Democracy, the rule of law, and the US Supreme Court, April 2024

Reddit.com screenshot from April 30, 2024. Article entitled “Legal experts: ‘Shameful’ Supreme Court puts US one vote away from ‘the end of democracy.’”

Since 2016, the blissfully non-autocratic, constitutional homeland of more than 300 million people who mostly claim to be patriotic and lovers of freedom has been teetering on the very edge of failure.

The US Supreme Court is weighing the question of presidential immunity, whether presidents can be held accountable for criminal acts, whether the distinction between “official acts” and private acts matters for accountability, and where the line between official acts and private acts is for Donald Trump.

(Here’s the deep link to the article in question.)

There are indications — including in the SCOTUS justices’ weak questioning on hypotheticals (why did no one ask, “If you rule that presidents are immune from prosecution for presidential acts with government officials, what’s stopping Joe Biden from throwing all of you justices in jail and picking 9 new judges?”) — that the Supreme Court will rule favorably for Donald Trump (or at least delay long enough) to get him off the hook for some of his criminal acts, which may include avoiding accountability for something like taking some of the United States’s most sensitive top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago, keeping them after becoming a private citizen, hiding a secret room behind a dresser and TV on the day of the FBI raid, and “losing” some of the documents.

People on Reddit agree the world is living through a dark timeline.

Screenshot of Reddit comments. Summary: “I can’t believe democracy is at stake because of Donald Trump.” Response: “Yeah you’d think it would be an intelligent smooth talker. Nope — career conman, moron with obvious immoral actions and tendencies is what unites the right.”

Screenshot of Reddit comments. Summary: Ironically, the Supreme Court has a majority group built from life-time appointments made by presidents who lost the popular vote by millions of votes (5 of 9 members appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote — Donald Trump and George W. Bush) and they were confirmed by a Senate where each state gets 2 votes (so two senators from Wyoming population 580,000 homogenous, mostly the same color, mostly the same religion, mostly the same background are worth the same as the two senators from California population 39,000,000 which would be one of the top 3 countries in terms of economy and size if it was on its own and has a wealth of people, viewpoints, and backgrounds). Is the “third strike against democracy” coming in 2024 as the long game pays off with SCOTUS justices willing to protect / pay back Donald Trump from being held accountable for his very real crimes?

At the end of the day, the question should be, did the person take an illegal action and what was the context and reasoning for that action. It is entirely possible such questions will not be addressed.

The magic of the Constitution is the rule of law, separation of powers, limited government, and separation of church and state. In one fell swoop, SCOTUS could establish:

1. that the law doesn’t matter for some people (so its the “rule of the king” again, not “rule of law,” just like pre-1776);
2. that the president is the top dog and the Supreme Court is his tool (so much for “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” if that happens);
3. that whoever is president has unlimited power (goodbye “limited government,” some kinda hypocritical Republicans, am I right?);
4. and that “truth” is whatever the president tweets that day (goodbye “separation of church and state,” goodbye freedom to practice religion according to personal beliefs, goodbye government of the people).

If such a ruling were to come down, the November 2024 election would be an inflection point in not falling into a dictatorship. And preventing dictatorship would still be a question, as the precedent of the Supreme Court ruling would still hang over the future.

This is specifically and exactly the scenario wise people meant when warning the Constitution could hang by a thread. They didn’t mean we should fear about losing a specific set of creeds, religious beliefs, or social practices— they meant, we could actually have a dictator one day, and that would be the end of widespread freedom.

God bless us, we’re gonna need it.