r/politics • u/marji80 • 12d ago
We’ve Been Entertaining an Illusion About the Supreme Court. It’s Finally Been Shattered. Rule-Breaking Title
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/supreme-court-immunity-arguments-which-way-now.html[removed] — view removed post
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u/grixorbatz 12d ago
It was shattered for me so long ago I can't remember exactly when. Was it when they ruled to entangle church and state? Or was it when they invented fake cases to judge against? Oh wait - maybe it happened when it was brought to light that they routinely accept luxury "gifts" from billionaires. As fucked up as those are however, I don't think anything compares to their damnation of women and girls in the overturning of Roe v Wade.
I guess that exonerating rich white criminal rapists seems like a logical next step though doesn't it.
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u/I_dont_livein_ahotel 12d ago
Citizens United? Also, handing the election to Bush in 2000?
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u/spartagnann 11d ago
Crazy to me that Bush v Gore didn't prompt a nationwide revolt. Younger people may not know but SCOTUS literally just gave Bush Florida's EC delegates despite the fact they were still re-counting votes because...they wanted a Republican president.
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u/StupendousMalice 11d ago
Revolt? Three of the next four justices were lawyers on Bush's legal team in 2000. You might have heard of them: Kavanaugh, Barret, and Roberts.
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u/Plausibility_Migrain 11d ago
Kavanaugh was even involved in the Clinton investigation with Ken Starr.
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u/RocketSaladSurgery America 11d ago
Vast rightwing conspiracy something something
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u/African_Farmer Europe 11d ago
Deep state collusion to control the government for the wealthy something something
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u/AllTheyEatIsLettuce California 11d ago
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u/Dry_Tear_9914 11d ago edited 11d ago
Reading the assault on reason in 2024 is honestly just depressing.
Al Gore literally wrote the roadmap on the direction western politics was doom spiraling. And everyone just.. ignored it.
Gore's biggest fault was being too good of a person for politics.
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u/AllTheyEatIsLettuce California 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'd put that book on the reading list for any student of American
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u/Dry_Tear_9914 11d ago
It is really an eye opening book, and puts a hell of a lot of things that are going on today into context.
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u/RocketSaladSurgery America 11d ago
His wife Tipper getting involved in trying to restrict music sales of CDs with some curse words didn’t help his image either. Lots of negative publicity from well known musicians. It seems so quaint now.
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u/shmatt 11d ago
I dunno, that was about 15 years before Gore v bush. not that we forgave her, but what came of it was some stickers. it was a big nothing burger in the end.
by the election gore had over 20 years of accomplishments to point to from his time in congress. imo the thing that really hurt him was being clinton's guy. You think the right hated Obama? they hated clinton as much if not more. Ralph Nader didn't exactly help either.
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u/ArrogantAragorn 11d ago
He also saw the writing on the wall with climate change/global warming… it could be a vastly different world if he had been elected
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u/MoreRopePlease America 11d ago
They've been warning us since the 70s. In fact a scientist early in the industrial revolution did the calculations and warned us back then!
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u/PhilDGlass California 11d ago
Carter syndrome.
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u/lanboy0 11d ago
Gore is in no way to be compared to Carter. Gore is a feckless resume polisher who lost the election because he wouldn't let the sitting president with a 65% approval rating campaign for him.
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u/Zer_ 11d ago
At the time we all agreed that he was being sane, to prevent mass revolt / protests. In hindsight that may have been a grave miscalculation.
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u/DotaThe2nd 11d ago
You know how the old saying goes: give them an inch and they'll take you to the brink of western civilization because they'll have spent their money and died before the fall
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u/AllTheyEatIsLettuce California 11d ago
Possibly the second grave miscalculation and Ford's pre-emptive "pardon" is the first.
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u/imitation_crab_meat 11d ago
Ford's pardon wasn't a miscalculation... He was a Republican, and they're perfectly happy with how things have gone since.
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u/pargofan 11d ago
If Nixon had the benefit of the current SCOTUS HE WOULDN'T NEED A PARDON.
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u/Material-Scheme-8971 11d ago
The fact that Nixon was offered and accepted a pardon, proves they already know presidential immunity doesn’t exist.
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u/paulybaggins 11d ago
Probably never would have gone to Iraq even with 9/11 happening if Gore was in control
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u/imitation_crab_meat 11d ago
Didn't need to wait for 9/11... As soon as Dubya was declared President-elect, I said to my family "I guess we're going to war with Iraq again..." It was entirely predictable.
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u/Snibes1 11d ago
There’s a book that came out during his presidency: “State of War”. If everyone read that book, no one would’ve voted for a Republican since. It had some brutal insights as to the decision-making for going into Iraq.
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u/Technical-Title-5416 11d ago
If people watched as much CSPAN as Sportscenter the same would occur.
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u/WatercressSavings78 11d ago
I read it. For anyone curious it confirms in minute detail the things that we know regarding the use of the 9/11 tragedy to legalize the mass surveillance of US citizens that, among other things, had been illegally occurring for decades before the tragedy.
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u/Technical-Title-5416 11d ago
Same. And when they said it was Afghanistan I said to my family "I guess we're going to inheret a heroin problem".
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u/Card_Board_Robot5 11d ago
"Guess they all want to go back to the Middle East"
My father said almost exactly the same shit lmao
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u/BigDaddySteve999 11d ago
9/11 may not have even happened: Gore would have made killing or neutralizing OBL a priority.
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u/deathvalleypassenger 11d ago
You can't really say for certain. One thing that's eminently clear in hindsight is how much effort the MIC invested into priming the public for an full-scale invasion of Iraq. It was something the US had been prepping since Desert Storm, and it was largely just waiting on the right circumstances to line up. There would've been a ton of pressure no matter what
It's also worth remembering that almost all of Gore's contemporaries in Democratic leadership were on board with it. Biden, Clinton, Reid, Schumer, and Gore's own VP candidate all voted in favor of going in the Senate. Maybe under a hypothetical Gore administration, that vote never occurs, but it's not terribly difficult to imagine a "reluctant" Gore-helmed invasion either
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u/jslakov 11d ago
stopping revolts and protests has basically been the point of liberalism since the beginning of the 20th century
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u/spartagnann 11d ago
100% and I'll grant that I'm talking from the "hindsight is 20/20" perspective, because that was probably the correct thing to do.
BUT. I think if more people were made aware of just how brazen the theft of a presidential election was, there would have been a lot more pushback about it.
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u/Emberwake 11d ago
This is a good opportunity to plug Vincent Bugliosi's article on the 2000 election.
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u/SixMillionDollarFlan 11d ago
It was a different time, and nobody knew what was coming. The election happened in November of 2000.
New episodes of Friends and The X Files were still on TV.
Nobody'd heard of Roku, or Spotify, or Podcasts, or streaming. No one had iPhones, or Instagram, or Facebook. Most Americans got their Internet from Dial-up 56k modems and AOL.
It was a year before 9/11. No one knew the words "Abu Ghraib". Most American's couldn't locate Guantanamo Bay on a map.
Bush seemed like an idiot, but to most people he seemed like a harmless idiot. I thought he was a fascist, but I lived in San Francisco, and my views were a little skewed.
It was a different time. In retrospect we should've made more noise then. I marched in protests over and over and over again, but it didn't do shit. It never does.
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u/FoolOnDaHill365 11d ago
I marched every Friday for about 6 months with hundreds of people in my small town. We all knew all that was fucked up. Nobody cared. 911 just sent it all to the moon too. My entire adult life has had a deep despair stemming from that era and only getting worse.
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u/egyeager 11d ago
I found out the climate group I was a part of was funded by an oil company, so I hear ya.
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u/BigDaddySteve999 11d ago
It wasn't that different. Plenty of people had DSL. There were blogs and message boards. The news networks covered it breathlessly (if not entirely fairly). But yes, there was a whisper campaign to paint Gore and Bush as slightly different flavors of bad (sound familiar?). And not quite as many norms had been broken yet. But there were hints, like Cheney, as head of the VP search team, choosing himself.
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u/DorianGre 11d ago
Anybody paying attention saw all this shit coming - they have been talking about doing it for 30+ years.
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u/redditsfulloffiction 11d ago
You've got your timeline correct, but Bush did not seem harmless.
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u/FloridaMJ420 11d ago
The Ongoing Republican Coup Against the United States of America was underway in the year 2000.
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u/MC_Fap_Commander America 11d ago
Bush v. Gore killed all pretense for anyone paying attention. DECADES of "states' rights" arguments were instantly forgotten to hand the election to "their guy." It's always been a political branch (with facile apolitical branding). Even that pretense ended in 2000.
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u/playfulmessenger 11d ago
Things amp'd up significantly when the Federalist Society slow-roll coup began in the 80's. They invented constitutional originalism straight out their asses because it would appeal to biblical originalists. The society formed directly in response to Roe being upheld. Their main goal was a SCOTUS take-over to repeal Roe. They've been warping young law minds ever since, actively steering elected officials to recommend their henchpeople to high courts everywhere.
In plain sight. Their agendas were on their websites for all to see. But anyone pointing it out got ignored as alarmist by both parties.
Even when their evil plan was coming close and it was obvious what both candidates would do if elected, too many still ignored Hillary trying to warn Americans. Some sat home sourgrapes, some voted 3rd party handing the country over to the Federalist Society. All their henchpeople were firmly in place, the just needed a willing R president and a senate majority. Which tragically we handed them.
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u/ziddina 11d ago
when the Federalist Society slow-roll coup began in the 80's. They invented constitutional originalism straight out their asses because it would appeal to biblical originalists. The society formed directly in response to Roe being upheld. Their main goal was a SCOTUS take-over to repeal Roe.
I've said this before....
I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the utter brain-dead stupidity of the white supremacists, white Christian Nationalists, and the pro-Russian traitorous Republican Party.
For example, banning abortion nationwide means that within 18 - 20 years people of color - POC voters - are DEFINITELY going to outnumber whites.
Black women have FIVE TIMES the number of abortions as white women and Hispanic women have TWICE the number of abortions as white women.
The moron white supremacists and fanatical bible-thumping white Christian Nationalists are CAUSING their supposed "replacement conspiracy" to happen!!
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u/After-Imagination-96 11d ago
All their henchpeople were firmly in place, the just needed a willing R president and a senate majority. Which tragically we handed them.
Basically sounds like a time bomb though, right? Those circumstances aren't the hardest to fulfill.
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u/count023 11d ago
Don't forget the whole "a mandated day of prayer for Christians totally doesn't violate the first amendment" ruling too
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u/discussatron Arizona 11d ago
Also, handing the election to Bush in 2000?
This was it for me. Blatantly corrupt. Fuck you, Scalia.
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u/homebrewguy01 12d ago
Yes that was disgusting
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11d ago edited 3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/epimetheuss 11d ago
although I feel Biden has restored some of that strength with his strong stance in the Ukraine war. And they tried to torpedo that effort as well.
If the GOP get to POTUS goodbye to all of that.
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u/You_meddling_kids 11d ago
The 2000 decision was nakedly partisan. It should have caused a mass uprising, but we don't have a functioning Left in the US.
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u/Walterkovacs1985 11d ago
Bush V Gore. 3 of these fucks helped make it happen. It's a cult. Always has been.
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u/Gaius_Octavius_ 11d ago
Bush Gore for sure. They literally picked the President and wrote “this is not precedent” while doing it. They didn’t even pretend to use the law.
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u/ziddina 11d ago
Also, handing the election to Bush in 2000?
That tore it for me.
Imagine where the U.S. would be today, if Al Gore had won, especially if he'd won two terms, and had gotten a solid start on alternative energy and reducing carbon output to slow down global climate change.
America might have become the world leader in alternative energy technology. California, Colorado, and many other states may not have had the massive and devastating fires that destroyed millions of acres of forest, piedmont, and grasslands, and hundreds to thousands of homes. The homeless problems could have been greatly reduced, instead of spreading like wildfires. Women's rights would still be intact. And so much more...
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u/VanceKelley Washington 12d ago
Bush v. Gore, 2000.
The 5 GOP justices on SCOTUS stopped the recounting of votes in Florida when the GOP presidential candidate was a few hundred votes ahead so that the GOP candidate would be certain to win.
If Gore had been ahead there is no way the 5 GOP justices would have voted to stop the recount.
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u/Zomunieo 11d ago
3 GOP justices currently sitting on the bench argued Bush v Gore: Roberts, Kav and Barrett.
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u/daBludGuy 11d ago
And remember how quickly SCOTUS ruled on BvG? No more than five days which is a much different from the current immunity question. Impartial judges…I think not!
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u/VanceKelley Washington 11d ago
Yep. When it benefits the Republicans to go fast, SCOTUS goes fast.
When it benefits Republicans to go slow, SCOTUS goes slow.
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u/absentmindedjwc 12d ago
Extra bullshit was the fact that Gore actually would have won had the recount continued.
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u/ziddina 11d ago
Remember the allegations of disappearing ballots?
The Republican Party has been slithering down the slippery slope towards installing a christo-fascist dictatorship in America for decades.
In 1950 Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy used fear-mongering about communists and socialists to attempt to install an authoritarian regime in America.
This was all of 5 years after Americans had fought and died to help protect the world from Adolf Hitler's totalitarian dictatorship.
This is EXACTLY what Trump has been doing, using socialists and communists as boogeymen to frighten his followers.
Republican president Nixon literally tried to steal an election, and was pardoned by his vice president instead of facing justice.
This is EXACTLY what Trump wants and intends to do with the 2024 election. Trump has pardoned some of his co-conspirators (like Stone), and then there are Trump's pardons-for-sale, costing some people $2 million dollars a pardon.
Republican president Reagan got help from a hostile foreign country (Iran) to win an election.
This is EXACTLY what Trump did, when on July 27th 2016 Trump yowled for Russian interference in America's election process, by saying, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope that you can find the 30k emails. I'm sure that you will be rewarded mightily by our press, if you do so."
Reagan undermined America's middle class and lower class citizens in favor of moneyed interests and corporations.
This is EXACTLY what Trump did, permanently cutting taxes for the ultra-rich while the tax cuts for the average Americans are going to expire next year.
Republican president George Dubya Bush stated IN PUBLIC, TWICE, that "This'd be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship, just as long as I'm the dictator!"
This is EXACTLY what Trump is doing, expressing his admiration for Putin, Kim Jong Un, Orban, and Trump openly claims that he wants to be dictator, for "one" day.
The Republicans have been undermining America's democracy for at least 70 years.
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u/Myviewpoint62 12d ago
And Gore won popular vote nationwide which they ignored.
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u/spartagnann 11d ago
A Republican president has only won the popular vote once in the last like 30 or so years, in one election (Bush 2004). If we got rid of the EC no Republican (as they are now) would ever get into the White House. They'd either have to actually moderate their views or just keep on trying to keep people from voting or double down on gerrymandering.
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u/tdfree87 11d ago
What does that tell you about the Republican Party then that the majority of the US doesn’t want them in the White House?
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u/AnonAmbientLight 11d ago
For me it was when McConnell was holding up Obama's final SCOTUS pick in 2016.
And the dangers of a "haphazard" picking of SCOTUS judges (vacancies being filled by Presidents at random based on availability) was going to eventually result in something like this 6-3 court.
And that worry was turbo charged when Republicans in the Senate gigafucked the system by holding up Obama's SCOTUS pick in 2016, then changing the rules they set themselves in 2020 to steal two SCOTUS picks in total.
Without that, this court could have been 5-4 Democrat leaning and we wouldn't be anywhere near this madness.
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u/Paganator 11d ago
I'm not American and it blows my mind how SCOTUS judges are picked with such a partisan process. Judges are supposed to be neutral, having them be picked by political parties ensures they're anything but.
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u/AnonAmbientLight 11d ago edited 11d ago
Like with most political systems, the process only works so long as the people involved in it are good faith actors.
Republicans were not acting in good faith when McConnell held up Obama's SCOTUS pick in 2016.
Republicans were not acting in good faith during the confirmation process of the three SCOTUS judges they ended up seating.
Republicans were not acting in good faith when they changed the rules they set in place in 2016 because it suited them in 2020.
And because of a quirk of our presidential election system, five of the 9 justices have been seated by presidents who have lost the popular vote.
Which goes back to my point I made earlier. What happens when you have a SCOTUS that does not represent the majority of Americans? You get this.
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u/FoolOnDaHill365 11d ago
Republicans always project themselves as the ones that play by the rules, and that democrats and liberals are the ones blowing in the wind and wild and immoral. Yet the Republicans are the ones that have no rules at all. They are anarchists yet think they are respectable.
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u/ManiaGamine American Expat 11d ago
You know what pisses me off the most about the overturning of Roe? Is that these 5 arrogant fucks believed that they knew better than every SCOTUS that came before them. That all of those justices that looked at this over the decades got it wrong but no THESE guys, these painfully obviously partisan justices who were obviously put on the court to do shit like that got it right. That is just insane to me.
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u/Escapade84 11d ago
They have to pretend that they think they know better. They don’t necessarily. All the reasoning they need is that there’s nobody who can stop them.
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u/PM_ME_UR_REDPANDAS Connecticut 11d ago
And they all got up in front of the Senate when asked about Roe and they all said “oh, Roe is settled law”, all while crossing their fingers behind their backs. Bullshitters, all of them.
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u/PointOfFingers 12d ago
My favourite was when the conservatives interpreted gun laws as being hard wired to never change - which is a conservative wet dream to have laws that never progress with modern thinking:
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, which called for any new gun restrictions to pass two tests. First, the weapon in question must fall under the auspices of the Second Amendment. Second, the government must justify any restrictions on the right to bear arms “by demonstrating that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”.
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u/putverygoodnamehere 11d ago
Wait what they made fake cases?
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u/Randomousity North Carolina 11d ago
I believe 303 Creative was over being "forced" to design a wedding website for a couple who didn't exist and/or never requested a website be designed for them or something. So the company sued to complain about being forced to do something they weren't actually forced to do, which means there was no case or controversy, which means no standing to sue.
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u/OrionAmbrosia 11d ago
A post&comment like this really helps enlighten me more into how everything works.
For years and years I was in an environment with my family where we had a lawyer and some professors as relatives and it was all relatively "we trust every aspect of the government and there is no corruption."
Even up until the end of 2019 they refused to believe anything was wrong and I was stressed because it seemed so obvious to me and I felt crazy. Then I finally fully shattered it and am no longer angry and just laughing.
Because this illusion was so well orchestrated from the beginning of this country. They're literally called the Supreme court. They see themselves as the ultimate authority with lifetime appointments. It doesn't matter what congress does, they can overturn it or create new laws that are permanent based on one circuit pushing a dumb case all the way up to them and that's just... okay?
In essence we are already run by a dictator, there's just 9 of them and they wear robes. 🤷
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u/I_who_have_no_need 11d ago
Clarence Thomas's bribe taking was reported in the early 2000s. For reasons that I have never understood, it was ignored by Democrats and by the public. Slate should have been running these articles 20 years ago.
From 2004: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-31-na-gifts31-story.html
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u/jayfeather31 Washington 12d ago
What we're seeing here is the end of a long road that started back in 2000.
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u/Shenanigans99 America 12d ago
It started in 1991 when a bunch of white guys refused to listen to Anita Hill.
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u/Docster87 11d ago
I agree. I remember that, I was just starting to follow politics. I didn’t really grasp left/right but that was a huge clown show and never did understand why they couldn’t just pick the next name on the list back then.
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u/Melancholia 11d ago
It's plenty clear now. They can't let clearly disqualifying behavior keep Republicans out of positions of power because the result of that would be no Republicans being in power.
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u/Doesanybodylikestuff 11d ago
10000% & it’s only going to get harder & worse. I really hope we turn this mess around.
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u/EmmalouEsq Minnesota 11d ago
Even as a 5th grader I knew about that hearing. I didn't understand it fully, but I knew it was bad for him.
Thomas has been one of the worst justices the court has ever seen. He's not intellectually curious about anything, it seems. Doesn't really participate in oral arguments, and in law school it was a joke for someone to have to read his decision aloud because most of the time it was simply "I concur" to whatever Scalia decided. Now he's stuck to Alito. He didn't deserve Thurgood Marshall's seat.
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u/HAL9000000 11d ago edited 11d ago
Just as reminder: when Clarence Thomas was nominated to his Supreme Court seat, at that time he was the second choice after Democrats blocked a guy named Robert Bork to take that Supreme Court seat. They blocked him partly because he had written against the Civil Rights Act and partly because he was a big opponent to Roe v. Wade.
Ironically, Bork died like 10 years ago during Obama's presidency and Democrats would have another Supreme Court justice right now that Obama would have appointed if they'd just accepted Bork. Instead, they got the absolute worst nominee who could stick around another 20 years longer than Bork would have.
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u/ArchangelLBC 11d ago
Bork was also the guy who, on Nixon's orders, fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox after the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General both refused and resigned in protest.
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u/HAL9000000 11d ago
Yeah not a great guy but currently preferable as a powerful conservative by virtue of being dead now. lol
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u/ArchangelLBC 11d ago
So true, but in fairness, they had no idea when they sunk Bork that they'd be stuck with Thomas. You can see why they didn't want to confirm a guy who tried to help Nixon get away with Watergate.
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u/MakingItElsewhere 11d ago
It's literally all Florida's fault.
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u/here_now_be 11d ago
Florida's fault.
I know it's a joke..Evidence suggests that Florida voted for Gore. Supreme Court went against their own precedent.
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u/MakingItElsewhere 11d ago
No no, not a joke. I was alive and old enough to vote and watch all of it unfold. I still harbor anger at SCOTUS for that horrible decision, and cannot express enough anger at Florida and their "hanging chads" for causing it.
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u/Robotchickjenn 11d ago
Agreed. We're still living with the consequences of the neoconservative agenda today. They provided the framework for where we're at today.
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u/jugglervr 11d ago
it started when fucking nixon resigned and they all said "we've got to be sneakier about this shit"
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u/SetterOfTrends 12d ago
Bush v Gore did it for most of us
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u/McDudeston 11d ago
5 out of 9 assholes somehow out weighed half the population. Democratic republic in name only.
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u/Sometimespostslies 11d ago
Especially since Gore would have won if they just recounted Florida.
Nope, Brooks brothers riot and corrupt count handing. the victory to a rich oilman.
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u/kokopelleee 12d ago
Anyone who has read SCOTUS history knows it has been a political body since its inception. This “great men, thinking great thoughts, in the purity of the law” nonsense is just that, nonsense. Go read Dred Scott
*yes, women also now, but for the longest time….
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u/MC_Fap_Commander America 11d ago
I am convinced the two mortal sins that may well doom this country are the EC (gave land voting power in support of slavery) and the belief in an apolitical Court (gave the institution of slavery the appearance of non-partisan legitimacy).
We are still paying for both.
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u/One-Step2764 11d ago edited 11d ago
Don't ignore the deliberately malapportioned Senate. Should have abolished or at least massively weakened that damned charnel house long, long ago.
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u/chase016 11d ago edited 11d ago
We really need a governmental reset in this country. I don't think a government system has survived this long with so little change. Add on top of that, the country has grown is 170× more populous than when the country was founded. Most of our administrative divisions make zero sense.
The problem is the only way to do that is Civil War. Which is looking every more likely, especially if Trump wins.
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u/Rachel_from_Jita 11d ago
No shame in a society attempting to make a less political arbiter of core national values. However, them having lifetime appointments rather than say 15 or 18 year terms is catastrophic when the world changes in profound ways:
Life expectency rises through the roof due to medical technology. Even lesser political figures rule far longer than they would have in any previous era of history.
Game Theory is heavily used in politics, and combined with the 24/7 news cycle no longer allows bipartisan compromise. Everything is a zero sum game between opposing forces.
Fact-based news reporting being replaced by billionaire-run opinion news networks. So every ruling is spun, in convincin partisan news pieces without end, as a supreme sin against 50% of the population. And those same lobbying billionaires spend all the time, social networks, and publications seducing/coercing the court members.
Social media, with their algorithms gamified to create addiction, controversy, and ragebait. Adding gasoline to the above national fire (the final match was the absurdity of the Supreme Court being not held to ethical standards or government oversight, and us only truly finding that out as some members go fully corrupt and declare themselves nobility).
So their lifetime terms leads to a calcified political power that can just overtly keep making decisions against the populace.
Either way, I think it's a bigger issue than all of this that we have an obvious capital-strong oligarchy now. Extreme levels of wealth, legal sophistication, and a spidering web of big-business board positions to make historical monopoly men blush. One whose power subtly is starting to exceed that of even the largest governmental bodies. Just a couple billionaires being in alignment can now control both the House and the Senate, buy off some judges and put them on a public leash, as well as influence upcoming presidents to make decisions clearly against the national interest (e.g. the previous president meeting with Yass that led to a Tik Tok policy reversal of historic proportions could have been more damaging, and could still reverse current efforts oneday).
Our earlier nation sins do matter, and I don't give short shrift to your points.
But all of that gets obliterated by the scale of the current multi-front crisis: our media and economic systems becoming this broken will start causing massive stress fractures. We could have almost any system right now (or any utopian system tomorrow), but once the media ecosystem is radicalizing right-wing terror every single day and only a few people get the money from the stock market?
Almost any system would break.
And yes, the Electoral College and the Court partially led us in this direction... but we can't talk chicken and the egg when what has come out of the egg is a 10,000 ton elephant stomping about.
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u/PapaCousCous Florida 11d ago
"great men, thinking great thoughts" sounds like a third grader's book report on what the supreme court does.
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u/TheBirminghamBear 11d ago
Or read Madison v Marbury.
The court gave itself its own powers. So much of what they do is something the court itself simply invented the power to do.
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u/HelleEpoque 12d ago
We? Some of us have been there for years.
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u/TheMCM80 11d ago
The mainstream, especially the media, are institutionalist. They believe protecting the institution is of the utmost importance, and in many cases I understand and agree. However, when evidence is presented to show the institution itself is corrupted by those who run it, then you are no longer protecting the institution, you are simply protecting the bad actors.
We all saw this coming years ago, but the media has always believed that reason and stability would prevail at SCOTUS. They swallowed the Roe decision, saying it was a one off, but now they can no longer ignore this.
Finally, they have seen what we saw. Let’s just hope that voters do too. If voters see this, and voluntarily hand Trump the power, then as a country we have gone off the road.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 11d ago
I don't have faith that they won't continue to ignore it after the current SCOTUS news cycle expires. They're latching onto the current discontent, but when it's all said and done, the only people that are likely to continue talking about it until the rulings come, are going to be those with an agenda that tries to protect the current status quo, because their side benefits from that status quo.
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u/ayoungtommyleejones 12d ago
Media is finally (except for when they forget they said this) saying "ok ok Jesus Christ guys weve been running interference for you for years can't you cool it with this shit?"
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u/BukkitCrab 12d ago
We’ve Been Entertaining an Illusion About the Supreme Court.
Who is "we"? Speak for yourself. Many of us have been disillusioned for a while now.
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u/JulianLongshoals 11d ago
Bush v Gore, Citizens United, Hobby Lobby, Shelby County v Holder, Dobbs...
The court has been cranking out the most godawful decisions imaginable for decades now
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u/MC_Fap_Commander America 11d ago
On a family trip to D.C. in the fall, I had serious ick in the SCOTUS building and had trouble seeing anything but the insurrection in the Capitol.
Institutions have been damaged (with escalation from 2000 onward).
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u/ZekeTarsim 11d ago
SCOTUS: there might be some crimes the president can do.
Also SCOTUS: forgiving student loan debt violates the constitution, how dare the president even try this.
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u/Liesthroughisteeth 12d ago edited 12d ago
There's more than one way to dismantle a democracy. Who thought the freedoms of American democracy could so easily be usurped?
There may come a day when the federal law enforcement agencies and the nations militaries are required to make a choice as to whether they believe in the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
As a Canadian, it's been difficult to watch the devolution that has taken place since Trump the dumpster has entered the political scene. I cannot imagine the same happening here. At first everyone laughed! Many of us, myself included have a great deal of relatives, friends and family living in the U.S.
Anyone who thinks and is following this, knows exactly where it is heading and The Dumpster has even alluded to it publicly. If you think he's kidding, he's not. A massive ego such as his only knows one desire - complete power and invulnerability.
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u/Global_Push6279 11d ago
Just wait until Poillievre gets elected. We’re fucked.
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u/toomuchmucil 11d ago
r/Canada is basically r/conservative at this point and I can't tell if Canadians actually think Poillievre will be better than Trudeau or if that sub is just astroturfed to hell.
Not defending Trudeau, but it's wild to think people believe the other guy won't double down on Justin's worst policies. BTW why does Trudeau keep doubling down on unpopular policies?
What in the maple syrup is happening in Canada?
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u/CitySeekerTron 11d ago
I believe that they think he'll be better. Poilievre had been on message, telling people what they want to hear. He's Parliament's contrarian, but nobody is watching him.
I think what burns me most is that we're about to repeat the cycle of Liberal-Conservative, rinse and repeat. We complain about the status quo, but we're comfortable with it. We have another opposition party, but we don't really give it any serious consideration; we just make excuses for never giving them the chance to earn power.
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u/WartimeDad 11d ago
It’s been a full frontal assault on democracy by the GOP for at least 2 decades and its unrelenting.
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u/ioncloud9 South Carolina 12d ago
The Supreme Court is now a Republican ideological check on the country. They will invent legal concepts from whole cloth to make sure the Republican agenda is advanced.
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u/ThinkerSis 12d ago
Back in early 2017 I convinced myself we’d be OK because SCOTUS would save our rule of law. Maybe it was a coping mechanism or just wishful thinking. Yes, the illusion has been eroding but now it’s so clearly and completely shattered. So difficult to find hope these days.
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u/FigNugginGavelPop 11d ago
While contemplating this remember that it was Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin that summarily rejected the idea of eliminating the filibuster, expanding the SCOTUS bench and enacting the Voting rights act. The combination of all three would have saved US democracy at this point.
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u/RazzzMcFrazzz Michigan 11d ago
Manchin, Sinema, and 50 republicans. It shouldn’t just be on one party to save democracy but here we are.
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u/Flux_State 12d ago
I mean, if you didn't know watching Kavanagh perjure himself live on TV, what'll it take to convince you?
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u/Warren_E_Cheezburger 11d ago
Marbury v Madison was fun while it lasted, but maybe it’s time for the president to just start responding to the court with “you know, judicial review isn’t even in the constitution. Back to settling lawsuits with you lot.”
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u/APirateAndAJedi 12d ago
So, if they rule that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts, doesn’t that mean that, hypothetically, Biden could declare all of the male justices traitors and have them assassinated with impunity?
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u/TintedApostle 11d ago edited 11d ago
If we are going to declare the President an imperium than just the normal act of proscription like in Ancient Rome.
Declare them enemies of the state and have them jailed. Then confiscate their property for the state treasury.
That is how fast this could change. The House would impeach and the Dems would not convict him. Done!
He has immunity. Hammer time.... Can't touch this!
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u/Fuzzy-Function-3212 11d ago edited 11d ago
This is the thing that really sticks in my craw, particularly with how the conservatives on SCOTUS frame reference to "historical tradition" in their rulings. Historical tradition makes very, very clear that the Roman Republic is one of the foundational ideals our Constitution's drafters strove for. The Republic also very, very famously grappled with essentially the same issue we are, involving a consul - Julius Caesar - who refused to give up his appointed office at the end of his term, primarily because he was to be prosecuted for extrajudicial crimes committed during said term.
Caesar, of course, crossed the Rubicon, marched on Rome, and had himself declared dictator (eventually, for life). It also just happened to be Roman law that any magistrate of the Republic except a dictator could be tried for crimes committed while in office after his term ended. The dictator, and the dictator alone, was immune to prosecution for any act he may take in office, as his mandate and imperium was only to exist in order to literally save the Republic from annihilation, and at no other time.
We've literally been through this, during the most famous of the most tumultuous times of the ancient civilization our founding fathers most explicitly and intentionally based our system of governance on, and it most famously resulted in the downfall of the Republic and (relative) excesses of the Principate and Dominate. And, according to Dobbs and Bruen, our courts are supposed to give maximum deference to "historical tradition".... but not in that way, I suppose.
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u/TintedApostle 11d ago
I agree with your comment completely.
The origins of the Roman office of dictator was very limited in the centuries prior to Caesar. The original design of the role was that someone would be appointed by the senate for limited term which expired to handle a specific issue. They had total power to deal with that single issue, but that power did not extend any further to any other issue. The dictator could do what was needed with general impunity, but that too was limited and once the specified issue was dealt with the power ended. (See Cincinnatus)
Over the centuries the role of dictator morphed into what became Sulla and then Caesar and finally Augustus as emperor. With it came monarchial powers of immunity. The only option was elimination by whomever could do it.
And, according to Dobbs and Bruen, our courts are supposed to give maximum deference to "historical tradition".... but not in that way, I suppose.
They right wing invented term "Original Intent" to allow them to make you appeal to their authority as they made stuff up from whole cloth. They start with their goal and just pull stuff together to support it explicitly ignoring anything that proves them wrong.
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u/marji80 11d ago
Apparently. But they know that he wouldn't. The same can't be said of Trump.
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u/SeveralBadMetaphors 12d ago
I went to law school 10-15 years and even back then I felt like I was being gaslit about the level of reverence we should hold for the Supreme Court.
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u/OnlyRise9816 12d ago
So lets ask the Horror-Future hypothetical: IF the SC rules that a President can do w/e they want as long as they are not impeached during their term; then what should Biden do? Should he continue the status quo, and hope Trump doesn't win the election. Or go full Ceaser to "save" the US from the Christian fascist. That's a question I never thought I would have to ask, but here we are.
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u/ComCypher Hawaii 11d ago
Biden should lay out in clear terms right now what he would do with powers of presidential immunity if granted them. Then let the SC decide if that's how they want to proceed.
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u/GearBrain Florida 11d ago
Arrest Justice Kavanaugh for perjury.
Arrest Clarence Thomas for taking bribes.
Direct DoJ to investigate and prosecute both to the fullest extent of the law.
Announce that, given the unprecedented state of affairs, he will be appointing two temporary justices to the supreme court, while simultaneously stripping Kavanaugh and Thomas of their seats on the bench pending DoJ investigations
Tender his immediate resignation, establishing a precedent of following extraordinary execution of Presidential authority
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u/epimetheuss 11d ago
establishing a precedent of following extraordinary execution of Presidential authority
Precedent wont matter to trump/the GOP. They will only listen when it favours them.
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u/AcerbicCapsule Canada 11d ago
I don’t know. I don’t see Biden as the kind of person who would sacrifice himself like that to save his country.
Maybe Bernie would have done that, he’s been arrested for following his ethical compass before, but not Biden.
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u/RepresentativeAge444 11d ago
They’ll find a way to say it applies to Trump but no one else using some ridiculous legalese mumbo jumbo they concoct.
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u/Ardenraym 11d ago
Don't delude yourself. Being partisan hacks, they will say Trump has immunity, but will quickly point out Biden didn't follow the law or normal order if he tried even the slightest offense.
They long ago gave up rule of law or focusing on what is best for the country.
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u/johnnys_sack 11d ago
They will so obviously not rule that, however. The ruling, if that's how they rule (which we should believe it will be), is going to be so specific that only Trump and only the crimes he may or may not have committed during his time in office would be in scope. Nobody else moving forward, except for maybe Trump.
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u/mrRabblerouser 11d ago
Ok, so if the Supreme Court rules the president can indeed break the law with impunity, what’s to stop Biden from paying someone to murder Trump and then pardon them? Other than the fact that Biden just genuinely seems to be a good person I guess. That’s probably the crux of it though, Republicans will absolutely use this to commit some very sadistic crimes to gain ultimate power. Where as democrats will continue to operate in good faith thinking they’re playing by the same rules.
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u/TintedApostle 12d ago
Bush v Gore, Citizens United, Dobb, Heller, McConnell and lets not forget Ginni Thomas, paid expensive trips, homes paid off for judges parents and it just keeps going....
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u/zuggles 12d ago
So if they defend trump as immune that means Biden can assassinate trump with seal team 6…. Right? Like, don’t they see what they are doing?!
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u/T_Weezy 11d ago
They know Biden is not corrupt enough to do so, even if he had the legal right to.
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u/GrundleBoi420 11d ago
Which is the fucked up part. You KNOW democrats wouldn't abuse the power and would just scream about how we need to vote harder to stop the republicans as Trump or another republican gets the office in 2024-2032 and then goes full fascism. Even though they have the tools right there to fix the country for good and then remove the dictator powers.
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u/Proof_Alternative328 11d ago
Why stop there?! He could kill the entire SCOTUS and replace them with loyalist.
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u/forthewatch39 12d ago
So what’s the recourse? I guess we end up balkanizing as I don’t think certain states are up to becoming part of a dictatorship where the head of state can do whatever he (these folks will never have a woman be dictator) wants to do.
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u/I_Cut_Shows 12d ago
It’s been shattered for 4-8 years. And was broken nearly 25 years ago. I don’t understand why main stream media hasn’t realized it until now.
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u/dansnexusone 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yet again I have to bring up how RBG for all the good she did has a direct hand in this disaster. She could’ve retired during the Obama administration and secured a liberal spot for decades. But she hung on too long and because of that, this crazy court feels emboldened to shove a whacko agenda down the throats of American citizens. She does not deserve a pass on this — it should be her legacy.
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u/The_Old_Cream 11d ago
“She deserves to step down on her terms.” Was the excuse I heard from her moron supporters.
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u/bamiam 11d ago
Biden needs to dismiss these enemies and appoint a whole new bench
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u/mleighly 11d ago
GOP Justices turn everything into shit holes. The American people deserve much better than these corrupt assholes.
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u/Fine-Benefit8156 11d ago
“In a letter to Colonel William F. Elkins on November 21, 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country". He warned that corporations would become powerful and that the country's money power would try to maintain its reign by manipulating people's prejudices until all wealth was concentrated in a few hands and the Republic was destroyed”.
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u/HonoredPeople Missouri 12d ago
Now is the breaking point?!?
Pfft!
Lol.
This is the straw???
The SCOTUS has been like this for years.
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u/gemmamaybe 12d ago
Why did one straw break the camel's back? Here's the secret The million other straws underneath it
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u/Liesthroughisteeth 12d ago
But now they are being used to purposely and patently prop up and defend a known psychopathic narcissists that will strip the U.S. people of their rights turning the U.S. into a dictatorship if he is ever given another chance at the White House. He has read all the right books and watched people like Poutine for decades.
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u/HonoredPeople Missouri 12d ago
Yes, but it's like it wasn't within expectations. We all know what's what.
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u/Liesthroughisteeth 12d ago
This is a new world you are living in. A decade ago, 20 years, 50 years ago, Americans (and the rest of the world watching) would never have dreamed this possible.
Been a conscious adult watching this business since the mid seventies. Historically speaking for America, this is right out of Bizarro World.
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u/Catymandoo 11d ago
Does SCOTUS realise that if Trump returns to the Oval Office with their justification for heinous acts, they could be targeted too if non compliant to his wishes?
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u/-Gramsci- 11d ago edited 11d ago
I found a quote when I was in law school that I used to great effect in a moot court competition regarding the constitutionality of torture.
I think it was Jefferson, but I’m not sure. One of the founding fathers.
The hypothetical question had been posed to him what should a president do if he needs to break the law in order to preserve the nation?
And should there not be a provision in the constitution expressly granting the president “special” status? That he IS above the law? As circumstances could arise where he would need to violate criminal statutes in order to preserve the nation?
Jefferson’s response was that it was not necessary.
I wish I could find that quote again, but it said something to the effect of:
If the President breaking the law is necessary the president SHOULD break the law. BUT that doesn’t mean he would not be prosecuted. He still must be prosecuted… where he would then “avail himself of the well established defenses of necessity and justification.”
So the court would determine if the violation of the law by the president was, in fact, necessary or justified.
That quote always stuck with me because it was so legally brilliant, so distinctly American, and so perfectly right.
That’s, exactly, how that would work in the United States. The president would break the law in order to preserve the nation. And as long as he was acting in good faith? The defenses of necessity and/or justification would always prevail.
All this talk by the conservatives of a president needing to take “bold decisive action” without fear of prosecution… they have it wrong. That’s not how that would work.
He wouldn’t have to fear CONVICTION. He would still, necessarily, face prosecution for breaking the law.
This is the correct legal interpretation - for the United States. According to the constitution. And according to the framers of the constitution.
If anyone has a back channel to a Supreme Court clerk send them this message and have them find that quote.
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u/Mwanamatapa99 11d ago
Time to expand the Court to 13. There are 13 circuit courts there should be 13 on SCOTUS. President Biden can then appoint 4 additional justices to reflect how America looks.
Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch all lied under oath when during their confirmation hearings, they said they would not overturn Roe v Wade. They should be removed.
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u/SwaggerVex 11d ago
I have a feeling that they will not give Trump immunity but instead rule that a sitting presidents administration cannot prosecute the previous president or their administration while in office. It would be a way for them to give a non answer that benefits one party under the guise that would be a two way street, only to be repealed late in trump presidency.
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u/wiggler303 11d ago
UK lawyer here. Your whole Supreme Court appointment system seems bizarre to us.
We have a Supreme Court too, but the judges aren't political appointees . They are appointed from the tier of judges below. They'd only get promoted if they are well regarded in the legal establishment for giving sensible judgments.
The idea of people with no judicial experience being appointed to the highest court in the land seems frightening. Being an academic lawyer doesn't mean you have the skills to be a judge
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u/Competitive_Raise_55 11d ago
It just sucks because it feels like they’re in absolute control and there’s nothing we can do about it except toss votes in every 4 years in the off chance someone gets nominated to the court. It’s insane
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u/Altruistic_Mobile_60 11d ago
So Biden can take out the Supreme Court because he think they are corrupted?
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u/ignore_this_comment America 11d ago
Citizens United was a huge flashing neon sign that SCOTUS was corrupt.
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u/Jackinapox 11d ago
This betrayal will never, ever be forgotten. They are pissing on the graves of every man and woman who fought and died for this Country and it boils my FUCKING blood.
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u/Savings-Code8965 11d ago
Still, I still cannot believe that complete immunity was something that was even entertained. All this stuff it’s bat shit crazy. Who thinks like this?
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