CONSERVATIVE SUPREME COURT FREAKOUT A SHAM
At the moment of their sweetest victory, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court appears to be freaking out. As they prepare to overturn Roe v. Wade as part of a grand project of social retrogression, they and their defenders seem shocked by the idea that anyone would consider their actions to be political.
But that’s exactly what they are. And we should stop pretending otherwise.
After a draft opinion overturning Roe was leaked to the media, conservatives brayed their feigned outrage at the supposed desecration of the leak itself, even though it might have come from the conservative side to lock in the five-vote majority for that position. In the days since, the leaks have kept coming — and now they’re obviously from the conservative camp.
In the latest, Politico reveals that none of the justices changed their minds since Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft circulated in February, yet other conservatives are deeply saddened by what has happened since it leaked. Sources close to the justices say they are “heavily burdened by this.”
Speaking at a conference, Justice Clarence Thomas warned that the court can’t let itself get “bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want.” He also said that as a society, we must learn to live with “outcomes we don’t like.”
This is the man whose wife was deeply involved with the effort to overturn the 2020 election because it didn’t produce the outcome Republicans wanted. He also poses for pictures with Republican candidates. He officiated at the wedding of his friend Rush Limbaugh, which was held at Thomas’s house.
This is the most profoundly political court you could imagine, yet at every step the right expresses outright rage at the idea that anyone would consider them political. On Fox News, speakers positively vibrate with fury over peaceful protests outside a couple of the justice’s homes, bringing politics to their doorsteps.
It’s a bizarre contradiction, one that goes beyond mere hypocrisy. For decades Republicans put capturing the courts at the center of their political project. They use it to motivate their voters in every election. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell bragged that “one of my proudest moments” was his refusal as majority leader to allow President Barack Obama to fill a vacancy. They reject nominees seen as insufficiently conservative, and celebrate those who are.
Above all, we’re here now because Republicans never stopped treating the Supreme Court as profoundly, entirely political, in a way Democrats failed to do. And yet Republicans will deny it until their last breath.
Is it because they feel guilty? No, Republicans don’t feel guilt. Do they think we’re all stupid? Maybe, but that’s not it.
The real reason is that it’s more important than ever for the right that the court retain its legitimacy. The more it’s seen as an arm of the conservative movement enacting a right-wing political agenda, the greater the threat to its image as a neutral arbiter of the Constitution. And the greater the possibility of reform, such as term limits for justices or an expansion of the court.
They want us all to view each new ruling as inevitable and pointless to fight against, existing in a lofty realm politics cannot touch. If we accept that, then they win.