DONALD TRUMP’s order “boggles the mind” a district judge remarked during the president’s first week back in the White House. He was referring to an executive order of January 20th directing that only children of citizens and permanent residents could be granted birthright citizenship. By excluding both undocumented immigrants and people temporarily working or studying in America, his directive was “blatantly unconstitutional” said John Coughenour, who then blocked the order temporarily.

It would be a dull quest, but a difficult one, to find a 70-something white male conservative less like President Donald Trump than Chief Justice John Roberts. Mr Roberts is mild where the other is bombastic, endowed with impeccable establishment credentials where the other has credentialled himself, obsessed with consensus and continuity, not disruption. The chief justice never tweets; he has attained just one wife. And yet, as Mr Trump has been building a movement to remake America to suit himself, Mr Roberts, like the stewards of so many American institutions, has been failing at his job, at least by the standards he set when he became the chief 20 years ago.