The Supreme Court just came down with some decisions that dealt Trump some blows but seemingly gave him some wins too–or did they? How do the Supremes view this president? Read on to find out what this Supreme Court probably thinks of Trump.
TRUMP IS A SEX OFFENDER. FULL STOP.
First and foremost, the Supremes were not willing to let Trump use them to whitewash his past. The high court refused to weigh in on Trump’s appeal in the E. Jean Carroll verdict in which a New York jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting and then defaming Carroll. This means Trump cannot erase the label of sex offender from his legacy. And Trump owes her 5 million dollars which she should get because the money has been held in a court-controlled account.
By-the-way, E. Jean Carroll has another defamation case against Trump that is currently working its way through the appeals process. In that case she asks for 83 million dollars in damages from Trump for continuing to defame her over and over again after the jury verdict in her favor in the NY case. With interest, that amount could reach 100 million.
BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP HANGS ON BY ITS FINGERNAILS
Second, despite Trump’s best effort to the contrary, birthright citizenship is still a thing in our country. If you are Born in the USA, you get to be a citizen of the United States. But don’t throw a party yet. This decision was too close for comfort.
The court found that Trump’s executive order last year targeting birthright citizenship is illegal under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
From the moment Trump got into office in his second term, he has been trying to severely limit birthright citizenship. It was one of his first imperial acts.
Trump’s order would have preserved birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. with at least one parent who is a citizen or lawful permanent resident, while excluding children born to parents who are both in the country illegally or temporarily, such as those in the process of acquiring visas.
But think about this: Folarin Balogun, our World Cup hero, wouldn’t have been allowed to play for team USA if not for the generous birthright citizenship rules in our Constitution.
Stephen Miller is the chief architect of this revisionist ideology about birthright citizenship. Miller was angry about the Court’s decision.
Miller criticized the ruling and defended a narrow interpretation of citizenship under the Constitution, calling it in a post on X: “One of the most destructive and outrageous decisions in the long history of the Supreme Court.”
“American citizenship is not the birthright of the world. It belongs only and solely to Americans,” Miller continued.” No provision of the Constitution can be read to require our national self-obliteration.”
Like Stephen Miller, Trump is part of a MAGA Republican/ Christian Nationalist movement on a mission to remake our country to be more like France- with a restrictive, purist culture that retains an un”tainted”, white-skinned, Christian heritage that we never in fact had. American Indians were the first Americans, you guys. Immigration has been the secret sauce that made our country great and innovative. Some of our most successful companies were created by immigrants like Steve Jobs. But if Trump and Miller get their way, you would get to be in the in crowd only if one of your parents was a citizen or lawful permanent resident already. They are trying to limit the big melting pot.
The MAGAs clearly do not want to allow a wide variety of nationalities and backgrounds into the in-crowd. They want a purist United States, limited to the settlers who came over on the Mayflower. Trump wants the white South Africans to join America but not the brown skinned Haitians.
RACIAL PURITY?
This ideology is uncomfortably reminiscent of Germany when Hilter ran that show. The Nazis passed laws to bolster German racial purity which paved the way to concentration camps and the holocaust to rid Germany of its “problem” people: Jews, gypsies and others who were labeled unacceptable, disposable, “less than” people. This is the same kind of thinking ICE is using when it arrests and deports people of color without allowing them due process hearings which they are entitled to under the constitution.
Autocrats also use this kind of divisiveness to keep The People from realizing they are being plundered by corrupt mega wealthy people. Look over here at all the Black, brown, Muslim, etc immigrants! They are taking away your jobs and your houses! As James Talarico points out, we need to be looking not at our neighbors next door who might have brown skin, but up at the oligarchs who are trying to distract us while they pick our pockets.
TRUMP’S MEGA CORRUPTION
Trump is one of them, of course. A big big one of them oligarchs. He amassed 2.2 billion in the first 17 months of his second term mostly from his crypto currency scams but other heists as well. A shocking level of corruption by any standard. To read more about how he is scamming you, click on this link from the Wall Street Journal: Trump Made $1 Billion on Crypto Deals While His Fans Lost a Fortune – WSJ
Bottom line: Trump is in charge of establishing the rules for businesses he is making lots of “deals” with. He is investing in companies and then setting them up to be successful here, using his influence as president to line his own pockets. He has openly invested in crypto -creating his bitcoins and crypto currencies-to enrich himself while his followers who invest in his coins have massively lost money. Just because he engages in corruption openly does not mean his activities are legal. But no one is stopping him because the people who have the power to do that are in bed with him. Our laws need to catch up to this level of grifting by a president.
That the Supremes rejected Stephen Miller’s vision for America by only one vote should terrify everyone who cares about progress towards a free and fair multicultural democracy. It should terrify Stephen Miller as well. Someone should tell that bratty guy that his forefathers did not arrive on the Mayflower and that Jews are always targeted when people romanticize racial purity.
THE POWER TO FIRE AND HIRE EVERY HEAD OF EVERY AGENCY- EXCEPT THE FED–WHY?
In a third decision that bugged Trump, the Supremes said he could not fire Lisa Cook, Fed board member. Yet they moved the country ever closer to their goal of having a Unitary Executive (autocrat/ king/ dictator) and shrinking our democracy by allowing the president/ unitary executive to get rid of anyone else who heads any other government agency that he doesn’t like (or who hasn’t paid him off enough.)
The Supremes just gifted presidents a massive power: the power to fire and to appoint the heads of every single government agency. This could usher in another Gilded Age era of spoils, corruption and payola if we have an unethical president. Duh. We do. Want an influential government job? Just pay the mob boss, our president, and get yourself appointed. The governmental system this Court just threw away had created decades of stable government with highly knowledgeable, apolitical workers who worked for the good of the American people. No more. Pay up and get a cushy job if the president thinks you are loyal enough to HIM.
The Fed was treated differently, though. Why? Because smart, empirical, fact-based administration of the Fed is important for the preservation and protection of wealth. This Court cares about mega donors, especially Republican mega donors, who have paid off and fully compromised at least 3 of these dudes: Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh. They would not want that role to be subjected to the whims of a president who is as corrupt as Trump clearly is.
This gift to fire and hire is on top of other gifts the Supreme Court already gave to presidents. They include the immunity decision which protects presidents from criminal liability for breaking the law if their acts are reasonably related to their presidential duties, and Callais, their nod to mid cycle re- gerrymandering to help Republicans get and retain more power in the House, and removing the independence of government agencies.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
In short, the power of the president has been greatly expanded by this Court. Of course, if a Democrat gets elected president, that Democrat will have all of these expanded powers as well. The very people Trump has put in charge of federal agencies could be gone in a heartbeat with a new administration run by Democrats. House cleaning. The same could happen again if a Republican administration returns to power after that. I think we will be sorry about setting up a president who is above the law and has such expanded power. It will come back to bite you when the other team takes charge. This approach to governance will undermine stability and institutional knowledge.
HELP FOR THE GOP TO FLOOD THE ZONE WITH MONEY SO THEY CAN KEEP POWER
The Supremes also decided to help out the Republican Party in the upcoming midterms by unleashing mega donor money into political parties. This will help Republican candidates get elected because the GOP has amassed so much more money from wealthy donors already.
Joyce Vance in her Civil Discourse Substack asked Marc Elias, who argued this case before the Supreme Court, what would happen if the Supremes voted for the result we just got. Here is what he said:
If the Court strikes down these limits, wealthy donors could circumvent individual contribution caps by routing massive donations through party committees that can coordinate directly with candidates. Political parties would become mere paymasters to settle invoices from campaign vendors. It would trigger a massive upheaval of our campaign finance system, right as the midterm campaigns are ramping up. It would further empower wealthy donors while threatening to drown out the grassroots activists that often power Democratic campaigns through small-dollar contributions.
This decision is Citizens United on steroids. Maybe it’s good news is that when the money flows into the coffers of political parties instead of superPACs, the money is not as dark- since the political parties must identify who is giving the money. But the sheer amount of money that will flow in now means that the Republican Party has a huge midterm funding advantage over the Democrats. They will use that money to vilify Democrats and confuse voters about who is on their side.
AMERICANS ARE CATCHING ON
The bad news for Republicans, however, is that their message sucks and Americans are catching on to how much it sucks.
Trump is arguably the worst possible messenger you could ask for as he brags about how much money he has amassed from crypto, his fancy new jet from Quatar, his giant ballroom and state of the art bunker he probably plans to hide out in when they come to remove him from the presidency, his ugly arch de Trumph, and so much more– while the American people struggle to pay their rent, buy groceries and put gas in their cars and trucks. In interview after interview of former Trump/ MAGA voters in places like Florida, these former Trump voters are expressing regret about voting for him and the MAGAs. Most of these are independent voters who thought Trump was going to make the economy better.
As Rapael Warnock just explained in a Senate hearing, the most recent Fox News poll shows that even Fox News watching Americans are experiencing a revelation about who this administration is helping.
“According to a recent Fox News poll, more than half of all voters feel that President Trump’s economy only helps rich people, with an additional 15% saying his economy helps no one,” Warnock said. “Consumer sentiment is near record lows. Ordinary Americans know Donald Trump’s economy isn’t working for them.”
SO, WHAT WAS THIS SUPREME COURT UP TO?
In case you did not detect a theme yet, spoiler alert, the Supreme Court decisions (these six rightwing justices) were designed to help the rich become even richer and retain power. Working Americans could go f–k themselves. The throughline of all of these decisions by the Court is to redesign the power equation of federal government to empower a kinglike president who can keep the rich and powerful rich and powerful.
But here’s the interesting part. I don’t think the Court is all in on Trump himself. He would not have been their first choice as a unitary executive (first unchecked king) to be above the law and rule America. Nonetheless, he was the gateway drug, the big bully, to get the system in place to dismantle democracy just in time for our country’s 250th birthday. For that reason, I bet they are happy that Trump came along and, with the help of Putin, who recognized his potential, became our 47th president.
BUT, HEY! HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, AMERICA!
TIME TO DECLARE OUR INDEPENDENCE FROM TRUMP AND THE MAGAS
We did this to ourselves by giving Trump a second bite at the apple. This time, without guardrails.
But we can get out of this mess by rising up to vote MAGAs and election deniers out of power in the midterms and vote in the hundreds of smart, capable Democrats who are running for the House and Senate. I have met many of these Democrats. They are good people. They are stepping up to run because they are farmers or used to work in the federal government themselves or other kinds of working Americans. They see the need to stand up for working Americans and fight back against the corruption and self-dealing that’s out of control in this administration.
These candidates are all fighters– each in their own way– who will represent their districts and work to help working Americans get ahead and hold Trump and his toadies accountable.
MY HOPE FOR THE 4TH OF JULY: MAY WE GET OUR $H!+ TOGETHER
The founding fathers had a lot of good ideas. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Freedom of speech. Fairness. All of us are created equal. And they tried to put in guardrails to prevent a king from becoming president. But they did not anticipate Trump, who is Dennis the Menace and a mob boss rolled into one and on steroids, a cowardly MAGA infested Congress, corrupt Supreme Court and the mega wealthy elites, all joining forces to take down our system and stress test our democracy.
But that’s what has happened to us on the verge of our 250th birthday, America.
Much of our system has failed to hold. But because it didn’t hold, we have a much better idea about what was too weak and why and how it can be fixed. I am thankful that we have not fully lost our democracy yet even though it is hanging on by a thread. We can still vote.
Thanks to Donald Trump, MAGA extremists, the guys who wrote and promoted Project 2025 and the DOGE bros who went too far too fast and were too greedy, Americans are rejecting what Trump has done to us. Americans aren’t even showing up on the mall in Washington, DC to “celebrate” our nation’s birthday because most of us get it that Trump hijacked that celebration, as usual, and tried to make it about himself. Trump turned our American birthday party into his own vanity project. Americans aren’t buying it.
Failure is a great teacher. We need to reimagine our democracy to make it stronger, more resilient and more durable. We can do that. Other countries in Europe have had to modernize their democracies too. Our system makes it harder to do, but it is do-able.
The first step on this road is to win back power in Congress which means we have to optimize the vote for Democrats this midterm election. This means knocking on doors, texting, writing post cards to remind people to vote, talking with friends and neighbors, making our own plan to vote, urging everyone to vote no matter how tough it is, supporting good candidates, joining the No Kings marches, and speaking out about how awful this administration is with everyone we can.
Happy Independence Day. Let today be our declaration of independence from Trump and the MAGAs.