Beginning in the Obama era, liberals in politics and the news media began an insidious campaign of threatening the Supreme Court if it didn’t rule in their favor.
Liberals declared that the Supreme Court would declare itself illegitimate if it struck down Obamacare’s individual mandate. By that, liberals meant that they would declare the Supreme Court illegitimate if it didn’t rule the way they liked.
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Conservatives said this was bad. We were right. Our republic only functions if the people, especially the leaders, have faith that the courts are legitimate, even when we disagree with them.
Unfortunately, the lesson the Democrats and the Left took from Obama’s win in the individual mandate case was something else: threatening the court’s legitimacy is good, and it works.
They did the same about Roe v. Wade. Most famously, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) threatened the conservative justices by name, telling them they would “pay the price” if they struck down this decision that invented a right to abortion.
After someone leaked the decision to the press, a leftist traveled across the country to try to save Roe by killing conservative justices.
This was bad. This was very bad. Conservatives criticized it not just because they were advancing liberal overreaches, but because they were deliberately trying to undermine confidence in the court and work the refs with the threat. And they maybe almost got a justice or three killed in order to tilt a Supreme Court decision, which would be one of the worst things to ever happen in this country.
Now President Donald Trump is playing the same dangerous, short-sighted game.
Trump lost in the Supreme Court, 6-3. He tried to impose tariffs using a law that had never been used to impose tariffs and that didn’t mention tariffs. There are very fine arguments on both sides of this case, which is one reason there were very good justices on both sides of the decision. Trump lost, though, and in his temper tantrum has tried to undermine the validity of the court.
Here’s his more mild response.
In this one, Trump says he won’t capitalize “Supreme Court” because he doesn’t respect it — watch MAGA sycophants follow his lead. That’s just embarrassingly petty. He also calls the ruling “ridiculous,” “dumb,” and “divisive.” He calls the court “incompetent” and says justices “should be ashamed of themselves.”
Elsewhere, he said he was “ashamed of certain members of the court,” for their lack of “loyalty.” Then he called them “an embarrassment to their families” and accused them of being “swayed by foreign interests.”
This isn’t just worse than Schumer. This is worse than Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). And it is coming from the president.
Why is Trump behaving this way? In large part, Trump is best understood as the funhouse mirror reflection of the Democrats’ worst attributes.
But also, Trump sees everything as a transaction, and his only judge of another person’s virtue is their loyalty to Trump. You could literally murder someone on Fifth Avenue, and Trump would love you if you liked him.
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You could literally be an American war hero, and Trump will denigrate you if you oppose him.
The next president, Republican or Democratic, won’t be this bad in these ways, but everybody in politics is made a little worse by this lowering of standards.