The Supreme Court enshrines impunity
Critics warn the high court will do anything it can to hand the former insurrectionist-in-chief the keys to the White House. Today it struck again
I mean, who among us has not insurrected? It happens to a lot of guys. It’s not a big deal.
That appears to be the attitude of the Supreme Court of the United States, which for the second time in a week did nothing to dispel the notion that it is the billionaire-bought lapdog of Donald Trump, committed to doing literally anything to elect him.
Following its unusual weekend teaser announcement, this morning the court ruled — per curiam, meaning the whole court, not just the conservative majority — that Trump can remain on the ballot in Colorado. Earlier, the state had tried to disqualify him on the grounds that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, for reasons of history and prudence, bars insurrectionists from office. Today’s decision overruling Colorado’s decision was made on the grounds that the Constitution makes Congress solely responsible for enforcing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, not the states. Which is funny, because the court is dominated by ideologues who normally love states’ rights.
Given that this happens on the watch of a Republican House majority, it is of course highly unlikely, even laughable, that Congress would act to enforce Section 3. And with other state-level challenges now off the table, the ruling puts an end to any hopes that Trump will be barred from the ballot in November.
So get this: If you do an insurrection, you’re totally good to go in terms of running for office again, as long as your party controls at least one branch of Congress. All set!
It would seem the court is setting itself up this year to debase itself even more fully than it did in Bush v. Gore. With its decision last week granting certiorari in the case about whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution, it agreed to consider the question of whether a president should be above justice for activities like ordering the Navy Seals to assassinate a political rival — a question whose mere consideration is sad and scary. Now, with today’s decision, it has enshrines insurrection impunity.
Contrary to what the court thinks, insurrections are not that common, they don’t happen to every guy, and they are a big deal.
We’ve been thinking about this theme of impunity for some time, and so below we compiled some further reading for you, drawing on some of our favorite interviews.
There just has to be a reckoning. There just has to be. You can't reset unless you truth-tell and demand that people are held accountable for what they have done. And if they've broken the law, they should be held accountable for breaking the law. To the extent that they've broken norms, ethics, values, they should also be held accountable for that.
We have to save ourselves. This is the essence of democracy, expressing yourself through your right to vote, and your right to assemble and protest. And elsewhere in the world, when democracy has been regained, quite painfully, it’s been through a combination of mass mobilization with electoral strategy and messaging — positive messaging, future-oriented messaging. But mass mobilization and building the democracy movement are fundamental, because as we have seen in the past, there's always going to be limits to what the legal system will do with these types of people.
We have — what? — 80 million people who didn't vote. This haunts me. I'm trying to figure out how we get these people to recognize that their vote matters right now.
I’d like to have seen a speech given to commemorate January 6th, with Liz Cheney sitting right next to A.O.C., with Dick Cheney in the audience. This shouldn't be a partisan event. This needs to be a moment of national recognition and consensus, like Spain in 1981.
So why isn't that happening? Immediately after January 6th was, potentially, one of those moments. Had there been a broad national consensus in the way people talked about what just happened, public opinion would've gone a different way, and then it would've been easier today for politicians on the right to get on board with this.
Trump will continue to try to steal the election. That was always the goal, and the tax stories don’t change that. The revelations about his taxes also won’t affect his base in the way some pundits claim. Trump doesn’t care if they know that he doesn’t pay taxes because he thinks taxes are for suckers. His base will also see it this way. What I do wish his base (and everyone else) would understand is that the reason Trump doesn’t pay taxes is because he is a key part of the so-called “deep state” and “DC swamp” and “NYC elites” that his base claims to despise.
But in terms of the election, the focus should be on the mechanisms of rigging — domestic voter suppression, foreign interference, insecure machines, the destruction of the U.S. Postal Service, and so on — and what to do if he cheats and is caught or refuses to concede, both of which are likely. No one should ever compromise in holding him and his crime cult accountable.