1/ I often write: The only thing I know *for certain* about the future is that it has not happened yet.
Yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling is a perfect example of how much I need to heed my own mantra.
For years, I heard Donald Trump was saying that he was certain that “his Supreme Court justices” . . .
2/ . . . would ride to his rescue. I scoffed at his “stupidity” and “naïveté”, confident that he did not understand how Supreme Court justices worked. I felt comfortable that “conservative” Justices would care more about their jurisprudence and institution than protecting one man. I thought SCOTUS
3/ . . . would deny cert. and leave the DC Circuit’s opinion in place. I was wrong.
I thought that SCOTUS would quickly dispatch of Trump’s appeal, perhaps in tandem with deciding the Insurrection Clause challenge to Trump’s candidacy. I was wrong.
I thought that even if though there . . .
4/ . . . was delay, that only meant that one or two Justices (likely Alito and/or Thomas) were doing Trump’s dirty work by withholding their dissents to the last possible minute, in order to make it impossible for Judge Chutkan to conduct the trial before Election Day. I was wrong.
I was a naive fool, too. What the hell happened to our profession? Was it all just idealistic nonsense masking a cynical, corrupt system all along? Or has it become corrupted by patient fascists playing the long game? I'm 34, so maybe I just hadn't picked up on the true nature of things yet
Souter and O'Connor were disappointments. When Souter turned almost liberal and O'Connor refused to overturn Roe, the FedSoc vowed to never let an unknown entity on the court again. The backlash to Harriet Miers is indicative of what they saw as their right to control the court. Never again.
