Supreme Court Coup

The conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court staged a bloodless but unscrupulous coup last week, a bald-faced power grab that replaced the balance of powers and the rule of law with a Jesuitical version of Christian nationalism, complete with the divine right of kings for the president and the presumption of judicial infallibility for itself.

In two decisions — Trump v. United States, and Loper Bright Enterprises ET AL. v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, ET AL. — the Supreme Court gave presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts while in office, and in the same breath all but gutted the executive branch’s ability to implement the laws of Congress as it interprets them. It did so by anointing itself with supreme authority to interpret the legality of a president’s actions, and to interpret the relevance and legality of regulations designed to carry out laws passed by Congress and signed by the president.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, displayed breathtaking hubris in giving itself absolute authority to impose the political will of its own majority on the American government, with nothing to check or balance its power. In fact, the Supreme Court not only gave itself the equivalent of papal authority, but for all practical intents and purposes usurped the ultimate power of the Constitution, replacing it with its own self-interested political imperatives and opinions which hew to a right-wing, Christian nationalist agenda.

Not only did the court’s conservative majority give what amounts to absolute immunity to the presidential candidate that Christian nationalists support, Donald Trump, it also drastically undermined the federal bureaucracy, the “deep state,” that Christian nationalists would like to replace with the machinery of what they call “a biblical republic,” one that would enforce the basic tenets of the hard-right Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

In keeping with other conservative operatives, the Court elevated a minority opinion above the majority view. As Pew Research reports, “An overwhelming majority of Americans – 83% – say the government should not declare Christianity the official religion of the country.”

In her dissent in Trump v. United States, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote “our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts.” The conservative majority, she wrote, nonsensically “invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law” for “all his official acts.” She continues, “any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt … remains official and immune.”  The majority’s view, she wrote, “rests on a questionable conception of the president as incapable of navigating the difficult decisions his job requires while staying within the bounds of the law.” The Court has created a presidential autocrat, while installing itself as the supreme power behind the throne and the only entity competent to distinguish between official and unofficial presidential acts. Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, maintains the president is the executive branch, not its manager or overseer. So he must be protected at all costs, presuming he is of the political persuasion the Court deems correct. How he fulfills his presidential functions, however, is now under the jurisdiction of the federal courts.  

In Loper v. Raimondo, the heart and soul of the executive branch, the invaluable brain trust of scientific research and expertise amassed in its bureaucracy, no longer deserves protection or consideration when it comes to how a court rules on the regulations it creates. In Loper, the Supreme Court overturned a 40-year precedent codified in Chevron v. Natural Defense Council and basically appointed itself, in the words of dissenting Justice Elena Kagan, as an “administrative Czar.” Justice Kagan used the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s potential interpretations of the Endangered Species Act as an example. “It is the Wildlife Service and not any court that knows about the intricacies” of animal populations threatened with extinction. Chevron protected evidence-based research and scientific knowledge from religious ideology and dogma. The Loper ruling fulfills the anti-government and anti-science conservative agenda of the Court’s religious right, threatening all protective regulations, including food safety and public health, while crowning the Court with ultimate governmental authority.

Last week’s decisions amounted to such an outrageous power grab that many now believe leaders of the conservative majority deserve to be impeached and removed from office on the grounds they have broken their vow of office to “support and defend the Constitution.” That can only happen if voters in November return the House and Senate to the control of legislators who still believe in the rule of law and in the balance of powers.

*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it