Posted August 18, 2026
The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that President Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages, finalizing a verdict that found him liable for defamation and sexual abuse. My response today has nothing to do with partisan politics or the merits of the case and everything to do with the system that led to the verdict.
By way of background: The justices denied Mr. Trump’s initial request to take up the case in June, leaving the verdict against him in place. He asked the court to reconsider that decision, but it refused Monday. Mr. Trump now has no more options to appeal the ruling against him, ensuring that the $5 million in damages he has been ordered to pay Carroll will stand.
She received $5.6 million in the case—the $5 million award plus interest—through a court-controlled account in July. The latest ruling will give her the freedom to spend this money and ensure it is no longer tied up in legal proceedings.
I believe America’s founders would be extremely pleased and perhaps surprised by this news, for reasons that are vital to the democratic republic they envisioned.
When Americans won independence from England and elected George Washington their first president, a great fear among the colonists was that they had replaced one King George with another. They knew the consistent pattern of autocracies, theocracies, and monarchies. The idea that a people could govern themselves was met with ridicule in England and much of the world.
The consensus of history was that fallen people needed a king or theocrat chosen by God to rule over them. America’s infant republic would likely revert to such a monarchy over time, or so many believed.
Even some of the founders were concerned on this point. This was part of Thomas Jefferson’s reasoning in emphasizing the rights of states, for example. He and others did not want the federal government to become so strong that its leaders could usurp authority from the people and local governments.
The checks and balances the founders created were their answer to this problem. The nation would elect a president; the states would elect members of Congress to form an equal branch of government; the courts would hold both accountable to the Constitution but be subject to laws created by Congress and endorsed by the president.
This is why yesterday’s ruling is so significant: For the US Supreme Court to rule against the president of the United States is an example of our system at work. You might strongly disagree with the court on the merits, or you might strongly disagree with the president’s legal case. The founders did not attempt a system that could forecast and solve for specific issues such as these centuries into the future. But they did seek to build a system that could handle such issues in ways that would ensure the continuance of democracy itself.
This ruling aside, our national trust in our institutions has fallen to dangerous lows. The declining trust in others that I discussed yesterday is mirrored by studies regarding trust in government, churches, and businesses.
According to a new Barna report, Americans trust family members the most (79 percent) and politicians the least (26 percent). In between, the larger the institution, the less it is trusted.
For example, 61 percent say they trust “small churches,” but only 36 percent say the same about “megachurches.” Fifty-five percent trust “Christian pastors,” but only 30 percent trust “celebrity pastors.”
The reasons seem obvious: We trust what we know. Positions matter less than people. Unlike most societies for most of history, we are not centered on monarchies, hereditary titles, and the like. We aspire to a system in which anyone can become anything. We are at our worst when we violate this aspiration through prejudice and injustice. We are at our best when our founding belief that “all men are created equal” is mirrored in our attitudes and actions.
Here’s the problem: Democracy runs counter to human nature. Our “will to power” drives us to be our own god (Genesis 3:5). We therefore favor democracy so long as it elevates us to the status and position we seek. Once there, we want positional authority over those “below” us on the social ladder.
C. S. Lewis noted that no one who says “I’m as good as you” believes it, or they wouldn’t say it. The wealthy person doesn’t say this to the poor, or the educated to the uneducated. Those who feel themselves inferior to others seek to escape such social stratification. But if they achieve the status they lack, they will refuse to confer it on others.
This is just one reason the founders insisted that consensual democracy requires consensual morality derived from consensual religion. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” as James Madison famously noted. We are all addicts of one kind or another, fallen people in need of the “higher power” that all Twelve Step programs embrace.
Of course, none of this applies to you or me—or so we might think. People who write and read articles like this one are too godly to seek to be our own god, too humble to be conceited. However, to quote Lewis again, “If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”
I sometimes joke that my next book will be titled, Humility and How I Perfected It. Unfortunately, I am prone to writing chapters in that book daily.
How humble would you say you are today?
“Humility is the garden of all the virtues.” —John Chrysostom
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