I've been thinking about all the things that got us to this point, where the conservative super-majority on the Supreme Court felt free to overturn a 40-year precedent that allowed the government to actually function efficiently and then, in the same week, was just fucking fine in giving a president "absolute immunity" to commit crimes as long as they fall within "official" duties. And let's be honest: They were giving Donald Trump and Republicans that pass. If a Democratic president had farted too loudly, this court would have found a way to have them executed immediately, and so it would be in the future.
But it wasn't one thing that got us here. It wasn't just the 2016 election debacle. Yes, you can fucking despise everyone who prevented Hillary Clinton from winning, from Trump voters to the New York Times to James Comey to Bernie Sanders' voters to Susan Sarandon, but it wasn't just 2016. You gotta go back. It was when Senator Joe Biden wanted to play nice with Republicans and allowed Clarence Thomas's nomination to get out of the Judiciary Committee he chaired. It was when Democrats didn't filibuster evil twatmite Samuel Alito's nomination despite having the votes to do it because they respected the process. It was when anyone who suggested Ruth Bader Ginsberg retire while Barack Obama was president was accused of ageism or sexism and silenced despite it being the fucking right thing to do (see Anthony Kennedy two years later). It was when Obama held Senate Democrats back from going to war over Mitch McConnell's complete fuckery, upending of rules and tradition and history, in refusing to even allow a vote on Merrick Garland's nomination. It was Democrats believing that comity and Reaching Across the Aisle and all that bullshit meant something when the lesson they haven't learned, since perhaps LBJ was in the White House, is that when you have power, you fucking use that power, and you do everything to achieve your goals, your opponent be fucking damned. And if you don't use power when you have it, if you don't use the big megaphone to rally people, if you don't find ways to get shit done, then you are unilaterally disarming.
The Supreme Court's decision in the incredibly symbolically named Trump v. United States case has no silver lining. Anyone who tells you that is fucking delusional. What's been set up by the Court in its division of crimes that are also official acts and unofficial ones is endless litigation over any charge brought against a former president for criminal acts. In one of the most fucked-up lines in any recent Supreme Court case (and there are a lot to choose from in the past couple of years), Roberts writes that court may not "deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." You got that? When you break the law, you commit a crime, but that doesn't matter. That line affirms Richard Nixon's frightening assertion that "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal."
This is nothing short of an attack on the very foundation of this country. One of the reasons we even fucking exist is to have a country where everyone is subject to laws and no one person, a king or queen, can merely act without regard to those laws. I mean, the majority on the Supreme Court essentially just did George III's job for him, like this is a last battle of the Revolutionary War. (I mean, the fuckers on the right are literally talking about a second American revolution.)
It's an extremist act from a reactionary Court that has set itself at the top of the government and our society, like the mullahs in Iran who really run that country (as long as they do the bidding of the oligarchs there, which still goes for the US). Look at the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the Loper Bright decision that overturned the Chevron case giving deference to federal agencies in enforcement actions. Both of those were attacks on expertise. Doctors and their patients don't know best. Pregnant people don't know best. People who have spent their lives as researchers and scientists and workers in a field don't know best. Only the courts do in their obvious boundless and infinite wisdom on every single subject. Everything must be filtered through, they hope, radical right-wing judges.
The Supreme Court is not superior to the President or Congress. It's co-equal. And Joe Biden and Democrats need to act like they are equal partners in this shit fight at the fuck factory we call "government." And here's when I say something some of you are not gonna like, but, fuck it, it's not like I haven't said it before: I don't think Biden's up to the task. This isn't about his age. He's never been up for this particular task, even before his age and faculties became such an issue. And I'm not talking about fantasies about what Biden, now untethered from being accused of crimes for his official acts, could do, like go Michael Corelone on all his enemies (look it up, kids).
Biden's an institutionalist. He believes in tradition and norms and rules, which are not bad things at all. But he responds as if his opponents have the same sense of the history of the nation and a devotion to the ideals of the United States when, truly, they don't give a fuck about anything but themselves and their idiot voters. Biden still makes a distinction between "MAGA Republicans" and what he believes are "good" Republicans, which would seem to just be Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins, and maybe or or two others, yet, with the exception of some abortion votes for Murkowski and Collins, the only distinction they have is that they don't support Trump.
Hell, in his speech on extreme weather this week, he said, "My predecessor and the MAGA Republicans in Congress are trying to undo all this progress. They still deny climate change even exists." And then later said, "Every single congressional Republican voted against the investments which created these jobs and combat climate change." So, really, the "MAGA" modifier is unnecessary since they all vote in lockstep on virtually everything. If you believe that piles of shit might have a gold nugget in there, you will dig through shit trying to find it and you will assuredly only come up with shit-stained hands.
When it comes to the Supreme Court, Biden has stated, repeatedly, that he doesn't support any kind of reform beyond some ethics rules (which, no doubt, would be a good thing). In his remarks on the Trump immunity case, he keeps talking about voting, which, yeah, absolutely, fucking vote in November. But that doesn't change the court unless Thomas, Alito, and Roberts retire during a second term. That doesn't overturn this decision until at least two of the conservatives are replaced by a Democrat. The same goes for abortion rights and for power being restored to federal agencies and so much more.
Democrats need to fire back at the Court and fire back hard. Drag the fuckers into the sunlight. Make Clarence Thomas's corruption an issue. Tie the majority with enemies of the nation. Fuck, I'd have an ad out already putting the six conservatives in British redcoat outfits. The Supreme Court is treated as if it's hands off when it comes to the filthy political world, except for "I'll pick justices like this one that I like." Fuck that. Call for impeachment of Thomas and Alito and say you can only do it if you get the majorities you need. Put it all on the table. Expansion, term limits, all of it. And everyone isn't on political social media or watching John Oliver explain it all for you. I guarantee that if you make an ad saying how fucking much Clarence Thomas gets from his billionaire sponsors, a fuckton of people will be getting that info for the first time.
Basically, fuck the Supreme Court. The fuckers wanna play? Fucking play.
Go even further to bring things back to what they're supposed to be. Propose an amendment to the Constitution that says the president must follow the laws. You're reading that and saying, "Yeah, right, that'll never happen." Think of all the shit the right has proposed that everyone thought would never fucking happen. It happens. You put the crazy dream shit out there and work towards it. You make it a rallying point.
And rather than follow Biden's lead and going high when they go low or what the fuck ever, Democrats need to get out ahead on this because Republicans sure as shit are trumpeting and celebrating that Donald Trump got the Court over the finish line on all these issues. Essentially, the Supreme Court has put in place everything the right needs to get Project 2025 operational. They just need Trump to win. It's the final piece to the puzzle. So, yeah, yeah, vote like the country's life depends on it. If it's Biden, fine. Fuck it. If it's someone else, like Harris, same. But when it comes to the Court, it's time to drag them back into the gutter with the rest of us.
