AMAC EXCLUSIVE
The left’s longstanding war on the U.S. Supreme Court appears to be reaching alarming new heights—raising the stakes for a contentious election year in which Democrats are poised to ramp up their calls to pack the Court, smear Republican-appointed justices, and provoke a judicial legitimacy crisis that could have dire implications for the rule of law and the separation of powers.
The left’s escalation of their anti-Court crusade began in late February when the justices agreed to hear arguments pertaining to former President Donald Trump’s claim to immunity from criminal prosecution. Following the release of the Court’s February 28 order indicating that the justices would take up Trump’s request—which could potentially undermine Jack Smith’s legal persecution of the former president—Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans predictably flew into a fit of rage.
“The Supreme Court is placing itself on trial with its decision to hear the former president’s total immunity claim,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on X in an extraordinary claim. “It remains to be seen whether the justices will uphold the fundamental American value that no one is above the law – not even a former president.”
Former Republican Congresswoman and Trump critic Liz Cheney agreed: “Our justice system must be able to bring [Trump] to trial before the next election,” she said.
In a similar vein, The View co-host Joe Behar lamented the news as “depressing” and claimed that the Court’s willingness to take up the case signals that we are “alone in the universe” and shows that the Supreme Court is not “above reproach.” Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe similarly criticized the move as “supreme arrogance.” Slews of CNN and MSNBC guests likewise bemoaned the fact that the High Court agreed to hear the case rather than joining in the political crusade to “get Trump.”
Just days later, the left’s animus toward the High Court once again reached a new crescendo when the justices ruled in a 9-0 decision that Colorado does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally remove Trump from the state primary ballot. Democrat officials in Colorado and several other states had previously been attempting to remove Trump from their state ballots by arguing that Trump had engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, which they claim would disqualify him under the terms of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The Court said the states had no such authority.
“The Supreme Court has betrayed democracy. Its members including Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor have proved themselves inept at reading comprehension,” spewed former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. “And collectively the ‘court’ has shown itself to be corrupt and illegitimate. It must be dissolved.”
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen similarly condemned the unanimous decision—in which even liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the majority—as an instance of the Court “putting wind in Trump’s sails.” New York Times opinion columnist David French, meanwhile, melodramatically declared, “As of Monday, March 4, 2024, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution is essentially a dead letter.”
The left’s objectives with this all-out assault on the Court should be strikingly clear. By relying on histrionic rhetoric that insists the Court is “placing itself on trial” and must be “dissolved,” the left is not only ramping up its longstanding efforts to chip away at the Court’s legitimacy and dislodge its institutional integrity, but it is also trying to pressure the justices as they make upcoming decisions related to Trump. And always in the background is the threat that they will escalate their perennial bid to pack the Court with left-wing activists and partisan lackeys.
The left’s real problem with the Court’s decisions isn’t that they are not constitutionally sound (they are) but rather that the justices refused in this case to both legitimize the extralegal attacks on Trump and to advance the liberal effort to subvert democracy by denying voters the opportunity to choose their own leaders.
Americans should also pay close attention to how quickly the left has turned on the liberal justices as soon as they ruled in a way that Democrat partisans disagree with. Ketanji Brown-Jackson went from being hailed as a genius paragon of legal excellence during her confirmation just two years ago to being derided as “inept at reading comprehension” the very first time she ruled in a way liberals didn’t like.
To anyone who values the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the American constitutional order itself, these attempts to delegitimize the Court and strip it of its institutional integrity are jarring and dangerous. And although Democrats will almost certainly attempt to downplay their desires to expand the Court as campaign season ramps up ahead of the November election, voters should not be fooled.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
