect Trump—how dare the people install a president who meant what he said and did what he promised?

To the remnants of the prior administration, to the anointed mandarins of the Beltway ancien régime and their Left Coast Babylonian bulwark, and Bonnie Prince Gavin—he of the perfectly coiffed hair and lamb’s wool blazer, fitting attire for a sheep in sheep’s clothing—that isn’t leadership. That’s lèse-majesté.

The president disrupted succession for the progressive privileged class—which now behaves as the reactionary force, yearning for a return to the pre-Trump status quo, where centralized control grew unchecked under their oligarchy.

Trump and those who elected him are storming their Versailles, sometimes a new one every day, every week, or every fortnight—with ballots and deportation orders, not bayonets.

Newsom’s lawsuit—propped up by Breyer’s now-gutted ruling—was a classic case of courtroom nullification: a modern revival of Calhounist doctrine dressed up in progressive legalese, seeking to block a lawful and constitutional federal action by a president cast very much in the mold of Andrew Jackson.

Trump didn’t stage a coup. He followed the law, the Constitution, and centuries of precedent—from Washington’s march on the Whiskey Rebellion to Eisenhower’s intervention in Little Rock to Bush’s federalization in Los Angeles.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed what history already knew: when the President defends national sovereignty, enforces federal law, and protects officers of the United States, no state governor—not even one with a hair-and-makeup team—can stand in his way.

Simply put, the legalistic left’s attempted coup par ordonnance du tribunal—a coup by court order—failed miserably. Their coup—that effort to upend centuries of constitutional order and seize authority from a duly elected President—was stopped in its tracks.

This time. For now.

Still, the legacy press can’t help itself. Even as the Ninth Circuit guts Breyer’s logic, many media outlets persist in rehashing his findings as though the appellate decision never happened.

It’s a tired sleight of hand: trumpet activist rulings against Trump, then go mute, dissemble, or regurgitate the lower court’s reasoning as a false equivalency once the higher courts overturn them. The narrative must be preserved—never truly defeated, no matter the scoreboard.

Yet, the judiciary cannot continue to indulge this performance art disguised as constitutional litigation.

The progressive legal cartel would be wise not to appeal to the Supreme Court—because if they do, they may well provoke a precedent that buries this charade once and for all.

That’s how Skirmetti happened, after all. Newsom has already signaled that he will continue to fight Trump. Of course he has.

The Supreme Court is long overdue to body-check the entire apparatus of unprecedented, systematic throttling of constitutional norms by the federal district courts—through actions designed not merely to hamstring but to hogtie the sitting president. 

The question now is: will the Party of Nine rise to the occasion?

In sum, this coordinated attempt to obstruct federal law under the guise of states’ rights is not federalism. It is not constitutionalism. It is not some principled or novel invocation of the Tenth Amendment.

It bears repeating: it is something far more dangerous. 

It is sedition. It is nullification. It is a modern-day resurrection of Calhounism—this time in designer sneakers.

And it must be quashed—forthrightly, finally, and forthwith.

Charlton Allen is an attorney and former chief executive officer and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and host of the Modern Federalist podcast. His commentary has been featured in American Thinker and linked across multiple RealClear platforms, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearWorld, RealClearDefense, RealClearHistory, and RealClearPolicy. X: @CharltonAllenNC

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