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The SCOTUS Decision, Treason in July

Updated: Jul 5, 2024

By Jessie Seigel / July 4, 2024



Let’s start with the bottom line. The Supreme Court’s decision concerning Donald Trump’s presidential immunity, rendered by the six political hacks on the Supreme Court, has just put the final nail in the coffin of this nation’s democracy.

 

The majority on this Court has demonstrated time and time again that it is not an impartial adjudicator of law but a political arm of reactionary interests and, in particular, an arm of the right-wing’s chosen demagogue of the moment—Donald Trump. Now, the court majority has gone the whole route, issuing a decision that will make Trump a dictator or any other president answerable to no one for any criminal acts he commits or has committed in the past.

 

As former Vermont governor Howard Dean put it on MSNBC a day or two ago, the Supreme Court, one of the three legs upon which our democracy stands, is now illegitimate and we no longer have a democracy. We are not any longer in a mode where we can save it. It is gone. Now, we must find a way to restore it.

 

How we restore democracy when the country is this far gone is the question. It does not appear that congressional legislation—even if it could be passed with a Republican House majority and obstructionist Senate minority—would be sufficient to reign in this rogue court.

 

There is no point to weighing back and forth the hypocritical, sophistic pretenses at analysis the majority has given for what it has done. There is no point in giving their charade of having lower courts parse the difference between “official acts” which the court claims would have immunity and “unofficial acts” which would not. They have ensured that any wheels of justice are stuck in the mud until the election--and will continue to be so after the election regardless of who wins.

 

Furthermore, if Trump gains the White House again, any action he takes or has taken will be deemed by Trump's justice department as “official,” and immune. And any act President Biden has taken, though legal, will be deemed “unofficial,” and used as an excuse for prosecution. Even if President Biden wins reelection, this Supreme Court majority will strike down any lower court determinations that Trump’s illegal actions were unofficial. Bet on it.

 

The crux of our country’s situation was plainly stated in Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s dissent:

 

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the [Court] majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends…The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

 

The right-wing backing Trump—including the six on the Supreme Court—know full well that no Democrat will take advantage of their determination because Democrats would not want to further a dictatorship, even if their man were the dictator. The Republicans? If truth be known, they’ve been working towards this wherever an opportunity presented itself for 40 years and more.

 

It is fitting to end this column with the lyrics of the “Ballad of the Robbers” from the play Knickerbocker Holiday. The song provides a slightly sardonic reflection on the kind of cynical machinations that we are facing. Perhaps it can momentarily lift the spirit despite the message. (To hear a recording of the song, click here.)

 

Ballad of the Robbers

By Kurt Weill (music) and Maxwell Anderson (book and lyrics)

 

When first men fled from Eden fair

And spread upon the ground

The honest men were much annoyed

By thieves that hung around

They stole the horses from the barns

They stole the eggs and hams

Made inroads on the cattle and

Among the sheep and lambs


And so the honest men sat down

Around a pot of ale

And made a law that all the thieves

Should be confined in jail

Whereat the thieves were all confined

Behind those dismal bars

So honest men could walk abroad

To businesses or wars


But then there was a clever thief

Who up and said, said he

"The honest men have grown so few

So numerous are we

That if we band together now

Against the honest men

The honest men will go to jail

And we'll go free again"

 

So then the thieves and robbers rose

By twos and threes and fours

And put the honest men away

Behind those clanging doors

And since that time it has obtained

And will obtain no doubt

The honest men sit in the jails

The robbers, they are out.




 

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1 Comment


Guest
Jul 05, 2024

SCOTUS is no longer a court of law, but an anti-democratic gaggle of partisan activists. The six Trump-enabling justices-- if one could bring oneself to call them that-- upended longstanding democratic tenets, norms and law, and created new rules of evidence out of whole cloth. They are in fact traitors in our tent. It is imperative that we have a vigorous and sharp head of the democratic electorial ticket, who can educate and energize the public (do Trumpers truly understand what a dictator is and does?) . With extensive public education, we can best ensure democratic electoral victories across the board. SCOTUS' outlandish decision on Presidential immunity, among other power-grabbing recent rulings, cannot stand.

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