The Illegitimate, Anti-American, Trump Court
Trump and the Republican Party own the reprehensible actions of this Supreme Court
This is Donald Trump’s court. It is illegitimate, anti-American, anti-Constitution and pro-corporate greed. The Republican-appointed majority has robbed the American people of their inherent power and rights. The Trump Court has placed Presidents into a separate class where they are immune from accountability for their actions, a special privilege not found in the Constitution and openly opposed by our founding fathers. This Trump Court has given global corporations new legal tools to tear down the rules that protect the American people from the physical and economic harm that they themselves cause.
Democrats and President Biden believe in a Supreme Court that serves the American people and upholds the Constitution. We believe that ultimate authority lies in the American people themselves. We believe that the freedom and equality of the American people takes priority over liberating our leaders from the constraints of moral conscience. We believe that the well-being of the American people and the survival of the human race take priority over the amassing of obscene wealth.
We believe in fairness and responsibility. We believe that everyone must be treated equally before the law and that no-one is above the law. We believe that we should all be held responsible for how our actions impact others. We believe in telling the truth. Democrat-appointed Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Brown Jackson have shown the American people how honorable Supreme Court Justice should behave.
We have a choice. If we elect Republicans, we will get more Supreme Court and federal judges who will rule for unchecked corporate and political power and against the American people. If we elect more Democrats, we will get more Supreme Court and federal judges who will respect and uphold the law and make the freedom, rights, and well-being of the American people their highest priority.
The choice could not be more clear.
Setting the Terms
Use the terms “the Trump Court” and/or “the Republican-appointed majority” to refer to the actions of this Supreme Court. It is critically important that we repeat these phrases incessantly to create a neurological connection between this Supreme Court’s rulings, Trump, and the Republican Party.
We need to make it absolutely clear that this is Trump’s court, and that Trump is responsible for its actions, NOT President Biden, despite the fact that these actions are taking place while Biden is President. This is important. Nineteen percent of voters blame Biden for the loss of Roe v. Wade due to this absurd misconception.
We can add descriptive terms like “Illegitimate,” “corrupt,” “anti-American,” “anti-Constitution,” and “pro-corporate.” These terms all invite further explanation as to what you mean, creating opportunities for you to elaborate on these themes.
For example: Why is it illegitimate? Two seats were stolen from Democratic Presidents by Republicans in the Senate. Trump Justices lied under oath in their confirmation hearings, when they claimed that they would uphold precedent in Roe v. Wade and other cases.
Why is it corrupt? Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito have failed to recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest. Justice Thomas has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes.
What Not to Say
Never use the acronym SCOTUS. Normal people have no idea what it means.
Do not call it a “MAGA” court. Using the term MAGA immediately signals to the listener that we are in an opposing political camp. A mental wall will go up, and everything we say will be dismissed as politically motivated.
Terms like “right-wing,” “extreme” and “radical” are far less effective, in that they are received by the listener as name calling and judgmental. Their negative connotations depend on where you stand on the political spectrum, and they tend to shut down conversation.
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Trump v. United States
Use the full name of the actual court case, “Trump versus the United States,” wherever possible, and point out that the American people lost. Others can give you much more detail on this, but the important points are as follows:
This ruling is a violation of the most fundamental American principle of equality before the law.
This ruling robs the American people of their protection from the abuse of political power.
The Trump Court ruled to make it essentially legal for former president Trump to break the law while in office, something he has clearly stated he intends to do. (Plenty of examples!)
This ruling allows Trump to escape accountability for having broken the law in the past.
This ruling has robbed the American people of the right to know whether Trump was guilty of serious crimes before the election, including multiple violations of the Espionage Act.
There is no constitutional basis for this ruling. They invented it out of thin air in opposition to the founding fathers’ clear intent to limit the powers of the President to prevent the tyranny of kings.
This ruling violates the separation of powers and checks and balances in our federal government, written in our Constitution.
Two of the justices, Thomas and Alito should have recused themselves due to their involvement in former president Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Corporate Interests v. The American People
New Trump Court rulings have taken a hatchet to the ability of the American people to use their government to limit harm caused by the actions of corporate decision makers. These rulings have overturned long-established precedent and invented new court powers and corporate rights out of thin air.
These are huge losses for the American people in a war we don’t even know we’re fighting. A coalition of business interests has been waging war on us for fifty years, to take away our power to create rules to protect ourselves and create economic fairness, because those rules might, in some way, impede their pursuit of limitless profit.
They love Trump, because his additions to the Supreme Court have given them a whole new batch of weapons to use against us.
How this works:
We elect representatives to Congress to make laws that protect us, like the Clean Air Act or laws that outlaw financial fraud. The Constitution empowers the executive branch to carry out those laws. Independent civil servants with professional expertise in those areas work out the details and make rules about how those laws should be applied and enforced. These rules are also made with a great deal of input by the American people.
Courts, on the other hand, have no expertise in these areas, and according to the Constitution, were not given the responsibility to decide how laws are to be carried out.
The Trump Court, in the following cases and more, has now taken authority away from agencies of the executive branch and seized that power for itself, opening a floodgate of lawsuits to invalidate scores of public protections: rules we need to make our society safe and fair.
Explainers
The “Major Questions” Doctrine
In West Virginia v. the EPA, the Supreme Court invented a brand-new legal principle called the “Major Questions Doctrine.” It says that if a set of rules would have a “significant financial impact,” the right to make those rules must be explicitly stated in the original law, even if that rule is necessary to carry out the mandate of the original law. If it is not explicitly stated, you can challenge the agency in court to overturn those rules.
In this case, Congress passed the Clean Air Act to empower the Environmental Protection Agency to create and enforce rules to fight pollution. To reduce carbon emissions to fight global warming, the EPA created rules that required power companies to shift away from coal-fired power plants to cleaner power plants. The Supreme Court decided that the EPA did not have that right.
The Trump Court gave itself a new power, the power to decide what constitutes a major question, essentially, to decide which rules will be revoked until Congress passes a new law to explicitly give that agency that particular right. This essentially kills the rules for the indefinite future.
Overturning the Chevron Deference
In Bright v. Raimondo, the Trump Court reversed the Chevron deference: a forty-year precedent cited in more than 19,000 cases, in order to grant the courts even more power to invalidate executive branch rules that it, or its financial backers, don’t like.
When laws are translated into rules, they get broken down into details that require an enormous amount of specific expertise. For this reason, courts have deferred to the experts in agencies when it comes to settling disputes about those specifics. Also, the executive branch, unlike the courts, is accountable to the voters if they don’t like the results.
In this ruling, the Trump Court decided to overturn the Chevron deference, opening the door to another flood of lawsuits in which companies can appeal to judges with absolutely no expertise, who now have the power to invalidate all kinds of rules.
Resetting the Clock on the Statute of Limitations
In Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Trump Court has essentially wiped out the six-year statute of limitations that used to exist on challenging new public protection rules. Now, a new company can sue to invalidate any rule, no mater how old, as long as the company was impacted by the rule for the first time less than six years ago.
No public protections will be safe from lawsuits, not even those that have been in place for fifty years.
And in case you forgot… (just kidding)
Overturning Roe v. Wade
The Trump Court was the first Supreme Court in the history of the United States to take away an established right from the American people. Between Roe v. Wade and Chevron, this court has demonstrated a spectacular disregard for “settled law.”
The actions of the Trump Court are anti-American.
Americans elect people to represent us and make laws on our behalf, laws that serve our needs and protect our rights. We have the right to a president who will obey and enforce our laws and our Constitution.
We have the right to a Supreme Court that will do what’s best for the American people, not overturn established precedents that exist to protect ordinary American citizens from being subjected to abuse of political power or crushed by the overwhelming power of concentrated wealth.
The next president will either be someone who upholds the law or breaks the law. The next president will most likely appoint two or more Supreme Court Justices. I can’t think of better reasons to fight like hell to re-elect President Biden and elect Democrats to every office at the federal, state, and local levels.
THANK YOU, as always, for reading, subscribing, and all that you do to make our world a better place!
In solidarity,
Antonia
Contact me about communications consulting and custom content at antonia@antoniascatton.com or (202) 922-6647.
NOTES:
This terrific article provides useful context on the ongoing war for corporate power.
E.P.A. Ruling Is Milestone in Long Pushback to Regulation of Business
By Charlie Savage, The New York Times, June 30, 2022
Details on the rulings:
In Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling, a fierce Sotomayor dissenting opinion. [Includes full text of dissenting opinion.]
By Rachel Barber, USA TODAY, July 1, 2024
Justices Limit Power of Federal Agencies, Imperiling an Array of Regulations
By Adam Liptak, The New York Times, June 28, 2024
A new Supreme Court case seeks to make the nine justices even more powerful
by Ian Millhiser, Vox, May 2, 2023
Supreme Court Extends Time Frame for Challenges to Regulations
By Abbie VanSickle and Adam Liptak, The New York Times, July 1, 2024
The Marbury Doctrine that the Supreme Court derived from its 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison has no Constitutional grounding: the Court simply usurped the power of legislative review for themselves. The Congress either made the decision that the Supreme Court could be trusted with this power, or they lacked the self-confidence to object. This absence of action established the tradition of accepting the Marbury "Doctrine" despite the Court's frequent failure over the years to live up to the trust that Congress acquiesced in giving them.
Two things cry out for finally making a change: 1. Trump demonstrated the frailty of Implicit traditions in the instance of someone unprincipled enough to ignore them; and 2. the Roberts Supreme Court, with its record of Consistently outrageous decisions, has arguably earned the title of worst in American history, wresting that disgraceful title from the Taney Court for its particularly outrageous decision regarding Dred Scott.
Consequently, if Democrats gain control of the federal government in the November election, they should also break implicit tradition and modify the 1803 Marbury Usurpation: legislate a mechanism that any Supreme Court decision affecting federal legislation will activate an automatic Congressional review--an opportunity, if they choose, to adjust the legislation to accommodate the Court decision or, with simple majority votes in both Houses, reject the Court decision in whole or in part. They should also establish a retrospective process to examine, for modification or reversal, past Court decisions (such as Citizens United, Dobbs, Heller, the Chevron revocation, or Trump v. United States). With these modifications the Supreme Court would still be allowed to offer a perspective on Congressional legislation, but not one that overrides the majority of both Houses. (Practically speaking, Congress would likely need to abolish the Senate filibuster to make this action possible. But the Senate filibuster has degenerated into the requirement of an automatic super-majority for legislative passage, which is grossly undemocratic. It should have been abolished long ago.)
Thank you for your Insights and for your inspiration.. To expand the impact of your idea, I offer –"The Trump Court: Counting You Out."
Antonia's column is welcome amid the essays on Trump Court cases, as well as whether Biden should go. Too often Trump's criticism omits action or constructive ideas and a reader is left more discouraged, rather than motivated. Antonia’s approach offers constructive criticism, essential for progress.
Camus's writings from WWII remain relevant today, in the context of navigating political and social challenges, Camus emphasizes the importance of finding principles that bring about justice and happiness in turbulent times. This resonates with Antonia's call to action.
I support encouraging people to engage in down-ballot campaigns and initiatives--and providing a menu of ideas on how to help, regardless where they live. If Trump wins, a Democratic US House and Senate would be vital in holding him accountable and preventing the erosion of our democracy.. Statehouse races would become critical for giving people, as in Red states, something to work on, platforms to organize around, and the campaigns himself offer megaphones to alert Americans about the Tru.
Antonia's writing can inspire and guide efforts in these areas, making her contributions all the more valuable.