Supreme misconduct
John Roberts' Court is as eager to overthrow democracy as it is to abrogate our rights. Creating an imperial presidency breaks with all of American history. The American people must reject it.
I’m listening to the coverage of the Supreme Court’s declaration that Presidents are kings, immune from prosecution for anything they do under the cover of official acts. Most of the discussion is about the impact the decision will have on the set of cases where Mr. Trump is defendant. This entirely misses the point. The federal judiciary has succeeded in keeping Mr. Trump out of legal jeopardy before the election. It is no longer worth talking about.
The big thing we must talk about is the decision’s impact on the democracy more broadly. The court has decided a president may already do many of the worst things that are promised in Project 2025, the right wing manual for autocratic and religious rule in America. The Supreme Court, for example, made clear that a president may use the Justice Department for political purposes without fear of later prosecution. This clears the way from Donald Trump to make good on his promise to charge everyone from Joe Biden to Liz Cheney with treason and lock them up.
None of the Court’s other appalling decisions matter. The rule of law is replaced by the rule of one. In his official capacity, for example, a president may impose the very regulations that the court earlier this week undermined. Presidents may now take bribes with impunity, because no evidence about the official acts they are willing to do for that bribe are not admissible in courts. Nor does this immunity protect a former president if the next one is corrupt. What good is that immunity if the next guy is immune from prosecution for ignoring it?
We must think the unthinkable if our democracy is to have any chance to survive.
This next election will be another election or our last one. Americans will continue to mediate our differences in a vibrant democracy, or the majority will capitulate to a powerful minority. And let’s be clear what that minority will impose:
An end to abortion
A return to fossil fuels as the basis for our economy and an end to environmental protections
An end to support for democracies around the world
A vastly bigger divide between the wealthiest and the rest of us
Mandatory religious instruction
More guns, everywhere
Government organized for the preservation of the political party
Those chanting “death to America” on streets in foreign lands have won a victory today. The institutional protections have crumbled. Only the concerted effort of the majority of Americans to repudiate the Supreme Court and to reject the dictatorship promised by Mr. Trump and described in Project 2025, can save us.