SCOTUS gives a gift to Decent America
Why their decision to slow-walk Trump's immunity claims is so bad it's good
As I write this, the Supreme Court has just decided to hear Trump’s ridiculous claims of absolute immunity for all criminal behavior.
SCOTUS has done this in the worst way possible. They dragged their feet making their decision. They have delayed hearing arguments until April 22. And, given their slow-walking so far, it’s likely that they won’t announce their decision until the last day of the term sometime in late June.
This means that it is very unlikely that Trump will stand trial and be convicted for his role in the January 6 insurrection before this fall’s election.
And that’s exactly what they want. It looks like at least four—and probably all six—of the Republican justices are determined to give Trump a pass on his criminality in the hope that he can win reelection—and then dismantle America and turn it into Trumpistan, where he will rule for the rest of his life and they will sit at the right hand of power.
Even if SCOTUS eventually rules that no person, not even the president, is above the law, they will do it too late to hold Trump accountable for his lawbreaking before the election. So the American people will not get an adjudication of Trump’s guilt before they have to decide whether to vote for him in the fall.
Now, this doesn’t matter to decent Americans, who already know that Trump is a monumentally stupid but Satanic malignancy on the body politic. It only matters to Scum America, which wants every excuse it can get to keep defending Trump. The SCOTUS Republicans are just giving them another excuse—Trump won’t have actually been convicted of anything before the election.
But this despicable behavior on the part of Republican Supreme Court “justices” is actually a gift for us decent Americans. They have refined the situation for us, compressed it into diamond-like clarity. We now know that no one is going to save America from right-wing autocracy except us. We now know that we alone can save democracy—not just for America, but for the whole world. We now know that we alone are the last best hope of human kind.
All of our hopes that the Constitution or our institutions or our democratic norms would save us are finally gone. The legislative branch is too corrupted by Republicans to resist the onslaught of “conservative” evil. The judicial branch is too corrupted by Republicans and Federalist Society hacks throughout its ranks and especially at the Supreme Court to punish adequately the lawbreaking of “conservative” evil. And the executive branch under the control of Democrats is too bound by the letter of the law to take vigorous action against “conservative” evil. (Remember that Lincoln broke the law of habeas corpus in order to hold confederates in jail. He later said he had to violate the Constitution in order to save it. We may soon be in a similar position.)
There is no one left except us.
But that is a clarifying and bracing recognition. We now know that we alone are the heroes we are seeking. And all we have to do to be the heroes we are is to vote against every Republican in November.
If we decisively and finally use our votes to tell Republicans that we are finished with their antisocial, bigoted, fake-religious, power-hungry, vicious, ignorant, selfish, and fearful bullshit—and this is not an exaggeration—we will save the world.
Think about it. Once Republicans are out of power, we can repair all the damage they have been doing since 1980. We can expand the court, diluting the malevolent influence of SCOTUS Republicans and reclaiming the high court’s dedication to rational justice rather than pseudo-religious power-mongering. With the judicial branch restored to sanity, we can then reverse the Dobbs ruling, restoring the right to reproductive autonomy ripped away by the SCOTUS Republicans. We can reverse Citizens United and get control over political advertising again. We can restore the voting rights act and force red states to actually have fair elections again.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reversing “conservative” evil. A government fully controlled by Democrats could finally undo the decades of Republican mischief that has prevented rational, Keynesian economics from slaying the greed that is worshipped by “conservatives.” Such a government could take the breaks off our conversion to renewable energy—which would change the entire world’s economic power balance, since oil-producing countries would no longer have geo-political power. It could finally stop the erosion and reversal of rights and return America to its historic role of expanding rights.
We could have separation between church and state back again. We could secure Social Security once and for all. We could have universal health care. We could have rational fiscal and monetary policy that would make life better once again for our children rather than worse. We could return the carping, nasty, vicious, unthinking blather of “conservatives” to the backwaters of the dark corners where they will once again hide because they know that decent people shun their kind.
They have forced the moment. They have corrupted all the institutions that safeguarded us from their vile impulses. They have been emboldened by Trump to behave just as badly as they feel because he has shown them that he can get away with it. So maybe they can too.
It is up to us to show them that they can’t get away with it. Everything they want is wicked. Everything they want is despicable. Everything they want is shameful. It is no longer necessary to pretend that they believe anything in good faith. Their support of Trump gives the lie to any claims of righteousness on the part of “conservatives.” No one who supports Trump has the slightest decency mixed into their character.
So come on, heroes. Now is our time. Get out there in November and vote against every Republican you see on the ballot. Let them know we are done with them, that their “party” no longer has any credibility or legitimacy, that Decent America is moving on and rolling them over.
And then we can bask in our victory. And watch the entire world change for the better because decent Americans would not let the worst among us rule the best.
Remember that Decent America has the power. We are the majority. All we need to do it act like it, take the power we deserve, and push "conservatism" off the world stage. Courage!
Couldn't agree more, Gloria!