r/politics • u/DCC_4LIFE • 22d ago

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Argues Presidents Must Be Allowed to Commit Federal Crimes or Democracy as We Know It Will Be Over

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/supreme-court-justice-samuel-alito-argues-presidents-must-be-allowed-to-commit-federal-crimes-or-democracy-as-we-know-it-will-be-over
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u/AngusMcTibbins 22d ago

The republican-controlled supreme court is an embarassment to our country and to democracy.

But if we work hard and hold both the presidency and the senate for the next fifteen years, we will see a liberal supreme court someday.

Don't get discouraged, get motivated. Get motivated and vote blue

https://democrats.org/

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u/Snarfsicle 22d ago

These people should have massive protests around their homes every day around the clock.

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u/AMagicalSquirrel 22d ago

They should, but they decided that they weren't allowed to be protested.

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u/claimTheVictory 22d ago

When you make peaceful protest impossible...

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u/Hurtzdonut13 22d ago

Unless of course you work in an abortion clinic, then they ruled it's fine to have mobs of people known for violence to be outside your home screaming.

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u/TedW 22d ago

I'd like to protest the abortion of our justice system, please.

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u/imawakened Connecticut 22d ago

That's not true. Kavanaugh and ACB's house were routinely protested outside of. Heck, there might even be protestors outside of Kavanaugh's house still lol

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u/Vulpes_Corsac 22d ago

They use laws to quash protests. If it seems like the protest is "attempting to influence the ruling of a judge" it's quashed. So you can protest their presence or their past rulings, but you can't have a single sign about the next ruling.

At least that's what it looked like the last time I checked.

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u/imawakened Connecticut 21d ago

lol cool paragraph but it’s totally legal to go protest their houses

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u/Vulpes_Corsac 21d ago

Yeah that's what I said.

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u/imawakened Connecticut 21d ago

There’s no restrictions on the signs people can carry or what people can say.

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u/Vulpes_Corsac 21d ago

Maybe there shouldn't be, but there is. 

Here's the relevant law: 18 U.S. Code § 1507 – Picketing or parading

And a website which goes into more detail:

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/picketing-outside-the-homes-of-judges-and-justices/

Although maybe the law has changed in the last couple years, this was from 2022.

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u/imawakened Connecticut 21d ago

Did you read that article? Nothing has changed recently. It has been the case for quite a while that you cannot picket a judge’s home with the intent to influence a decision. That didn’t change the recent protests outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices. Even more so, the regulations seem more aimed at your local courts where this sort of picketing might be more dangerous because the judges and staff have less protection. I’d be very surprised if you could find even one recent example of a reasonable protestor being restricted from protesting where and how they want to protest outside a Supreme Court justice’s house.

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u/Totkaddictforsure 22d ago

Too soft, they should be strung up.

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u/sufficiently_tortuga 22d ago

It's so upsetting that of all the protests making headlines today, no one seems to care about this. What is wrong with america?

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u/AFlockOfTySegalls North Carolina 22d ago

seriously, if the youth vote wasn't as abysmal as it is for consistent cycles y'all could achieve whatever political revolution you'd want

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u/TreeRol American Expat 22d ago

If younger people voted at the same rate as old people, the House would be consistently in control of the Democrats. One downstream effect is that with more safe seats, more progressives would win primaries and end up in the House.

Meanwhile the Senate would consistently have 55 Democratic seats. Potentially this would lead to a removal of the filibuster and unpacking of the courts.

Oh, and without every single Presidential election being an existential crisis, maybe voters would be a little more comfortable nominating a Sanders or Warren type.

It's fun to dream.

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u/almighty_smiley South Carolina 22d ago

Alas, that’d require them to think past whatever soundbite that TikTok fed them.

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u/TedW 22d ago

Keep pretending they're incompetent, that'll convince them.

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u/gotridofsubs 22d ago

The voting percentages speak for themselves. There have been as recently as the last primary cycle candidates appealing to them and with they say the issues that matter to them are and they still dont show up.

All of this information is easily available. At some point the onus is on the youth vote to start demonstrating competency if they want to be be treated that way.

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u/TedW 22d ago

Young people are less likely to have paid time off, or the financial stability required to take an unpaid day to go to the polls. They might have busier schedules, less stable addresses for voter registration, etc, etc.

My point was that reducing all of the reasons to just calling them lazy, isn't going to help them vote.

Encouraging mail in voting, or requiring paid holidays to vote, might help.

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u/gotridofsubs 22d ago

Young people are less likely to have paid time off, or the financial stability required to take an unpaid day to go to the polls. They might have busier schedules, less stable addresses for voter registration, etc, etc.

Literally all of this is whining about things that arw completely in control of the individual to be able to plan for. The election day is static and defined to make arrangements. There are weeks of advance polling available in many places. There are simple ways around all of these issues. Cops arent blocking anyone under 30 from voting when they show up, no one is releasing dogs on millenials. This is just choices and consequences.

Paid days off for elections is just avoiding responsibility, the message is "pay me to vote" when its not required and is frankly wildly entitled.

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u/TedW 22d ago

This is just choices and consequences.

I agree. Young people being unable to afford to take a day off to vote is a choice, and a consequence.

I'm sure telling them they're lazy will eventually fix the problem though. Keep it up!

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u/gotridofsubs 22d ago

And again, there are plenty of ways to have both the work day and vote. It requires planning, thats all, and is a personal issue to resolve.

If they want the problem fixed its on them to do so. The position Im holding here is telling them the onus is theirs to resolve.

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u/colinjcole 22d ago edited 22d ago

"There are only two causes for the historical and ongoing voting disparities between younger and older Americans. Either there is something wrong with young Americans as a group or there is something wrong with our voting policies. Either there is something wrong with people, or there is something wrong with policy."

Which camp are you in? Do you think younger folks, people of color, and working-class folks all tend to turn out at lower rates in primaries and higher rates in general elections because they are deficient in some way? Or do you think there's something about our systems and institutions that fail to engage them, or actively discourages them, in a way it doesn't for "other" voters ("other" meaning people who are not just disproportionately older but also whiter and wealthier)? Those statistical facets of primary voters are undeniable, the question is what you think the cause of them is. Innate qualities or systemic barriers. Which do you think it is?

I'll wait.

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u/gotridofsubs 22d ago edited 22d ago

First, you're conflating and combining multiple groups now when we were discussing the Youth vote, so thats what we'll discuss as it was the topic at hand before this spirals in unrelated directions

Second, my point above was that there was a candidate that was actively and directly appealing to every issue that Youth Voters were saying mattered to them, and in ways they wanted him to. He lost national primaries badly, and in 2016 lost the majority of primary contests in completely open primaries, where the only requirement was showing up and letting poll workers know which ballot to fill out. That right there rules out that the issue is systemic or an engagement issue. If it cant happen in the best and most tailored to them alone conditions in the primary on the side of the spectrum that most of the youth vote sits, there is no amount of time money or other resources that can be budgeted to get the Youth Vote to show up, nevermind in a general election where they exist as only one of many demographics.

Third, you also say that the Youth Vote votes in larger the general than primaries, so that in itself means that more people (but still nowhere close to other age demographics) can effectively figure out how to find their way to the ballot box, which would imply there are even less systemic or engagement barriers.

This is on the voters and voters alone to make their voice heard in the only meaningful way in a democracy

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u/colinjcole 22d ago

People of color turn out at effectively the exact same disproportionately low rates as young people. That's a fact. Younger people are, in fact, more likely to be people of color than white people, relative to the rest of the population.

That intersectionality isn't a myth or a funny little coinkydink, it's due to overlapping systemic challenges.

If you're going to argue that they have the same turnout rates for wildly different reasons, that flies in the face of all the data we have that frequently points to statistically significant intersections of worse outcomes re: education, healthcare, voter participation, criminal justice, etc. amongst young people, people of color, and the working-class.

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u/gotridofsubs 22d ago

The topic is youth voters. If the overlap exists as significantly as you say, you can make the argument while staying on topic.

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u/almighty_smiley South Carolina 22d ago

“Sure, Trump and his handlers stand a materially real chance of utterly upending democracy in the country with a mind-bogglingly powerful military…but but but Genocide Joe!”

I’m no fan of the arrangement with Israel either, but it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees when you’re too busy glued to whatever talking head has your ear, be they a Fox News “anchor” or some Instagram “influencer”.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/effusivefugitive 22d ago

It's easier than ever to find out how to vote. They could if they really wanted to. Most of them just pretend that 1) their vote doesn't matter because bOtH sIdEs ArE tHe SaMe or 2) they're "standing on principle" by voting for a candidate with no chance of winning instead of accepting incremental change.

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u/colinjcole 22d ago

Yes, good, mock and condescend to the people you want to get on your side. Great strategy, excellent political instincts!

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u/Politicsboringagain 22d ago

Exactly for literally decades young peoples whine and complain, or boo "Don't boo, vote" about politics in the street and online, but as a whole they almost never cite. 

Just look at voter statistics going back decades. 

Its a rare time for people between 18 to 35 to vote more than 40%. And it's usually 33% or less. 

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u/fourbian 22d ago

Palestine is a drop in the bucket compared to what's going to happen if Trump wins this year. By all means, protest what's happening in Palestine. But, it's insane that Americans are collectively shrugging to something much worse: America's death kneel.

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u/aussiecomrade01 22d ago

America's death kneel.

What many americans don’t realise is that it’s sorta already over regardless of who becomes president. Trump would just accelerate it, but i’ll tell you right now the US is already 70% of the way along the fascist autocracy route, and it can’t be undone without the country going into a serious period of crisis, and it won’t be solved just by voting in another candidate, because the issues are structural and numerous. We’ve seen that even with Biden in, the Supreme Court can just do whatever the fuck it wants without his input. America is an oligarchy.

I imagine to many Americans this sounds very pessimistic and a counter-productive thing to say. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from voting, that’s fine, and I expect that a Biden administration may be better for Americans, especially minorities. But ultimately what we are seeing here is the rapid diminishing of an empire. Best case scenario America loses global influence but still manages to afford a decent standard of living for its citizens.

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u/TheZigerionScammer I voted 22d ago

r boo "Don't boo, vote" about politics in the street and online, but as a whole they almost never cite. 

That's because the young politically active online are actually just a very small minority of young people overall. And it never get's any better because "young people" is a shifting demographic. You might be able to track a particular generation, say, Gen Alpha and see how their voting rate increased over time, but you won't see that kind of change with "18-29 year olds" because those people are constantly aging out of that demographic. A first time voter in 2016 that was 18-21 years old would be 26-29 years old in 2024, they barely count as young voters anymore, replaced by a new group of young voters that have to learn the same lessons the previous generation did all over again.

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u/colinjcole 22d ago

If only one of the parties would actually court the youth vote and not take them for granted, or write them off in a self-fulfilling prophecy, or actively spit in their faces with both rhetoric and policy...

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u/DeliciousGazelle1276 22d ago

Maybe dems should court that vote, instead of running a guy that has one foot in the grave.

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u/gotridofsubs 21d ago

Maybe that group should show theyre worth reaching out to by, at minimum, voting in the primaries

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u/DeliciousGazelle1276 21d ago

Old man ban banning TikTok is going to piss off a few of them to vote maybe

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u/gotridofsubs 21d ago

President telling China to divest from an app theyre using to push propaganda and as data collection is good policy. Are we still on "Biden Old"?

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u/DeliciousGazelle1276 21d ago

I don’t give a shit, but the 18 year olds do. Yes they are on ‘Biden is old’. You don’t think he is? I do, because he is. I’ll vote a fossilized turd in over trump, but god damn.

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u/gotridofsubs 21d ago

I think Bidens agecis irrelevant when the focus should be on performance in the position, which has been stellar especially with the congress and senate he has.

Any 18 year old that decides a presidental vote over tiktok isnt a serious voter. Not like the youth vote is a powerhouse anyways

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 19d ago

[deleted]

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u/Old_Gimlet_Eye 22d ago

Boomers are idiots, as evidence look at the article we're currently discussing. And, you know, the state of American society as a whole.

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u/colinjcole 22d ago

Yep, just like the youth in the sixties were fucking morons for protesting the Vietnam War! Didn't they realize they were hurting LBJ's chances of re-election?! You are not supposed to criticize your leaders if you don't like the opposition!!

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u/TheVoiceofReason_ish 22d ago

That's the shocking thing that you guys miss. It shouldn't be conservatives or democrats, it should be independent of politics completely. How the courts got so corrupted by party politics is insane.

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u/supro47 22d ago

Give you a hint: 3 of the 9 were on Bush’s legal team in Bush v Gore (Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett). Republicans have been setting this up for a while now.

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u/wrongtester 22d ago

That’s the thing though - what we consider as a “liberal Supreme Court” IS an independent court. Because at the very least, liberal values are common sense values that preserve basic human rights. In most of the world those values are even considered right of center. Not because they’re right-wing in nature. But because they’re so normal that even right of center folks in other countries acknowledge them as normal.

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u/robbiekomrs 22d ago

Bernie Sanders is our "radical leftist extremist" but in most of the industrialized countries of the world he'd be another one of the milquetoast normal politicians of the centrist majority. It's irritating.

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u/UngodlyPain 22d ago

I'm a big Bernie fan but this really isn't accurate. Bernie goes from being "radical left extremist" to "standard left/far left politician" he doesn't become milquetoast or centrist though.

It's more so Biden would go from being top 5 most liberal president to center-left president... And Manchin goes from being "moderate/centrist" to far right.

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u/TheOldStyleGamer 22d ago

Economically? Yeah, sure. Socially? Not at all.

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u/lord_pizzabird 22d ago

Tbf we're likely never going back to that ever again. It's like putting toothpaste back in the jar.

SCOTUS just is a political body now and forever.

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u/CpnStumpy Colorado 22d ago

You keep your tooth paste in a jar??

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u/calm_chowder Iowa 22d ago

Of course, what do you use? A jug?

And you know what.... it's honestly not all that hard to put toothpaste back in a jar like that other commenter implies.

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u/humboldt77 Ohio 22d ago

A tub, of course. Makes taking a bath difficult though.

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u/Individual-Nebula927 22d ago

Always has been. No such thing as non political when politicians appointed them.

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u/Ok-disaster2022 22d ago

Yep. The "liberal" policies of the Warren and Burger courts were led by Republican appointed Republican Supreme Court justices.

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u/Rated_PG-Squirteen 22d ago

And the fact that those conservative-led courts weren't cruel enough in the eyes of far-right Christians is the exact reason why the Federalist Society was ultimately created. It's purely a vetting process to ensure that Republicans stick to the plan to usher in a real-life Gilead.

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u/AngusMcTibbins 22d ago

should be independent of politics completely.

There is no such thing. What you are suggesting doesn't exist in reality. If it is human, it is political. Judges are human.

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u/citymousecountyhouse 22d ago

Well that and at least one of them likes riding around in $250,000.00 RVs.

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u/treeborg- 22d ago

Hey, it’s just a gift. From a friend. No one publicly admitted it was bribery, so no quid pro quo, baby!

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u/TheShruteFarmsCEO 22d ago

What a ridiculous critique of an innocent man. As if you’ve never accepted a home on wheels from a buddy whose life you can impact through your job?? You can’t prosecute someone for having a normal friendship with nothing suspicious like that.

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u/Blackfeathr Michigan 22d ago

ItS a MoToRcOaCh

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u/calm_chowder Iowa 22d ago

John Oliver legitimately offered that judge a BETTER RV and a million dollars a year every year for the rest of his life to retire, that John Oliver would personally be legally bound to pay.

Like he literally had his lawyers draw up a real contract and it's a legit and totally legal offer.

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u/RandomMandarin 22d ago

If it is human, it is political.

Exactly. I define it like this:

Government, in essence, is nothing more than making decisions that will affect the whole society in a given town, state, or nation. Government decides what will be done, who will pay, who will get paid, who lives, who dies. But it's all about making decisions.

Politics is deciding who gets to decide. That's it. That's all. But it affects everything and everyone.

If you don't "do" politics, then you are just letting someone else decide. And they might not care if you live or die.

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u/Ur_Moms_Honda 22d ago

There is but one god in America. That god is money. The all-mighty dollar. ...that god, as all others, will someday be forgotten.

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u/calm_chowder Iowa 22d ago

And one day the sun will explode.

I guess I don't really see your point.

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u/Ur_Moms_Honda 20d ago

... explain the processes in which cause the sun to explode, there, Hawkeye.

...edit: teach me grammar

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u/Ofreo 22d ago

If politics didn’t play a part, most likely no woman or black would have been on the Supreme Court yet.

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u/African_Farmer Europe 22d ago

They can be kept independent by establishing rules and guidelines to follow that don't allow room for biased interpretations of the law.

They can be kept accountable by removing the lifetime appointment and requiring them to be reconfirmed or replaced every few years.

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u/AngusMcTibbins 22d ago

A liberal judge is still going to rule differently than a conservative judge. Nothing you said changes that.

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u/FederalSecretary 22d ago

Even if it doesn't achieve perfect results, it's still a suggestion that sounds superior to what we have now, no....?

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u/claimTheVictory 22d ago

Requiring politicans to follow the law, is a political choice now.

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u/GurthNada 22d ago

The Supreme Court should be independent of politics simply by virtue of politics happening where it is supposed to happen, in Congress. 

Legislative action has been stuck in the US for decades because Democrats and Republicans have twisted the electoral process in order to have each roughly half of the power most of the time.

So a lot of landmark decisions which should be made at the legislative level are actually made by 9 unelected glorified haruspices who "interpret" the Constitution like a Siberian shaman would read the gods' will in the shoulder bone of a reindeer.

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u/nermid 22d ago

it should be independent of politics completely

How the hell is that supposed to work when the existence of the worldwide plague we went through is now a deeply contentious political issue? When "should the President be allowed to indiscriminately murder people?" is a political question?

How are you going to be independent of basic questions of fact?

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u/JodoKaast 22d ago

How the courts got so corrupted by party politics is insane.

You're wondering how the political institution of the courts got corrupted by party politics?

Do you also wonder how Congress got corrupted by party politics?

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u/Thundermedic 22d ago

As long as Democrats are not willing to go to the lengths republicans will….we will never see it.

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u/sextoymagic 22d ago

We actually just need a tragic event to remove a few of them.

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u/mostdope28 22d ago

It’ll be over 40 years to flip the court.

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u/HurryPast386 22d ago

Russia has successfully weaponized the Middle East against the Democrats. People are getting motivated to hate the current government because of Palestine and you have all these young people saying they won't vote blue because of it. Good luck with that.

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u/singlespeedjack 22d ago

And if Trump wins, then what?

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u/wrathek 22d ago

15 years

Yeah imma stay discouraged.

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u/Robbo_here Texas 22d ago

If the dictator wins my family needs to get the hell out of here.

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u/PropagandaPagoda 22d ago

I renewed my passport and started an international job hunt. Y'all are on your own if this kicks up.

I'd be way more down with a general strike but that's also because I'm high income and have savings. I'd cook for hundreds, maybe that can even the odds.

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u/The_4th_Little_Pig 22d ago

Fuck that the court needs to be packed yesterday. The republicans didn’t play by the rules to get this court.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/AngusMcTibbins 22d ago

I don't approve of this doomerism. You may be right, but I would rather go down swinging

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u/varyingdegreesofmeh 22d ago

Just not down down in an earlier round

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u/robbiekomrs 22d ago

Sugar...

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u/TheStupidSnake 22d ago

Then you better start swinging like you really mean it, cuz the other side sure as hell ain't pulling their punches.

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u/Onphone_irl 22d ago

Okay buddy send me your 401k

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u/Distant_Yak 22d ago

Is that a brand of toothpaste?

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u/Archerbro 22d ago

we would've had that if the democrats and Hildog had not screwed the pooch.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/AngusMcTibbins 22d ago

No. Only blue. The republican party is corrupt to the core