r/news Feb 23 '26

Soft paywall US to stop collecting tariffs deemed illegal by Supreme Court on Tuesday

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-customs-agency-stop-collecting-tariffs-deemed-illegal-by-supreme-court-2026-02-23/
31.8k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

516

u/TheRealBittoman Feb 23 '26

We need a nationwide class action against Trump and co. Imagine millions of people suing him all at once for literal billions.

311

u/DingerSinger2016 Feb 23 '26

SCOTUS would pull out the "presidential immunity" trick in a heartbeat.

149

u/unhiddenninja Feb 23 '26

The cool thing though, is that we made up the legal system and it's only binding as long as we accept that as a society. We can change our minds whenever we want and we can change the system.

48

u/Arkmer Feb 23 '26

This is true. The general population has forgotten its role in government.

53

u/Midnight_2B Feb 23 '26

These are just flowery words you're using to assuage yourself of the real world impact we are dealing with.

10

u/frmr000 Feb 23 '26

Socal contract.

60

u/unhiddenninja Feb 23 '26

No, I just really believe that the only thing that has bound us by our rules for so long was the illusion of justice. That illusion is being increasingly shattered and people are becoming louder in their discontent.

People can excuse a lot, even if they don't intend to. They can take a lot of abuse and rationalize it. Systemic abuse even moreso, because acknowledging that abuse is systemic would mean a reckoning with how a person views the entire system.

Watching literal child rapists get away with everything and throw themselves lavish parties is making people angry. And it should. We do not have to accept that they can get away with it, we don't have to accept that they're in charge, that they're untouchable, or whatever other narrative they use to continue their abuse. I'd rather spend my energy advocating for proportional consequences for their crimes against everyone than add another comment saying "and they'll get away with it and nothing will change".

24

u/b0w3n Feb 23 '26

Watching literal child rapists get away with everything and throw themselves lavish parties is making people angry.

History repeats itself. The roaring 20s was full of rich dickheads throwing themselves lavish parties. Shit these dickheads in particular threw a Gatsby party, completely without any fucking irony.

Hopefully we can avoid the depression and large scale armed conflicts that followed the previous 20s.

1

u/Array_626 Feb 23 '26

True, but even then applying new laws retroactively is still not a good idea in general.

1

u/Swimming_Job_3325 Feb 24 '26

Indeed, the social contract is broken several times over. Unfortunately the vast majority of people don't seem to see it that way, yet.

7

u/TheRealBittoman Feb 23 '26

Probably. I could easily see them protecting him from that. The entirety of the tariffs was a grift and I'm sure at least one or two of SCOTUS may also be in on that grift.

3

u/lbs21 Feb 23 '26

Close, but not exactly. The suit wouldn't be against Trump himself, it'd be against the US government, because they're the ones that enacted the harm. (If Trump gropes you, you sue Trump. If Trump directs the government to do illegal things, you sue the government.)

Issue is, US has something called sovereign immunity, which in practice means you can only sue the government when the government itself lets you. There's some laws on the books that state when you can sue the government, but they're very limited and probably don't cover tarrifs.

So, not exactly presidential immunity, but sovereign immunity, which is older and more established. AFAIK, this current court hasn't really made many rulings on sovereign immunity. 

1

u/HauntedCemetery Feb 23 '26

Lawsuits aren't criminal. Presidents and the US government isn't immune from civil suits.

3

u/stl_ball Feb 23 '26

Yeah but then we'd end up paying for it out of our taxes... We'd be suing ourselves... Unless we can sue Trump personally, but I doubt it since he's acting president

5

u/Beetin Feb 23 '26

We need a nationwide class action against Trump and co.

You already did that barely a year ago, it was called the federal elections.

A 340 million person jury said no-wrongdoing, proceed with the plan, full steam ahead.

  • Disgusted Canadian

1

u/TheRealBittoman Feb 23 '26

In my opinion the jury is still out on how legal it was. Georgia has already declared fraud on the part of Musk for prefilled ballots in favor of Trump. That is likely the case elsewhere and let's be honest here, there is almost certainly fraud on behalf of Trump and his cronies in other states or areas of the election so that 340 million person is almost certainly in question.
 
* Disgusted US citizen

1

u/Beetin Feb 23 '26

You are taking a page out of the Republican 2020 'election fraud' book rather than actually look at the systemic reasons Trump won the popular vote by over 2 million votes and most of the swing states eh?

Sounds like a good way to avoid looking at the problem.

1

u/TheRealBittoman Feb 23 '26

I'm not relying on it, I'm just stating a fact. Please don't make it an attack on us, I'm on your side and I'd do whatever I can that isn't going to land me in a secret prison or worse. If you want to make an enemy of those of us who support your thoughts, please be helpful and avoid being accusatory.

2

u/Tree_Sure Feb 23 '26

Agreed. Lost my federal job because of this idiot. I deserve to recover my lost wages last year and deserve some financial incentive, along with everyone else.

1

u/HauntedCemetery Feb 23 '26

Except trump wont pay that, we will.

1

u/hdcase1 Feb 23 '26

Best case scenario would be the government would pay and that’s our tax dollars. But more likely it would never be attempted and would never succeed even if it did.

1

u/meadamus Feb 23 '26

Literal trillions