I was watching cable news this afternoon at the gym. And I saw one of those examples of what has now become a Trump/Roberts Court-era set piece, where principled and very smart lawyers and/or legal academics have to say, I guess I was a chump.
Sure the Roberts Court is partisan, I thought. But there’s a threshold level belief in the rule of law. I’m not trying to make hay out of others’ mistakes. My guiding heuristic has been that the Roberts Court, especially in its post-2017 iteration is thoroughly corrupt and will generally do whatever is in the interests of the GOP so long as it doesn’t put too big a dent in the Court’s own perceived legitimacy and elite social standing. Based on this standard I assumed the Court would settle for delaying Trump’s trial until the Fall. It seems now that they’re likely to kick it back to the trial Court for further fact-finding and thus the case itself well into 2025.
Everything comes into conceptual alignment if we understand the Court’s corruption: corrupt in its construction, corrupt in its jurisprudence, venally corrupt as well, though that is the least of its problems.
On this show I still saw people saying things like, “I hope this isn’t the case.” “I hope I’m wrong.” Don’t hope you’re wrong. This just leaves us still in some hunt for the silver lining in the Court’s corruption. Or even worse, this undermines faith in the Court. No. We don’t want to shore up faith in a corrupt institution.
We are where we should know we are. The Roberts Court is a corrupt institution which operates in concert with and on behalf of the Republican Party and to an ambiguous degree right-wing anti-regulatory ideology. If we believe in a different set of policies or even democratic self-governance we will have to succeed at that with the Supreme Court acting as a consistent adversary.
That’s the challenge in front of us. It sucks. But things become more clear cut once we take the plunge and accept that fact. Swallow it whole.
HobbesNJ on April 27th, 2024 at 03:26 UTC »
The Supreme Court's job is to interpret current law and evaluate if laws are consistent with the Constitution.
There are no laws providing immunity to the President, and it is not listed in the Constitution. So the Supreme Court has no business making any sort of judgement here. They would have to manufacture that position out of whole cloth.
They continue to legislate from the bench, because they are drunk on power.
M1llennialManifesto on April 27th, 2024 at 01:28 UTC »
If the conservative Supreme Court Justices find that Presidents have (Edit: practically) unlimited immunity, Joe Biden should exercise that power by firing the conservative Supreme Court Justices.
I say that sarcastically, but it seems to me that he would have the authority to do it. As long as Congress and the Senate don't impeach him afterwards, he's free to do whatever he wants, presumably that including liquidating any Congresspersons or Senators who express support for impeaching him. It's all in the name of national security, after all, the President needs that kind of immunity in order to do their job.
The conservative Supreme Court justices say they are concerned that allowing the prosecution of a former President would lead to a slippery slope, I'm more concerned about the fast fall off a sheer cliff if they give the President this kind of power.
This country was founded on the desire to get away from petty tyrants and jealous dictators; if the Supreme Court finds that Trump has anything like unlimited immunity... I'm not going to finish that thought, but the worst case scenario is easy to imagine.
Edit 2: The New Republic says it better, if you prefer.
Edit 3: A bit more context, for good measure.
New York Times
If the court finds in Trump's favor, that's the argument they would be endorsing.
Tarmy_Javas on April 27th, 2024 at 00:59 UTC »
The court is corrupt.
No shit. It's been corrupt since 2000 at least
Stealing the election from Gore was the official end of America.