Biden doesn’t have to agree with Supreme Court to support it

“The job of a president is to lower the temperature.”

Joe Biden said that, back in August of 2020. He was calling out then-President Donald Trump and his comments regarding clashes between Black Lives Matter protesters and Trump supporters in Portland.

Biden needs to revisit those words — and look in the mirror as he does so.

The climate in America isn’t as incendiary as it was in the days following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. But public sentiment is heating up in the wake of Supreme Court draft decision leak last week, indicating that the High Court may rescind Roe v. Wade.

And what started as protests in the public square across the country — from city streets to the steps of the Supreme Court — has escalated into demonstrations outside the homes of Supreme Court justices, and a violent attack on an anti-abortion group’s office in Madison, Wis.

President Biden, it’s time to lower the temperature.

That calls for more than boilerplate statements.

“The president has made clear throughout his time in public life that Americans have the fundamental right to express themselves under the Constitution, whatever their point of view,” a White House official told The Hill after the Madison incident.

“But that expression must be peaceful and free of violence, vandalism or attempts to intimidate,” the office added.

Do you know what else Biden considers fundamental?“I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost 50 years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned,” Biden said.

The stability of our nation demands that its leader not undermine its institutions, however he may disagree with their actions.

When Trump was in the White House, the media regularly took him to task for undermining the country’s democratic standards.

CNN had this to say in 2019: “It’s important that Americans have faith in the justice system and respect for laws. People need to follow laws, and the justice system might put them in jail if they don’t. But Trump’s fixation on the ideas that the FBI spied on him and that the Russia investigation was politically motivated — though there’s no evidence for either — makes people doubt that any part of the government can be free of politics. That’s a dangerous precedent.”

But as CNBC reported, Biden has figured out a way to do an end-run around the High Court, should Roe be rescinded. Biden called for the election of “more pro-choice Senators and a prochoice majority in the House” to pass federal legislation that would ensure the right to abortion.

So the authority of the judicial branch of government can be diluted if the party in power disagrees with a decision?

That is a dangerous precedent. According to the Hill, the White House Monday also expressed support for Supreme Court justices after protesters chanted outside the Washington, D.C.-area homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts over the weekend

.“Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted.

Biden should do what he wanted Trump to do — rigorously step up to support the Supreme Court and underscore the need to respect the institution.

To do anything less is an unsavory precedent.