Will the Supreme Court Let This Crisis Go to Waste?

posted by John Green at American Thinker 

Has the Supreme Court noticed that we’ve crossed a legal Rubicon?  The Constitution — that thing the Court is supposed to defend — is becoming less relevant by the day because the left has decided that our mutual pact of self-governance doesn’t apply to leftists.  They have weaponized our government against us — using it to surveil, silence, harass, and steal from us.  Our own government is even arguing that the Constitution should not be a constraint on its operations — which is precisely what its purpose is.

Are the Supreme Court Justices beginning to realize that we are in crisis?  Two recent cases indicate that they are awakening to that reality.

In Fischer v. United States, the court is considering the validity of using a financial statute to charge January 6 trespassers with obstruction of an official proceeding.  During questioning, Justice Gorsuch asked, “Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?”  He was referring to Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who pulled a fire alarm to prevent a congressional vote yet was not charged with “obstructing an official proceeding.”  That was Gorsuch’s way of asking if something other than party affiliation determines who will face the greater jeopardy of obstruction charges.  It was a sarcastic illustration of the decidedly unequal system of justice the DoJ is currently practicing.

In Trump v. United States, the Court is considering whether Donald Trump has immunity for actions taken while he was president.  The DoJ argued that the motive for presidential actions should determine whether immunity applies and that the discretion and good motivations of DoJ attorneys should be trusted to make that determination (try not to laugh).  Justice Alito questioned the wisdom of that argument, asking if the DoJ should be trusted, “given its history of abusive partisan prosecution.”  That is about as close as a Supreme Court justice will ever come to telling a government solicitor general that the latter has squandered his last ounce of credibility.

It appears that the Supreme Court justices are becoming aware that our justice system is now a tangle of broken constitutional promises and inconsistent legal decisions.  But do they realize that they helped create this mess?

When pundits complained about inconsistent decisions from the courts, and the obvious political biases at play, Chief Justice Roberts responded,

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.  What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.

Roberts was ignoring the early warning signs that a cancer was destroying our republic and advising the public to “ignore the lump, it’s nothing.”  But it’s not “nothing.”  Our republic was being eaten away by a malignant leftist tumor.  Roberts wishing it were otherwise didn’t make it otherwise.

When Democrat party operatives used hoaxes to attack a president and a nominee for the Supreme Court (Brett Kavanaugh), the justices should have realized the extent of our problem.  But as the election of 2020 approached, they seemed determined to continue “business as usual.”

When state election officials used the 2020 pandemic as justification to change election rules, several organizations filed lawsuits claiming that only the state legislatures are constitutionally authorized to make such changes.  But the Supreme Court declined to hear the cases.  Since the election hadn’t happened yet, nobody had been harmed; hence, there were no damages to be adjudicated.

After the election, in which an unprecedented number of irregularities occurred, Texas (and several other states) petitioned the Supreme Court to adjudicate the issues.  But the court ruled that since the irregularities hadn’t occurred in Texas, citizens of Texas were not harmed, and the state therefore lacked standing to file suit.

When audits of the election began to reveal problems, organizations again asked the Court to engage.  But the Supreme Court declined again, simply saying that the election had been certified, and the arguments were therefore moot.

I’m sure the justices thought they were being prudent and were protecting the reputation of the Court by staying as far away from a controversial election as possible.  If so, they placed protection of the Court over protection of the Court’s source of authority — the Constitution.  It was shortsighted — as we see in hindsight.

Avoiding the problems of 2020 only created much bigger trouble for 2024.  According to Rasmussen Reports, 1 in 5 people who voted by mail in 2020 admit to cheating.  Now few Americans trust our elections.

A lack of legitimacy didn’t stop the Democrats from working toward political hegemony.  The Democrats used their control of the Legislative and Executive Branches to attempt “fundamental transformation” of all three branches of government.  They came within two Senate votes of changing the nature of our government for decades — if not forever.  Had Senators Manchin and Sinema not balked, the Dems would have packed the Supreme Court, added two liberal states to the Union, and nationalized elections.

During all of this, the Supreme Court’s power to stand against “fundamental transformation” was waning.  When the Court attempted to constrain Executive overreach (i.e., student loan forgiveness), the president simply ignored it.  Democrat strategists are even arguing that “Popular Constitutionalism” is a legitimate way to interpret the Constitution.  They insist that the president has the authority to interpret the Constitution and may read into it whatever he wishes.  They say the president can decide that the Dobbsdecision was incorrect and declare that the Constitution provides an inalienable right to abortion.  “Popular Constitutionalism” is a giant red light that if the justices stay out of our current political civil war, the Court may become its first casualty.

We are at a constitutional cliff.  The Court aided our descent into banana republic status when it chose restraint over aggressive defense of the Constitution.  Should the Democrats consolidate control over the government in the next election, there is nothing in their behavior arguing that they will refrain from:

• adding four leftist senators,
• packing the Supreme Court with leftist finders of penumbras and emanations,
• arresting their political and ideological adversaries,
• ignoring all limitations imposed by the Constitution, and
• rendering the Supreme Court irrelevant for all time.

The Supreme Court needs to make radical course corrections now, because it failed to make minor adjustments when it would have mattered.

The Court’s desire to exercise restraint is an admirable judicial philosophy — in a well functioning republic.  When a car is running well, minor maintenance is the only appropriate action.  But when the car is on fire, it doesn’t need an oil change.  It needs emergency action.

Do the Supremes realize that the leftists have set our republic on fire?  The Court needs to stop looking for excuses for restraint and start looking for opportunities to stop the advance of tyranny.  This is the time for bold action — or after November there may be nothing left to defend but ashes.  They need to consider that as they deliberate on the cases before them.