For an alleged wannabe dictator, Trump badly blundered in his choices for the Supreme Court. Those three conservative justices went on to help form majorities in landmark decisions limiting the power of the federal government and the president. The rulings shifted authority back to the states and severely curtailed the power of the executive branch—much to the dismay of Harris. In her criticism of the court’s decision last June overturning its 1984 Chevron decision, which makes it easier for citizens to challenge regulations by federal agencies, she warned that it would limit the power of “federal experts” to issue “commonsense rules.”

Harris’s idea of commonsense rules presumably includes mandates from the Green New Deal, which she co-sponsored in the Senate. The plan to eliminate fossil fuels never had any chance of being passed by Congress, but the Biden administration has quietly advanced this agenda by creatively using federal agencies to promote and subsidize “sustainable energy,” stymie oil and gas production, and force automakers to switch to electric vehicles. Harris is firmly committed to the goal of achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050, which would be the most costly project in history and give central planners vast new powers to manage the economy and the lives of citizens.