It still seems unbelievable. Earlier this month, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, in its preposterously complicated ruling to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Donald Trump from the November presidential ballot, egregiously undermined constitutional provisions for the orderly transfer of power. It did so in such way that the Constitution is now no longer the unassailable bulwark against tyranny that we have always believed it to be.
With its unanimous decision to side with Trump against Colorado, and its 5-4 subsidiary decision to basically rewrite a part of the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice John Roberts, has made every American frighteningly more vulnerable to the malice, violence, and greed for power of would-be dictators.
The Court’s ruling offered up a tangle of decisions and omissions that seem purposefully, if not to say maliciously, confusing. The court unanimously ruled that Colorado and other states cannot remove Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot on the grounds of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies those who rise in insurrection against the Constitution from running for office. The court did not, however, as Heather Cox Richardson has pointed out, reverse the Colorado ruling that Trump was, indeed, the leader of an insurrection on January 6, 2020 to overthrow the election of then President Elect Joe Biden.
Then, according to Slate, the court went “much further than the case required.” In a 5-4 decision, it essentially rewrote the 14th Amendment, a move that seems unprecedented in constitutional history. The majority ruled that the 14th Amendment’s electoral disqualification of officials who have broken their vow to defend the Constitution can only be enforced by procedures created by Congress. This is a pure invention. The 14th Amendment itself says nothing of the sort.
The 14th Amendment clearly states that “no person” who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution “shall…hold any office” in the United States. Period. Nowhere is it stated or implied that an act of Congress is needed to disqualify such persons from holding office.
The only role the amendment gives to Congress is, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, “to remove such a disability” of being an insurrectionist. To invent a new role for Congress in the 14th Amendment is a staggering hypocrisy. It goes directly against the conservative judicial philosophy of “originalism,” the attempt to read the minds of the founders to ferret out what they “originally meant.”
Clearly the founders did not mean for Congress to have a role in enforcing the 14th Amendment because they didn’t mention such a role in the amendment itself.
The Roberts Court ruling gives a free pass to any would-be Fuhrer with enough bully followers to overthrow an election and take control of the government by force. That cannot possibly be the “original” intent of the founders, who proclaim in every way possible that the principal job of any elected official or public servant in our country is to support the Constitution.
Judicial corruption comes in many forms, originalism being the most dangerous trick so far, particularly when it pollutes presidential elections. We saw it happen in 2000 when the conservative majority of the Supreme Court overruled Florida courts by forbidding a recount of questionable ballots in an almost dead heat election, ballots that might have given the victory to Democrat Al Gore.
The farce of originalism has been used to undermine privacy rights, such as those involving reproductive freedom, because the word “privacy” doesn’t appear directly in the Constitution. Conservatives, at the same time, think nothing of putting thoughts in the founder’s minds by equating freedom of speech with spending money. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who seems to be on the payroll of many plutocrats, and hides it with impunity, joins other conservatives as an unrelenting supporter of the anonymity of campaign and political funding on the grounds of protecting the free speech rights of the rich from public scrutiny.
Thomas and other conservatives equate money with speech. The power of money replaces the persuasion, eloquence, logic and reason. The rich can say more, say it louder, say it more often, than the rest of us. Money talks in secret. You and I squeak and whisper in public.
It’s not hard to conclude that the corruption of the ultra-secretive U.S. Supreme Court is the product of plutocratic influence peddling and political bribery by super rich oligarchs who hold democracy in contempt. Is that unfair? If you’re unable to penetrate the Court’s iron curtain, how could you tell if it is or isn’t?
*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it
(Photo by bootbearwdc)
While it is very true that money these days is often equated with speech, and those who speak that language loudest or repeat its lies until they become “truths” in the minds of their followers, not all of us “squeak and whisper in public.” You certainly don’t, V.B. Your beautiful words sing loud and clear. They often speak truth to power, and if they are currently drowned out by the deafening obscenity of Trump, his egregious Court, and all their lackeys, they live on a higher plane that will be important long after all these Neo-Fascists are gone.
You win for the scariest column of the day.
Nailed it . . . damn it.