Donald Trump has gotten into a tangle with nearly every important US democratic institution.
The ex-president now poses the largest challenge to the US Supreme Court’s precedents to date.
The issue concerning the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump’s name from the ballot due to the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist” provision will be heard by the nine justices on Thursday. This judgement has crucial ramifications for the 2024 election. In light of a lower court’s rejection of Trump’s desire for ultimate presidential immunity in relation to his attempts to rescind the 2020 election on the basis of his fraudulent allegations of voter fraud, the Supreme Court may also decide by early next week whether to hear an additional appeal from the president.
Justices could be drawn further into a presidential election than they have been since the disputed 2000 election in favour of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush over then-Vice President Al Gore due to two highly consequential and politically contentious issues. Its foray into campaign politics may have more far-reaching historical consequences than the case that ended a contentious post-election era twenty-five years ago. No one would be shocked if the court gets further involved in the partisan dispute before or after November’s presidential election, assuming Trump is nominated by the Republicans, considering Trump’s history of rejecting election procedures and outcomes.
Generations of delicate rulings on politically charged subjects, such as voting rights, desegregation, interracial and same-sex marriage, health care, and most lately abortion, have made the idea that the Supreme Court is independent of politics seem archaic. However, Trump has gone above and beyond any modern president in his bold rejection of the idea that judges have a responsibility to uphold the rule of law rather than engage in party politics.
Every time he wants to rely on or undermine institutions that can limit his power, hold him accountable, or contradict his constantly spun alternate realities, the four-time criminally indicted Trump sets out. He has damaged their supposed reputations for being above the fray by ensnaring them in his hatred and lies.
He accuses the system of being rigged whenever he loses an election, calls the press’s reporting of the facts “fake news,” portrays investigations into him as witch hunts, cautions the grand jury against bias when he is indicted, and blames the entire court system for his legal losses. The central theme of a presidential campaign is around the idea of victimisation. The candidate claims to be politically persecuted and plans to use his second term to exact revenge.
How Trump Utilises Referees
On Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments, and the justices are prepared, even though Trump isn’t anticipated to be there.
In all of his high-profile prosecutions, the former president has made it his mission to cast doubt on the impartiality of the judicial system. For example, during his New York civil fraud trial, he had many rows with the judge and would often criticise the judge, his staff, and the case during court recesses. A jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll an astounding $83 million in a defamation case last month, and Trump stormed out of the courtroom just moments before the verdict. Immediately following the unanimous rejection of Trump’s unusual and anti-constitutional claims of total immunity by a Washington, DC, appeals court this week, the eldest son of the former president, Donald Trump Jr., challenged the judges’ credibility. The court had already rejected Trump’s efforts to derail the 2020 election. “This partisan hackery is shocking no one who has been watching, but here we are,” he wrote on X. The Supreme Court needs to intervene, Judges have issued gag orders to safeguard the credibility of the proceedings in multiple cases involving the older Trump.
Due to the ex-president’s immense influence over his followers, millions of people blindly believe his lies and begin to suspect corruption in important government agencies. The result is a further weakening of the rule of law and the American political system. Many supporters, particularly within his political base, fail to recognise the seriousness of Trump’s claimed transgressions as a result.
