MAGA wanted a second Civil War? They wish.
Once again the majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court has put its thumb on the scales of justice to preserve minority dominance and elite impunity. In what once seemed a stable democratic republic, the equal justice to which it once aspired, at least on parchment, hangs by slender threads. On Wednesday, the court announced in a one-page proclamation that it would review the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that, no, presidents may not assassinate political rivals (or commit other crimes) without legal sanction.
Mark Joseph Stern at Slate:
The Supreme Court has all but guaranteed that Donald Trump will not face trial for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election before this November’s presidential election. On Wednesday, after more than two weeks’ delay, the court issued an order refusing to lift the stay that’s preventing the Jan. 6 trial, prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, from moving forward. Instead, the court took up the case, scheduling oral arguments for the week of April 22—nearly two months from now. On this timeline, the justices will probably issue a decision near the end of June. That punt gives Trump exactly what he wanted: an extended pause that will make it impossible for Judge Tanya Chutkan to hold a trial in time for the upcoming election.
If Trump wins that election, of course, he will ensure that his Justice Department halts the prosecution and dissolves the charges against him. Which means that SCOTUS has awarded him a powerful incentive to beat Joe Biden by any means necessary, and a good reason to hope that he can evade accountability for Jan. 6.
At least in federal courts. TheTrumpian high from evading federal prosecution will spur his drive to short-circuit remaining state prosecutory efforts, again, by any means necessary. Cultists will cheer on their sovereign.
For the moneyed elite behind Trump, further padding their accounts is a goal, certainly. But for them, for MAGA foot soldiers, for QAnon conspiracists, and Christian nationalists desirous of monarchy in democracy’s clothing, dominance is the real opiate. Or at the least, a return to the strict-father hierarchy George Lakoff mapped out. Put one way, “For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” Put another, “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Trump’s case is frivoulous, Stern and others rightly note. Unless the high court means to strip itself of its remaining legitimacy, already in shreds, it will uphold the lower court’s ruling. Eventually. Just not in time for a decision in Jack Smith’s insurrection case before Americans cast their fall ballots. Their actions will reinforce what equal justice has always meant in America: one gets just as much process as one can afford. Including justice denied.
The alarm among MSNBC panelists Thursday evening was palpable, save for Lawrence O’Donnell, convinced more than ever that Trump cannot win another term and make the federal government a Trump-branded fiefdom. I wish I shared his confidence. I shared it in 2016. Briefly.
In calling for revolution in the 1960s, yippie leader Jerry Rubin declared there “one word which Amerika hasn’t destroyed.” Four letters beginning with “F.” The American right has certainly destroyed another with seven letters beginning with “F”: freedom. Their conception is freedom from, not freedom for, someone reiterated recently.
There remains one guardrail left to check the conservative goal of restoring rich, white-Christian hegemony and the destruction of America’s pluralistic, multicultural democracy: Voters.
Chris Hayes said it bluntly Thursday evening. It’s on you, on us, to preserve the republic this fall. I hesitate to use “us or them,” but that’s how the Roberts Court has teed up the 2024 elections.
Your freedoms are on the line. Not abstractions like democracy and the rule of law. Your freedom. Freedom for everyone or for an elite few. This is serious.
You say you want a revolution
The fringiest of the fringe, some even among the Christian right, imagine waging a second Civil War, AR-15s a-blazing, to restore the old times they’ve never forgotten. Their conception: God in his heaven, every man master of his domain, women and children obedient, and non-whites (and non-Christians) subservient and docile.
What’s really at hand is a second Revolution to overthrow the zombie monarchy that two and a half centuries after the first remains shambling and undead. This revolution will be fought with votes.
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