The Supreme Court’s ruling in the tariffs case has been hailed as a devastating blow for President Trump and a triumph for the rule of law. Even though Trump had warned that a loss in this case “would literally destroy the United States of America,” the Court broke from its pattern of siding with him. Prominent media outlets have described the decision as a “resounding … smackdown,” a “declaration of independence” by the justices, maybe even “the most important Supreme Court decision this century.”The tariffs ruling is indeed a smackdown. And Trump obviously doesn’t like to lose. But his critics’ celebrations and his own furious response risk obscuring a deeper dynamic at play: Both the White House and the Court stand to gain from the decision.To see why, first consider that the tariffs ruling is unlikely to do significant damage to the Trump administration or the Republican Party legally, politically, or otherwise.As a matter of law, the opinion breaks hardly any new ground. Notwithstanding the decision’s “blockbuster” trappings, the holding of the case is simple and surgical: One particular statute (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act), which never uses the word tariffs, cannot be used to impose tariffs. No other issues had to be decided. None was.A large chunk of the opinion’s 170 pages is taken up by a vigorous dispute over the major-questions doctrine, which requires Congress to “speak clearly” if it wishes to delegate broad authority to the executive. This dispute was academic, however, given that the six justices in the majority agreed on the outcome regardless of whether or how the doctrine applied. Difficult questions about remedies were deferred for another day. Outside the obscure realm of IEEPA, the Court’s conservative majority can—and almost certainly will—continue to expand presidential power while constricting agencies’ regulatory authority.[Jeffrey Rosen: What Justice Gorsuch fears]As a matter of policy, the IEEPA tariffs were both unpopular and ineffective. Many Republican officeholders in the Reaganite mold opposed them, and economists from both parties warned that they were poorly designed to reduce the overall trade deficit. Although they brought in billions to the Treasury, there is little evidence that they helped revitalize domestic manufacturing. And they raised revenue by effectively taxing ordinary American households and the consumption of basic goods.The IEEPA tariffs were also partially substitutable. By signaling the likely outcome of the case at the initial oral argument and then again at a subsequent oral argument, the justices gave Trump’s team plenty of time to prepare. J.P. Morgan has been advising clients for months that it does “not expect a decision revoking IEEPA tariffs to have a material impact on where the level of the effective tariff rate settles.” Although IEEPA would have been easier to use, presidents can impose tariffs under other statutes, such as the Trade Act of 1974, which is exactly what Trump is already in the process of doing.There is a less direct but potentially even more significant reason this loss may prove useful for the administration, whatever the ultimate effects on the economy. Trump is going to need a respected judiciary on his side in future cases, and the Supreme Court has been in desperate need of some victories of its own in the court of public opinion.In constitutional democracies across the globe, researchers have found that confidence in the judiciary is linked to its perceived independence. The Roberts Court has been learning this lesson firsthand, as the belief that it is in the tank for Trump and the Republican Party has contributed to a dramatic decline in public approval, especially among Democrats and independents. The conservative justices have come to be seen by so many Americans as partisan that legal scholars have begun to speak of a “post-legitimacy Court.”To safeguard its institutional legitimacy, the Court thus needs to rein in Trump once in a while, and not just through relatively “invisible” maneuvers. The tariffs case presented a perfect opportunity to do so on account of its large symbolic value and limited legal stakes.By showcasing its independence in this way, the Court earns currency that it can spend in subsequent decisions that enable Trump rather than restrain him. Such a dynamic has played out in a number of declining democracies. Courts shore up popular support by vindicating a small set of high-profile claims, even as they allow the executive to undermine core democratic norms.In Hong Kong, for instance, the Court of Final Appeal has handed down a series of decisions protecting LGBTQ rights at the same time that it has withdrawn from protecting political protest and dissent. The legal scholar Rehan Abeyratne argues that this is no coincidence: The LGBTQ rulings have helped maintain at least some faith in the Hong Kong judiciary as being free from Chinese control. Similarly, the Indian supreme court has decriminalized consensual same-sex conduct and recognized transgender rights while upholding ever more repressive actions by Narendra Modi’s government.In fact, Abeyratne suggests that something similar happened in the United States with cases such as Obergefell v. Hodges. The Obergefell same-sex marriage ruling is now a decade old, though, and its legitimating effects for liberals and centrists have faded. Recent decisions such as Trump v. United States, granting then-former President Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, are more salient for Americans today.It is not just the Court that needs to put some short-term distance between itself and Trump to advance its longer-term goals. Perhaps paradoxically, Trump needs the same thing.The past decade or so has seen the rise of a new model of “stealth authoritarianism” (also known as “autocratic legalism” and “abusive constitutionalism”), in which strongman leaders subvert the substance of constitutional democracy while appearing to comply with its formal requirements. Compared with more overt methods of authoritarian takeover, tactics of this kind have several benefits. For one, they are less likely to provoke criticism from allies and international partners. For another, they are less likely to spook markets and lead to adverse economic effects.Sympathetic judges play an important role in this model. Through their rulings, they can endorse, entrench, and sanitize dubious expansions of executive power. The rub is that judges can play this role effectively only if they are viewed as independent from the regime. Otherwise, their decisions will be written off as the product of coercion or collusion.Hungary provides an example. In the early years after Viktor Orbán came to power, the Constitutional Court struck down some of his reforms and engaged in “cautious resistance,” leading to a perception among segments of the Hungarian public and the international community that the regime maintained a commitment to the rule of law.This perception unraveled, however, once the court came to be seen as fully captured by Orbán. The result was a series of rebukes from the European Union’s Court of Justice and the EU itself, and a growing consensus that Hungary had lost its status as a true constitutional democracy. Once that occurred, the fact that the court still intermittently ruled against Orbán counted for little. Neither the justices nor the Orbán regime could redeem their reputation, and Hungary has lost large sums of European funding as a result.[Sarah Isgur: What the Roberts Court is actually trying to accomplish]The lesson for Trump is clear. Insofar as he wants the Court and the country to back him on issues such as voting restrictions, immigration enforcement, and environmental deregulation, he needs the Court to rule against him in some widely watched cases. He then needs to toe the line. Support for Trump and his policies has been dragged down by the widespread belief that he has been abusing his powers. Complying with a prominent, adverse judgment is one of the most legible ways he can combat that belief.Granted, Trump’s press conference on Friday, after the tariffs ruling came down, was not exactly a model of restraint. And he may well be outraged by the ruling. But beneath the bluster, Trump made clear that he will comply with a decision that he believes is deeply misguided—not at all what a tyrant might be expected to do. The notion that Trump is lawlessness incarnate looks a little shakier today than it did a week ago, which may be just what he needs to pursue the rest of his agenda.None of this means that the Supreme Court was wrong to strike down Trump’s tariffs. The Court’s holding is more than justified on statutory and separation-of-powers grounds.That said, the Court has only diverted, but by no means derailed, one piece of Trump’s program that scared Wall Street and split the Republican coalition. Nothing in the opinion heralds a new willingness to push back against Trumpism in other settings. And fundamental democratic norms continue to be under assault. Whether and to what extent the United States continues its slide toward authoritarianism will depend much more, for example, on how the Court responds to Trump’s efforts to dismantle independent agencies, quell political dissent, and interfere with the midterm elections.The tariffs case must therefore be understood as a warm-up act in the fight to preserve the core of American democracy, rather than the main event. And the Roberts Court still stands as a key enabler of Trumpism as well as a check against it, unless and until the justices prove otherwise.