As the Trump Era drags on, I find the interesting thing is that it makes liberals more conservative.
First, they’re starting to realize the value in preserving institutions and traditions, as opposed to replacing the entire government with radical ideologues and cronies, not to mention, having a Supreme Court that takes the plain text of the Constitution and says “this just means whatever I want it to mean.”
Second, they’re starting to realize that an all-powerful government that can do anything (to anybody) is a danger to liberty, at least as long as they’re not running it.
Third, they’re realizing they can’t trust the mainstream “liberal” media. And this at least is consistent with the leftist point that the media is just another Big Business that is out to promote its business model and keep access to power. And since the business model of “news” is less information than entertainment, it’s in the MSM’s interest to have an entertaining buffoon in the White House as opposed to a dull functionary like Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.
The problem for them is that the buffoon in question is a dysfunctional man-baby who would put them in jail for making fun of him, and if he gets re-elected, there’s not going to be anyone who will stop him from doing it this time.
But then our media wouldn’t be the first would-be stringpullers who enabled a pathological demagogue in hopes that when they’d helped him remove all the guardrails against absolute power, that they’d be able to control him.
Everyone could see that not only was Biden having a truly terrible night at the CNN debate, but the two “journalists” they hired to witness it would not even attempt to fact-check Trump in real time, even as they ran interference for him by cutting Biden off for time, among other things. We can say that, but nobody forced Biden to go to that debate and stare wide-eyed and slack-jawed every time Trump was on the mic. Granted this is a natural human reaction at Trump’s capacity to machine-gun hose the air with bullshit. But as someone who’s watched TV debates, let alone participated in them, Biden should have known the cameras were going to show him and his opponent side-by-side for contrast, cause that’s what they do.
Trump is a vicious little bully who lies with every word that comes out of his mouth, including “and”, “the” or “Donald Trump.” It would be more instructive to recount those blue-moon occasions where Trump says something objectively true (like, Hillary is crooked) or that he sincerely believes (like, Putin respects him). As Bill Maher said, “he never would have been able to get away with that if Joe Biden was there.”
It was so damn bad that the New York Times – which apparently is still mad Biden wouldn’t give them an interview – felt compelled to present an Editorial Board opinion that Biden had to step down. So, after a whole weekend, what is the public’s opinion of this crushing media offensive on Biden?
USA Today showed Trump up three points where the candidates had been virtually tied. Data For Progress showed Trump up three points against Biden (and incidentally, in hypotheticals, he was also up 3 against Kamala Harris and more than that against other prospective Democrats). The NYT itself was still showing Trump only 1 point ahead of Biden in Wisconsin. In the Morning Consult poll, Biden’s numbers actually went UP.
And I have no doubt that the Biden-Harris campaign is raising more money than ever, if only because it is now impossible to avoid the fact that our nation is just one step away from answering the question, “What if we had a dictator who was written on ChatGPT?”
How? How is it that this debate hasn’t killed Biden? Well, I’m starting to think that the defining aspect of the Trump Era, Trump’s completely unjustified capacity to avoid the political consequences of his actions, is finally starting to accrue to the other guy. Just as everybody knows that Trump is a racist, rapist, Russian-sympathizing, pathological liar, mental defective and career criminal who wallows like King Pig in a pool of his own shit, and that’s why we love him so, Joe Biden is real old and that’s built in to his position. Criticizing Biden for being real old is like saying Bill Gates is real rich. It’s almost beside the point now. Expecting him to have a “senior moment” is no more momentous than Trump zoning out in the middle of a speech. On balance, it happens a lot less often. And every time the media exposes Trump’s malfeasance, his fan club rallies around him because the collective “They” are picking on their sweet little boy when it’s only pointing out the obvious. Well, now you see Biden getting people to rally around him because it seems like the media are picking on him in his moment of weakness. It’s not like they don’t have evidence. After all, it’s not like the Times told Trump to quit the race after he was convicted of 34 felonies.
But it’s probably a case of the same motive that the Trump club has in standing by their man no matter what: Because they’re scared to death of what happens if Those People win. And in the case of the Left (which now means anybody who’s not a Trump cultist) they have far more cause.
One of my friends told me the other day that “now I’d vote for Biden even if it was a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ thing.” I said, “it may come to that.” I don’t know if Biden will even get past 2025. But just as long as he gets past 2024, I’m still voting for him.
But we need more than that. After all, the whole reason that Trump won the first time is that being “not as bad” as Donald Trump was simply not enough. And we’re going to need more than that if Republicans are going to keep raising up people like J.D. Vance who are just as unethical as Trump but younger and smarter.
You would think, with the backbench that the Democratic Party has, can’t they find a national candidate who isn’t corrupt (like Bob Menendez), a dull political hack (like Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris), incredibly old (like Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders) or all of the above (namely, Hillary Clinton)?
This matters for the coming election, not to mention the next one after that, assuming there is one. Because this is all affected by the big news from Monday. The Supreme Court finished its term, a good weekend past the last Friday in June, and waited until July 1 to display its conservative consensus on the question of Trump’s presumed immunity from prosecution and investigation, waiting that long possibly because they knew no one would like the result.
In the case, aptly titled Trump v. United States, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf the Samuel Alito Court ruled for Trump, and therefore, against the United States.
The Court has made a blanket ruling that anything the president does as an official act – by his own definition – cannot be prosecuted, and materials related to such action cannot be used as evidence against him. As others have pointed out, this ruling would have invalidated US v. Nixon.
However SCOTUS remanded to the District Court the question of whether “a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” Thus not exactly killing, but also not disputing, the premise that a president who is sworn to uphold the Constitution can, let alone must, use his authority to overturn a lawful Constitutional election just cause it didn’t go his way.
The Chief Justice (technically John Roberts) wrote in his opinion for the Court that “The president occupies a unique position in the Constitutional scheme.” “Then, misreading the design and purpose of the Constitution itself, he argues that the Framers “sought to encourage energetic, vigorous, decisive and speedy execution of the laws’ by placing in the hands of a single, constitutionally indispensable individual the ultimate authority that, in many in respect to the other branches, the Constitution divides among many.” that there “exists the greatest public interest’ in providing the president with ‘the maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially with the duties of his office…. (T)he nature of presidential power,” Roberts explains, “requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the president’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute.” That immunity would ensure that “when the president exercised… authority, he may act even when the measures he takes are ‘incompatible with the expressed or implied will of the Congress’…. And the courts have ‘no power to control the president’s discretion when the acts pursuant to the powers vested exclusively in him by the Constitution.’”
Thus presenting the truly astounding theory that the legislature is exercising too much power, while the president, be he Republican or Democrat, is not exercising nearly enough.
The party of constitutionalism and small government, ladies and gentlemen.
And in order to assert this “decisive” agenda, the Alito Court – the ‘textualist’ and ‘originalist’ Court – is asserting a premise found nowhere in the Constitution, not even implied in the Constitution, not even in the common and dangerous civil tradition that the president should not, and therefore never will be, investigated for suspicion of real crimes. Now even that tradition is replaced with the force of a ruling that comes not from the legislature or executive order, but the judiciary.
In other words, they are legislating from the bench, which apparently is the worst thing in the world when a liberal judge does it but seems to be the expected function of a conservative justice.
This was pointed out by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent, pointing out the very nightmare scenarios raised by her, and by the lower court justices, in their questioning of Trump’s attorneys, on questions that the majority has just decided in the affirmative: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
Left unsaid in Sotomayor’s dissent was the obvious: If the president fires Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas, or for that matter, Sonia Sotomayor, he’s immune.
You might say, the president doesn’t have such power in the Constitution, but what difference does that make, when you, the Court, have decided that anything the president does as an official act cannot be challenged except by impeachment and then a two-thirds conviction vote in the Senate, which will require at least a third of the president’s own party to defect, which is NEVER going to happen?
What is the argument against the point that you, the Court, have declared that Article II in fact DOES mean the President can do anything he wants?
The fact that the conservative majority seems to think that Joe Biden will not abuse the power they have just given him before he leaves office only betrays the bad faith of their argument: Not every president can be trusted with such power.
This only confirms that we are never going to get justice against Donald Trump from the judiciary, which had always catered to Trump in his civilian career even before he had the power to appoint his own judges. Which means the only chance of holding him accountable, whatever one thinks of Joe Biden’s more-obvious-than-ever weaknesses, is to vote for Biden against Trump. After all, if Trump is above the law while in office and can do anything he wants while in office, the obvious step is to make sure he never gets back in office.