How the Supreme Court is waging an all-out assault on democracy: analysis

24 May 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court suffered yet another controversy when the New York Times, on May 22, reported that properties owned by far-right Justice Samuel Alito displayed not one but two flags that could be interpreted as sympathetic to the "Stop the Steal" movement and former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The first, according to the Times, was an upside-down U.S. flag photographed outside Alito's home in Alexandria, Virginia on January 17, 2021. The second, an "Appeal to Heaven" flag, was seen outside Alito's New Jersey Shore beach house two years later. Both have been used by Trump supporters to symbolize an election they falsely claim was stolen from Trump.

The U.S. Supreme Court has leaned to the right for decades. Yet conservative Ronald Reagan-appointed Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, historians say, were not ideologues — and at times, sided with liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in landmark rulings. And many critics of the Roberts Court believe that it is now dominated by far-right ideologues.

In a biting article published on May 24, Mother Jones' Pema Levy takes an in-depth look at recent High Court rulings and argues that there has been a consistent pattern of anti-democracy decisions — from attacking reproductive rights to sympathizing with "racially-discriminatory gerrymanders."

"In the coming weeks," Levy explains, "the Supreme Court will wrap up a consequential term and issue decisions that are expected to undercut bedrock assumptions about each branch of government and create a new balance of powers — one that tips the scales toward an unassailable executive and an all-powerful judiciary. It began on Thursday, (May 23) as the Court gave states new leeway to discriminate against minority voters. The justices may soon add women's right to healthcare to the list of privileges that a state may deprive its citizens, another step that would turn the clock back to a time when the Constitution viewed states' rights as more sacrosanct than the rights of its people."

Levy continues, "Though the cases at issue address many different issues, a theme punctuating them all is that the Republican-appointed majority appears willing to do serious damage to American democracy. Two years ago, Americans enjoyed a fundamental right to an abortion. With that right since demolished, last month, during oral arguments in a case involving an Idaho abortion ban, several justices contemplated whether states can deprive women not just of elective abortions, but ones necessary to spare their uteruses, kidneys, and even their lives. It was a stunning and rapid reversal of fortune for women in this country — and one that cannot be squared with a healthy democracy."

On April 25, the High Court heard oral arguments on Trump's absolute presidential immunity claims. Trump claims that because he was still president in late 2020 and 2021, he enjoys total immunity from prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith's federal election interference case. And Levy fears that the GOP-appointed justices will further undermine democracy when they render their decision.

"It's unlikely that the justices will give Trump the sweeping immunity he seeks," Levy writes. "But what might be dubbed a compromise by the press — a ruling that allows some immunity for official acts, for example — would elevate the presidency above the law in certain situations, upsetting the system of checks and balances that undergird our system of government.…. When choosing between democracy and Trump, a majority of the justices look to be seriously considering picking Trump."

Pema Levy's full article for Mother Jones is available at this link.

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