Contemplation of Justice

In which I'm attempting to understand the Supreme Court's decision to hear Donald Trump's immunity appeal

We learned on Wednesday evening that the US Supreme Court decided they will need to consider Donald Trump’s immunity appeal in United States vs. Donald J. Trump, the criminal case being prosecuted by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith in the matter of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The gist of his appeal: because I was president at the time, I am immune from prosecution for my actions to overturn the 2020 election, up to and including that thing where I instigated a violent mob to disrupt a constitutionally mandated process to certify the electoral votes. 

The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal will delay the trial itself, which originally had been scheduled to start next week.

My layman’s understanding is that Jack Smith had anticipated this appeal, so he preemptively asked the Supremes to rule on the matter a few months ago. They said, well, it’s for the lower courts to decide, and then, a few weeks ago, the lower courts decisively and thoughtfully rejected Trump’s argument. (You should read that decision. It’s great.) Unsurprisingly, Trump appealed it to the Supreme Court, and instead of rejecting the appeal outright and letting the DC circuit court decision stand, now the Supremes said yep, we need to hear his arguments. Everything else in this case must cease. We’ll start our hearing in late April. We’ll issue our ruling a while after that, probably in late May or June. Your trial can start after this, Mr. Smith.

And there’s an election that will probably involve the defendant in November. Time is a-tickin’.

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INTERLUDE 1: It seems whackadoodle to me that 3/9ths of this court (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett) was appointed by one of the parties in the case (Mr. Trump). It seems even more whackadoodle that another 1/9th (Thomas) is married to someone who explicitly endeavored with that same party and his team to overturn the 2020 election, which is exactly the matter at hand.

This seems like a serious flaw in the system. In a saner system, at least some of these judges would recuse, but I can’t imagine any of these folks doing so. I also can’t help but think of how weird it is that Trump, a one-term unsuccessful president, will have such an outsize influence on the court for decades, due mostly to unfortunate timing of the deaths of Antonin Scalia and RBG and some serious chicanery by Mitch “For the Rich” McConnell.

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INTERLUDE 2: I'll take a moment to remind my fellow Americans — as if we could forget! — that when Justice Scalia died in February 2016, Mitch “For the Rich” McConnell said that we were too close to the election in November 2016, so the senate couldn't entertain a nominee for his replacement. Yet when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, McConnell said we really need to get a replacement in place before the election in November 2020, just six weeks later. So Trump was able to nominate both of their successors.

If anyone finds this scheming anything other than utterly corrupt, let me know how it works in your brain. I can’t resolve this. Apparently others can.

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Anyway, this Court of Supremes wants to hear Trump’s ridiculous immunity argument and thereby delay the case, almost surely beyond the November election. I’m simultaneously appalled and unsurprised by the decision, if that's possible. Even if they don’t ultimately accept his appeal, the delay only helps Trump. It is another reminder that in the Trumpian universe, the prime directive is always to protect and elevate this one strange, small-fingered blowhard of a man. More than immigration, taxes, the economy, jobs, foreign policy — the Trumpists’ policy priority is the well-being of Trump, the man. Trump-as-policy is surely how Trump himself thinks, it’s how the red-hatted masses think, it’s how the GOP congressional caucus thinks — and yes, it’s how four or more Supreme Court justices think.

This baffles me. It disorients me.

So friends, let’s not put our faith in courts, even Supreme ones, to hold Trump accountable for his crimes against us and our country, at least before the November election. The courts aren’t our answer. All that's left is for the people — we citizen voters; we the people — to repudiate Trumpism and its anti-democratic aims through our own supreme tools of power: our voices and our ballots.

I have to confess: I don't have that much faith in my fellows and me to wield those tools well. This lack of faith mostly stems from the knowledge that in 2016 and again in 2020, something like 70 million Americans succumbed to their own worst selves, cheered all the lowness, all the meanness, and with grunts and oinks and sneering delight cast their ballots for a man possessing the very worst characteristics that a person can possess, and the worst vision an American leader has ever had for this nation.

Our job is to outnumber them, decisively, in November, and forever. We might even convince some of them to burn their red hats and join our cause — surely some of them are uneasy with what the Republican Party has become and with whom that party elevates. It’s up to us, one-by-one, vote-by-vote, to keep our democracy out of the madman’s hands. I’m not that confident in us.

I am, however, pretty determined.

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Image Source: A detail from Contemplation of Justice, a statue on the Supreme Court Plaza, by James Earle Fraser. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Contemplation_of_Justice%22_(890405974).jpg