The Craven Cowards on the Court

Has the nation ever seen such a collection of frightened mice?

The majority of the justices on the Supreme Court are not ideologues so much as they are cowards.

It does not really matter whether the Trump administration sticks to originalism, federalism or any other -ism than the so-called conservative justices once embraced or decried. It does not really matter whether the administration invents legal positions out of whole cloth or sticks to the letter of the Constitution.

Nothing matters for these justices, other than not picking a fight with Donald Trump. Why? Because the justices, from Chief Justice Roberts on down to every other Republican appointee, is terrified of being exposed as irrelevant.

This is why the court keeps giving Donald Trump almost everything he wants, consistently overruling lower courts when the administration appeals on an emergency basis. Today, it ruled that the president can move forward to dismantle federal agencies, fire federal workers and reshape the federal government at will. As The NY Times writes:

The decision followed a major ruling on June 27, when the Supreme Court limited the ability of judges to block President Trump’s policies nationwide.

In recent weeks, the justices have issued other emergency decisions allowing members of the Department of Government Efficiency to gain access to sensitive records of millions of Americans held by the Social Security Administration; ending a humanitarian program intended to give temporary residency to more than 500,000 immigrants from countries facing war and political turmoil; and granting, for now, Mr. Trump’s request to remove the leaders of two independent agencies.

Let’s be real about why this is. None of it has to do with the rule of law or any of these right-wing justices deeply held views about the power of the executive. You can bet your last dollar that if this were Joe Biden trying to ram these policies through, these exact same justices would twist themselves into pretzels to stop him — as they did many times.

I am not a lawyer but I have been around politics my entire adult life. And I can spot craven politicians from a thousand miles away. These justices, however they want to pitch themselves, are not acting as arbiters of the law. They are acting like scared elected officials.

But, you might say, they are not elected. They are in their high office for life, insulated from the fear of being deposed by the voters. What could they possibly have to fear?

Here is what: they know, better than anyone, that the Constitution is only as good as the compact of all three branches of government to abide by it. If any one of the other two branches — but especially the executive — moves against the third, the separation of powers that holds each of the branches accountable will be severed.

Trump has made it quite clear that he will move against the judiciary if it issues a ruling he does not like. He will simply ignore it, as he has repeatedly ignored the orders of lower courts. And the one thing these justice do not want is a confrontation with a president who will expose them as irrelevant if he does not like what they have to say.

These are the people tasked with upholding our rule of law. These are the justices who represent a co-equal branch of government meant to keep a despotic executive in check. These are the representatives of our Constitutional order.

What a bunch of scared little mice they are. What a disgrace to the ideals upon which this nation was founded. What a tragedy for a country that has long held itself up as being a nation of laws, and not of men.