I am so, so sorry for my American friends. I never thought I'd see the end of democracy in the US, but here we are. The question is, what motivates these Justices? They're not dumb, they know that Trump is a liar and a malignant narcissist. Here's a possibility: they are Christianists, they believe that they are doing the Lord's work, and that Trump is but a vessel for His will. They infiltrated the Judiciary, they llied during their confirmation (we all know that now) because they were on a mission to (re-?)establish a Christian society, and here we are.
Evidence against this is Barrett's concurrence that allowed more of Trump's activity to be prosecuted such as asking the AZ House speaker to call a special session.
Evidence is mounting that Barrett is the least bad of the Justices put on the Court by Republican presidents. If the Court’s composition changes, she could end up the swing vote in a lot of cases.
It feels like the only remedy to this would be a 28th constitutional amendment explicitly guaranteeing that the president is subject to the same civil and criminal penalties as every other citizen, for any corrupt action in office. Ignoring the procedural and political hurdles to an attempt to enact it, however, it’s hard to imagine the current SCOTUS would let it stand, however decisive the process leading to its ratification. Likewise for any effort to reign in the court through an amendment, say, enacting term limits, or other sane constraints on the court’s power. I am disgust and disheartened beyond belief.
The Court doesn't even come into it. If we had the Congressional delegations or state legislatures necessary to get such an amendment through in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation because the political alignment of the United States would be fundamentally different from where we are. Trump would either never have been elected or would have been successfully impeached and convicted, and this case would never have reached the Supreme Court.
We're here because a large fraction of the American electorate wants us to be here, and another large fraction is relatively indifferent to it.
If we had that, Trump would never have been tried for E. Jean Carroll or the Alvin Bragg mess. Those legal actions would never been brought against a Democrat.
What a disaster for our Republic! So much for the validity of “originalism” in SCOTUS jurisprudence. Our only hope is that the Americans are so horrified by this decision that Democrats win overwhelmingly up and down the ballot in November. Then Ocasio-Cortez can call for articles of impeachment against SCOTUS, which would be approved by both Chambers and King Biden can sign it into law.
Which is unlikely, precisely because of legalese and the long-standing aura of Trump being "victim of lawfare". As a certain Sith teaches us: "It is such a quiet thing to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."
Also I should have written that we knew that the people that would staff a Trump administration wanted a unitary executive on steroids even if no crimes were committed, and this is not being communicated well to the American people.
Around the turn of the millennium I taught legal writing to night students. One night in late winter or early spring 2001, I suddenly announced were going on a field trip, somewhere dusty and musty, somewhere they may never have been before. We're going to the library.They looked at me like I was crazy. (Actually the school had a beautiful new library, but by then, most of their research was on line.) I took them through the stacks, showing them, for example, the shelves where the Code of Federal Regulations, CFR, grew like Topsy. (Who will need those after last week?)
But then we came to a section devoted to constitutional law, and suddenly I found myself delivering a rant and I went on and on about the coup that had been delivered by SCOTUS just weeks before. Once again, they looked at me like I was crazy.
This week that coup came near its conclusion.
Yesterday's decision was quite worthy of another rant but I no longer have a captive audience to hear me.
Let's hope we can limit rants to one every quarter of a century.
The simple truth is Trump must lose and as many “conservatives” as possible must be unelected in November. SCOTUS made what is tantamount to a “conservative” declaration of war on the Constitution by providing a liability free roadmap for a presidential coup in its immunity decision. If Trump wins it’s game over.
In the interim stack the court and use the new presidential powers to mandate voting rights in national elections and break the logjams in Congress. Immunity from prosecution is a powerful tool.
The power granted is to file lawsuits. So Biden can do that, and SCOTUS can rule against such lawsuits (as they did against Trump's contesting the 2020 election).
Any grand theories on how we got here and how we might fix this?
Two institutions that are greatly weakened and are letting us down are the Republican and Democratic parties. In 2016 the Republican establishment couldn't fight off Trump and now it is co-opted. [TBF, at some point, that has to be blamed on a wacky followership, not just poor leadership. Liz Cheney, Republican royalty, got booted out of the party; no one in the Senate would have lunch with Mitt Romney.]
The Democratic party barely kept it together in 2016 and 2020 and is clearly terrified of dropping Biden, opening Pandora's box, and letting their members pick new leadership. Not good!
Ezra Klein routinely lauds "The Hollow Parties", which emphasizes the relative impotence of both parties.
To our woes I'd add fragmented media and the collapse of media gatekeepers. At one time to gain a national profile a politician had to impress Walter Cronkite or the NY Times editors. Now any knucklehead with an internet connection can 'build their brand' and find sympatico knuckleheads nationside. Hard to silence Marjore Taylor Greene, or even cut off her fundraising.
Where would you rank the "Porfiriato" ... Porfirio Diaz's ambiguous dictatorship in Mexico ... among models for what we're in for if Trump manages to win this year?
Re; disruptionists. I wouldn't do a blanket disapproval. In my lifetime I remember good solid (white) moderates and liberals who thought MLK and his associates were pushing too far too fast. Then there was the Act-Up, who obviously were going too far. And the gay marriage people, totally out of line and too extreme.
Then there's the pro-life movement, which still gets my disapproval. Unlike the old TV Westerns of my youth, it's awful difficult to know who the good guys are, or will turn out to be.
The decision limiting some presidential liability codifies a longstanding, respected, common-sense understanding of the law. This wasn't extreme by any measure.
A ruling that states Trump has complete immunity for his attempts to pressure DOJ personnel to pursue fake claims of electoral fraud, or his attempt to pressure Mike Pence into not recognizing the certified results on January 6th, is neither respected nor a common-sense understanding of the law. It is almost as if your opinion lacks any factual basis and is therefore.... wrong.
Thanks Daniel. I haven't heard anything about "complete" immunity. I thought the ruling was qualified, limited to official duties. Should courts find Trump's behavior outside this qualified, or official status, he can indeed be charged. Let me know if I'm wrong. I kind of like it : )
So you're saying you commented on this column without actually reading it: "The ruling goes on to stipulate that examples of core constitutional powers include Trump’s efforts to persuade Mike Pence to not accept the Electoral College results in his capacity as Vice President. The ruling further stated that, 'Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.' This means that Trump’s efforts to pressure DOJ officials into claiming election fraud where none existed are considered to be part of his core constitutional powers."
Thank you for speaking out clearly. I can also mention that I attended via zoom a National Constitution Center event that was supposed to be for Harold Hongju Koh's book and it turned mostly into a discussion of this decision. I have never seen Jeffrey Rosen look sad to that extent.
Interviewed in 1992, Enoch Powell, who had been a Conservative then an Ulster Unionist but was above all a Tory, said "To me a Tory is a person who believes that authority is vested in institutions—that's a carefully honed definition. We have made the law, not for extraneous reasons, not because it conforms with a priori specifications; it has been made by a particular institution in a particular way and can be changed by that institution in a particular way. A Tory therefore reposes the ultimate authority in institutions—he is an example of collective man."
I am so, so sorry for my American friends. I never thought I'd see the end of democracy in the US, but here we are. The question is, what motivates these Justices? They're not dumb, they know that Trump is a liar and a malignant narcissist. Here's a possibility: they are Christianists, they believe that they are doing the Lord's work, and that Trump is but a vessel for His will. They infiltrated the Judiciary, they llied during their confirmation (we all know that now) because they were on a mission to (re-?)establish a Christian society, and here we are.
I don't think you have any idea how often SCOTUS ruled against Trump when he was President. They ruled against Trump, without any hearings/written opinions, when he was legally challenging the election results https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/supreme-court-formally-rejects-trump-election-challenge-cases-n1258520 What they've said now is that Trump has immunity for filing such challenges (which they rejected).
Oh I know, Trump lost 100% of his elections suits. There's a limit to what the Supreme Court can invent to help their man.
Evidence against this is Barrett's concurrence that allowed more of Trump's activity to be prosecuted such as asking the AZ House speaker to call a special session.
Evidence is mounting that Barrett is the least bad of the Justices put on the Court by Republican presidents. If the Court’s composition changes, she could end up the swing vote in a lot of cases.
Powerful. Puts so much together in one essay.
We need a good rant every now and then.
MAGA-dittos to that! Dr. Dan is a level-headed guy and a shrewd observer of the human condition - if he's worried we all should worry.
It feels like the only remedy to this would be a 28th constitutional amendment explicitly guaranteeing that the president is subject to the same civil and criminal penalties as every other citizen, for any corrupt action in office. Ignoring the procedural and political hurdles to an attempt to enact it, however, it’s hard to imagine the current SCOTUS would let it stand, however decisive the process leading to its ratification. Likewise for any effort to reign in the court through an amendment, say, enacting term limits, or other sane constraints on the court’s power. I am disgust and disheartened beyond belief.
The Court doesn't even come into it. If we had the Congressional delegations or state legislatures necessary to get such an amendment through in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation because the political alignment of the United States would be fundamentally different from where we are. Trump would either never have been elected or would have been successfully impeached and convicted, and this case would never have reached the Supreme Court.
We're here because a large fraction of the American electorate wants us to be here, and another large fraction is relatively indifferent to it.
If we had that, Trump would never have been tried for E. Jean Carroll or the Alvin Bragg mess. Those legal actions would never been brought against a Democrat.
Huh?
Trump is the only real estate developer who was hit with a civil fraud trial. Surely there are others not named Trump who have done same.
The statute of limitations in the state of NY was changed specifically to allow her to bring her initial complaint. https://19thnews.org/2023/05/e-jean-carroll-trump-new-law-justice-assault-survivors/
What a disaster for our Republic! So much for the validity of “originalism” in SCOTUS jurisprudence. Our only hope is that the Americans are so horrified by this decision that Democrats win overwhelmingly up and down the ballot in November. Then Ocasio-Cortez can call for articles of impeachment against SCOTUS, which would be approved by both Chambers and King Biden can sign it into law.
Which is unlikely, precisely because of legalese and the long-standing aura of Trump being "victim of lawfare". As a certain Sith teaches us: "It is such a quiet thing to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."
Also I should have written that we knew that the people that would staff a Trump administration wanted a unitary executive on steroids even if no crimes were committed, and this is not being communicated well to the American people.
About rants.
Around the turn of the millennium I taught legal writing to night students. One night in late winter or early spring 2001, I suddenly announced were going on a field trip, somewhere dusty and musty, somewhere they may never have been before. We're going to the library.They looked at me like I was crazy. (Actually the school had a beautiful new library, but by then, most of their research was on line.) I took them through the stacks, showing them, for example, the shelves where the Code of Federal Regulations, CFR, grew like Topsy. (Who will need those after last week?)
But then we came to a section devoted to constitutional law, and suddenly I found myself delivering a rant and I went on and on about the coup that had been delivered by SCOTUS just weeks before. Once again, they looked at me like I was crazy.
This week that coup came near its conclusion.
Yesterday's decision was quite worthy of another rant but I no longer have a captive audience to hear me.
Let's hope we can limit rants to one every quarter of a century.
The simple truth is Trump must lose and as many “conservatives” as possible must be unelected in November. SCOTUS made what is tantamount to a “conservative” declaration of war on the Constitution by providing a liability free roadmap for a presidential coup in its immunity decision. If Trump wins it’s game over.
In the interim stack the court and use the new presidential powers to mandate voting rights in national elections and break the logjams in Congress. Immunity from prosecution is a powerful tool.
In fiction, the current president would just say "I will use the power you've just granted to this office."
In real life, the Democrats are still following Michelle Obama's well-meant but disastrous adage "when they go low, we go high."
The power granted is to file lawsuits. So Biden can do that, and SCOTUS can rule against such lawsuits (as they did against Trump's contesting the 2020 election).
Any grand theories on how we got here and how we might fix this?
Two institutions that are greatly weakened and are letting us down are the Republican and Democratic parties. In 2016 the Republican establishment couldn't fight off Trump and now it is co-opted. [TBF, at some point, that has to be blamed on a wacky followership, not just poor leadership. Liz Cheney, Republican royalty, got booted out of the party; no one in the Senate would have lunch with Mitt Romney.]
The Democratic party barely kept it together in 2016 and 2020 and is clearly terrified of dropping Biden, opening Pandora's box, and letting their members pick new leadership. Not good!
Ezra Klein routinely lauds "The Hollow Parties", which emphasizes the relative impotence of both parties.
To our woes I'd add fragmented media and the collapse of media gatekeepers. At one time to gain a national profile a politician had to impress Walter Cronkite or the NY Times editors. Now any knucklehead with an internet connection can 'build their brand' and find sympatico knuckleheads nationside. Hard to silence Marjore Taylor Greene, or even cut off her fundraising.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691248554/the-hollow-parties
I'm right there with you on this ...
Where would you rank the "Porfiriato" ... Porfirio Diaz's ambiguous dictatorship in Mexico ... among models for what we're in for if Trump manages to win this year?
Re; disruptionists. I wouldn't do a blanket disapproval. In my lifetime I remember good solid (white) moderates and liberals who thought MLK and his associates were pushing too far too fast. Then there was the Act-Up, who obviously were going too far. And the gay marriage people, totally out of line and too extreme.
Then there's the pro-life movement, which still gets my disapproval. Unlike the old TV Westerns of my youth, it's awful difficult to know who the good guys are, or will turn out to be.
The decision limiting some presidential liability codifies a longstanding, respected, common-sense understanding of the law. This wasn't extreme by any measure.
A ruling that states Trump has complete immunity for his attempts to pressure DOJ personnel to pursue fake claims of electoral fraud, or his attempt to pressure Mike Pence into not recognizing the certified results on January 6th, is neither respected nor a common-sense understanding of the law. It is almost as if your opinion lacks any factual basis and is therefore.... wrong.
Thanks Daniel. I haven't heard anything about "complete" immunity. I thought the ruling was qualified, limited to official duties. Should courts find Trump's behavior outside this qualified, or official status, he can indeed be charged. Let me know if I'm wrong. I kind of like it : )
So you're saying you commented on this column without actually reading it: "The ruling goes on to stipulate that examples of core constitutional powers include Trump’s efforts to persuade Mike Pence to not accept the Electoral College results in his capacity as Vice President. The ruling further stated that, 'Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.' This means that Trump’s efforts to pressure DOJ officials into claiming election fraud where none existed are considered to be part of his core constitutional powers."
I concede. If you hate Trump not a good ruling.
Thank you for speaking out clearly. I can also mention that I attended via zoom a National Constitution Center event that was supposed to be for Harold Hongju Koh's book and it turned mostly into a discussion of this decision. I have never seen Jeffrey Rosen look sad to that extent.
Read with despair as well.
There’s always hope.
Tell me more. I’m all ears and willing to grab the life raft. (I guess there is a smidge of hope, but not a lot of direction. 😏)
Interviewed in 1992, Enoch Powell, who had been a Conservative then an Ulster Unionist but was above all a Tory, said "To me a Tory is a person who believes that authority is vested in institutions—that's a carefully honed definition. We have made the law, not for extraneous reasons, not because it conforms with a priori specifications; it has been made by a particular institution in a particular way and can be changed by that institution in a particular way. A Tory therefore reposes the ultimate authority in institutions—he is an example of collective man."