I read a guest essay in the NY Times that suggests that the Supreme Court is not following an ideological partisan agenda intended to benefit project 2025 or Trump and his camp.
William Baude, a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, cites several recent decisions made by the Supreme Court that seemed to favor liberal policies and several that seemed to favor conservative policies. Then, the author suggested that the court got it wrong on a couple of decisions. Those decisions were the one that took away the states rights to determine who can or cannot be a candidate on a state ballot and giving Trump immunity for his seditious and insurrectionist behavior.
He suggested that in their fear of a massive over reaction to Trump and his behavior, the court was seeking to curb that reaction in a bid to moderate the polarization and limit the ability of the bureaucracy to prevent a future president from doing his job. He essentially accuses people who are trying to save our democracy of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and then suggests the court is trying to act as a check on that.
There is a natural law attributed to Robert Hanlon known as Hanlon’s Razor. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
One variation is Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Mr. Baude is positing that the court is trying to play statesman and avoid taking sides in their rulings over a states right to choose who is on their ballots and by curbing federal agencies and other bureaucracies power to check the executive office. He does suggest that the Supreme Court in their mistrust of lower courts and other departments of the U.S. government should look in the mirror and realize that they also are not as trustworthy as they think they are.
This brings up an entertaining reason for why the Supreme Court may not be as ideologically aligned with the evangelicals, fascists, white supremacists, and others in the conservative camp these days as we imagine. In simple terms the Supreme Court is operating from a position of stupidity. Or perhaps incompetence.
The problem is that the outcomes of malice and stupidity are often the same. A negative result still has the potential to harm regardless of motivation. When you are harmed it doesn’t really matter if it is because of stupidity or malice. You suffer a loss or damage that may be irreparable.
In the case of the Supreme Court they may have handed the authoritarian ideology the keys to destroying democracy and turning our republic into a full blown oligarchy with a bit of theocracy, and a dash of white nationalism.
I am suggesting that the supreme court is neither stupid nor incompetent. I believe that each of the six conservative justices are acting with malice. One of the reasons I suggest this is based on the confirmation hearings and the statements of the justices during those confirmation hearings.
Comey, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh all stated during their confirmation hearings that abortion rights were settled law and that settled law was not open for revision. Each of them completely reversed that stated position when they voted to over turn Roe V Wade.
In his confirmation hearing in 2005 Roberts stated unequivocally that presidents do not enjoy immunity from the law. On June 28, 2024 Roberts voted to give virtual blanket immunity to Trump for actions he carried out as president that were illegal.
Alito and Thomas have both engaged in hundreds of ethics violations that would have any other justice removed from the bench over the years they have been on the court. They recently voted that gifts given for actions in the past are not bribes. It’s pretty apparent that they voted to cover their asses for the blatant ethics violations and possible bribes they have taken.
These are some of the more obvious decisions that strongly suggest malice or at least a personal or ideological agenda that is in direct opposition to the oath these justices swore when they took their seat on the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court justices take two oaths when they accept a seat on the court. The first is an oath to the constitution:
I, ________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
The second is a judicial oath and currently is:
I, _________, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
It’s pretty obvious that the court has not upheld either of those oaths in recent years.
There is no way that the decision to grant corporations “personhood” and allow them to use money as free speech was equal justice between the poor and the rich.
When you vote to take a right away from someone after it has been granted you are not upholding the constitution.
When you vote to grant immunity or hold the president to be above the law you are clearly disregarding the constitution.
When you lie under oath there is no way to attribute that as stupidity or incompetence.
Given the behavior of the Supreme Court since at least 2000 and later it would be very difficult to attribute to stupidity what is apparently malice. Regardless, the outcomes have been the same. Supreme Court justices can be impeached for either stupidity, incompetence, or malice.
I'll just leave you with this: When the Chavistas down here discovered that people had had enough of them (in the aftermath of the 2015 Legislative elections). The outgoing Chavista National Assembly retired a whole bunch of Supreme Court Judges and made sure their replacements were Chavista Partisans. This allowed Maduro to nullify the new National Assembly, which was overwhelmingly pro-opposition and cling to power. At that point we stopped having any form of representative government. Hope the average gringo realizes how close they are to becoming an autocracy. Because the consequences won't be pretty. Not only for the US, but for the whole world in general.