Sometimes, judges have moved swiftly and even gotten concrete results. A Tufts University student arrested in the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, after penning an op-ed on the war in Gaza was ordered released on bond pending appeal of a ruling that said her First Amendment rights had been violated. The Trump Administration complied. More than one federal judge has ruled that Trump has exceeded the terms of the Alien Enemies Act, the eighteenth-century wartime law that the Administration has used to justify many of its deportations to El Salvador. Others have found that many of Trump’s directives to fire government employees and efforts to hollow out administrative agencies have violated federal law and the principle of separation of powers.

At other times, court proceedings have lagged behind the Administration’s actions. In the case of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, critical funding was cut off to desperate grantees around the world, leases were canceled, and the name of the agency was removed from its headquarters before any meaningful litigation had occurred. On the hardest issues involving the most disputed questions, lawsuits continue to wind their way toward the country’s apex court—and uncertain resolution. As of late September, more than 400 cases had been filed against the Trump Administration, and counting.

Despite the mixed results, for now a deep reverence for judicial review has reasserted itself across the land. Poll after poll shows that Americans believe that a President should obey the courts, even if many paradoxically also want leaders who will break some eggs to make big changes. But what in fact is the role of courts in a democracy in a deeper sense? In our view, ensuring the survival of democracy in a populist age turns on this crucial question. Having realistic expectations of what judges can do to help and a clear understanding of how their involvement can be counterproductive is essential to minimizing unconstitutional harms and clearing pathways for the political mobilization that can truly heal democracy.

So, the question hangs in the air: How long can judicial resistance last when it is to come from unelected lower court judges, if it comes at all? We believe that the momentary flurry of judicial activity is fool’s gold. The more important question, and one to which we do not yet know the answer, is how Trump’s disputes with judges will play out in the Supreme Court or where it matters the most—with the electorate as a whole. The signs so far certainly aren’t comforting: The justices have used their emergency docket to dissolve a lower court order and permit the mass firing of employees of the Department of Education, without giving any explanation for their decision. They have also restricted the use of universal injunctions, which will make it easier for the justices to discipline lower court judges who get too creative with their remedial powers. And they have been in no hurry to reach final rulings about the legality of Trump’s decision to create DOGE out of whole cloth and allow Elon Musk and a small circle of allies to dismantle large parts of the administrative state without legislative approval. Meanwhile, we don’t know how voters will react if Trump ratchets up his conflict with the judiciary when he loses in court. Part of Trump’s populist strategy is to deny that lower courts can legitimately force him to do anything—when asked, he always says he would obey “the Supreme Court.” A similar sentiment is echoed by Cabinet officials, who typically refuse to say whether a single judge’s order will be obeyed.

Democratic activists must therefore chart a realistic middle ground when it comes to reliance on the courts, one that accounts for what judges can and can’t do and avoids creating more democratic traps for the future. Though law will continue to play a prominent role, we contend that it can protect democracy only up to a certain point, and only in conjunction with political activism and elections. For history shows that a populist leader is likely to escalate conflict with the courts rather than back down, and that judges alone cannot save democracy.