Authority

Published on August 28, 2025

Judge Judy was on the screen, making the kind of faces you imagine Judge Judy making.

I don’t watch her by choice, but it was lunch, and the TV was on, and I didn’t have the remote control.

What struck me this time was how hard they try to make her look like she has the right to talk to people like she does.

Her studio looks a lot like a real courtroom. Her bench has a sign with her name and the the title “Judge.” There’s a bailiff who makes people stand when she enters the room. Her robes look like a real judge’s robes.

It’s all the trappings of authority. But there is no real authority here. It’s all fake. There’s no power to compel compliance. No real consequence. The winner gets paid out of proceeds; the loser gets off Scott free except perhaps to their reputation and pride. Even the temper of the judge is faked for TV just like Gordon Ramsey’s famous idiot sandwich.

It only has power because everyone agreed they do.

It’s what the law looks like to people who have no knowledge of the law. Just like our current president is the weak person’s image of a strong man, a dumb person’s image of a smart man, a poor person’s version of a rich man.

He doesn’t have any real power either, except that which we’ve agreed to give him. It’s all fake. The moment anyone stands up to him in any real way he backs down. And he lashes out. But the only reason he hasn’t been impeached and forever barred from office is because enough of us agreed to let him get away with it.

Maybe we should stop doing that.