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‘The Dred Scott of Our Time’

Sean Wilentz

The Supreme Court has invested the presidency with quasi-monarchial powers, repudiating the foundational principle of the rule of law.

July 4, 2024

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Donald Trump walking onstage to give the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference, Washington, D.C., June 22, 2024

The majority opinion in Trump v. United States, the most sweeping judicial reconstruction of the American presidency in history, secures the monumental historic disgrace of the John Roberts Court. Since last winter, the Supreme Court has intervened directly in the 2024 presidential campaign by effectively shielding Donald Trump from being tried on major federal charges before the November election. No previous Supreme Court has protected a political candidate in this way. Far more ominously, in March the Court in Trump v. Anderson openly nullified the section of the Fourteenth Amendment that bars insurrectionists from holding federal or state office, discarding basic lessons about threats to American democracy dating back to the Civil War. Now, in Trump v. United States, handed down on the last day of its 2023–2024 term, the Court has seized the opportunity to invent, with no textual basis, “at least presumptive” and quite possibly “absolute” presidential criminal immunity for official acts, a decision so broad that it essentially places the presidency above the law.

By throwing Trump’s federal indictments into doubt, Trump v. United Statesall but completes the former president’s immunization from legal accountability for the events of January 6, 2021, at least until after the election. But that is only the decision’s narrowest ambit. Its vague distinction between official and unofficial presidential acts gives any president carte blanche to commit crimes up to and including assassination and treason with virtual impunity from criminal prosecution, as long as he can justify those crimes as part of his “official” duties. In effect it invests the presidency with quasi-monarchial powers, repudiating the foundational principle of the rule of law. Trump and his supporters have pledged to wield unfettered executive power and unleash a scorched-earth assault on the “deep state,” which is to say the existing constitutional and institutional order, if he is reelected. In the current crisis, that threat’s most powerful ally is the Supreme Court of the United States.

 

The National Interest  The Democrats Are Making a Terrible Mistake By Jonathan Chait Suppose, in the immediate aftermath of January 6, 2021, you predicted the following events: Disgraced coup plotter Donald Trump would evade impeachment and then prison. He would not only regain control of the Republican Party but deepen his mastery over it, driving his skeptics within the party into retirement or terrified silence. He would win renomination without the slightest drama. The Supreme Court would rule that he is entitled to commit crimes in office. And then he would win a second term virtually unopposed. Only the most addled QAnon cultist would have envisioned such a triumphal rise from ignominy to redemption. But now all but the last item on this list has come to pass, and that, too, is on course to transpire — with severe and possibly long-lasting repercussions for the legitimacy of the party that has taken on the task of preventing Trump’s return. Here is the situation in all its surreality. Joe Biden is the only candidate standing (if we define the term loosely) between Trump and a far more powerful version of the office he previously occupied. Before his shambolic debate with Trump, Biden was already in deep trouble: dragged down by a sub-40 approval rating and trailing in several states he won four years ago, even with the benefit of a saturation-bombing ad campaign in swing states that Trump does not yet (but soon will) have the funding to reciprocate.

Thomas

 Is there a bigger sleazeball that Supreme Court Justice Thomas?

 

Fred Hudson

Chantilly lace, pretty face, pony-tail, hanging down. A wiggle and a walk and a giggle and a talk made the world go round. There ain’t nothing in the world like a big eyed girl make me act so funny make me spend my doggone money. . . But baby I ain’t… 

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• 14y

  14 years ago
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Moyna O'Riley Hudson

Fred, dear, you're getting crazier by the day.

• 14y

  14 years ago
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President Biden Drop Reelection Bid?

There seems to be an overwhelming  consensus that Biden should drop out of the race.  I am not convinced but I have yet to notice a Democrat who agrees with me.  The feeling is that Biden cannot win. Harris can't either in my opinion.  If there is no one else, the country is cooked.