What progressive activists could not accomplish at the ballot box in 2016 — specifically, to constrain and thwart the policy agenda of President Trump — they are seeking to achieve in federal court.

The maneuver is straightforward: Find a sympathetic United States District Court judge, say, in California, to hold that President Trump’s executive order or the manner his administration enforces existing law is unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful. Once the judge so decides, the moving party requests that the court issue a nationwide injunction, which bars the U.S. government from enforcing the disfavored law or policy anywhere in the country. The gambit worked because political plaintiffs found accommodating jurists. In these lawsuits, however, the loser is not the government; it is America’s constitutional order.