Comment by 8note

That's a distinction without a difference.

If the president oversteps their supposed authority and those polices or executive orders get enforced without a legal basis and the courts and the legislature decline or fail to rein in the president, then they're effectively making new law.

There is no legal basis or even a hint of presidential immunity in the Constitution yet here we are. The Supreme Court is fully behind this unitary executive theory, at least when it comes to Trump, and they've invented all sorts of "doctrines" to contort their way into the constitutionality of various actions such as the major questions doctrine (which allows SCOTUS to ignore the executive and the legislative branches if they decide the language wasn't clear enough to their liking) and the "history and traditions" test.

SCOTUS has ruled from the emergency or shadow docket to empower the president such that there's no even a ruling to to go over in some cases.

These judges like to maintain this air of legitimacy so they can't let everything through. They occasionally rebuff the president but not in a way that's precedent setting. Instead they'll simply deny standing, meaning the plaintiff doesn't have the right to sue. So they're not ruling against the president on the merits (generally) so the administration is free to challenge again if they find some novel standing to intervene.

Watch this whenever the Supreme Court rules against the administration and see if it's because of standing. More often than not it is.

The Supreme Court is probably the worst in our history, even worse than the 1850s Supreme Court that gave us such gems as Dred Scott. There is very little pretense that they aren't ideologues acting for their political interest.

And that's how we get to a president who is effectively writing new laws. Like a dictator.