Dwain Northey (Gen X)

History has a funny way of echoing—sometimes as inspiration, sometimes as a warning label that everyone politely ignores.

Take Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States and patron saint of the political shrug. In 1832 the Supreme Court, under John Marshall, issued a ruling in the case of Worcester v. Georgia. The Court said that the state of Georgia had no authority over Cherokee lands. In other words: the law was the law, the Constitution meant something, and the Cherokee Nation had rights.

Jackson’s reported response—whether perfectly quoted or not—has become legendary: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

Translation into modern English: “Neat opinion you’ve got there. Be a shame if someone… ignored it.”

The result was the policy that led to the Trail of Tears, where thousands of Cherokee and other Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and marched west. The Supreme Court ruled. Jackson shrugged. History kept the receipts.

Fast forward nearly two centuries to Donald Trump, who has occasionally shown a similar enthusiasm for treating constitutional guardrails like polite suggestions at a buffet. If Jackson’s philosophy was “the Court can rule whatever it likes,” the modern remix sometimes sounds suspiciously like: “Interesting ruling… but what if we just didn’t?”

Consider the perennial debate over elections. The Constitution, inconveniently, places primary authority for running elections with the states. That’s not just a tradition; it’s right there in Article I, Section 4. States decide how voting works—machines, mail-in ballots, early voting, the whole democratic smorgasbord.

But imagine a scenario where a president declares that mail-in ballots are invalid, voting machines are suspect, and elections must suddenly follow a brand-new federal rulebook written somewhere between a campaign rally and a late-night social media post. If the Supreme Court were to say, “Actually, that’s unconstitutional,” the historical question would become: does the executive branch accept the ruling… or channel its inner Jackson?

Because the Jackson playbook is simple:

Do the thing. Get told you can’t do the thing. Respond with a constitutional version of “OK, stop me.”

Of course, America in the 21st century is not the America of the 1830s. Institutions are stronger, the press is louder, and the public has a habit of noticing when democracy starts getting rewritten like a terms-of-service agreement nobody agreed to.

Still, history whispers uncomfortable questions. When leaders talk about changing how elections work after losing faith in the results, when courts become obstacles rather than arbiters, and when constitutional limits are treated like optional upgrades—people start remembering Andrew Jackson.

And that’s not exactly the chapter of American history most presidents should be eager to reenact.

After all, the last time someone used the “make me” approach to the Supreme Court, it didn’t end up as a proud footnote in the civics textbook. It became a tragedy called the Trail of Tears—and a permanent reminder that ignoring the Constitution rarely ages well.