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Legal experts: "Shameful" Supreme Court put US one vote away from "the end of democracy" (www.salon.com)

submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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"Unlikely Trump will ever be tried for the crimes he committed," says ex-Judge J. Michael Luttig

It’s not a hard question, or at least it hasn’t been before: Does the United States have a king – one empowered to do as they please without even the pretext of being governed by a law higher than their own word – or does it have a president? Since Donald Trump began claiming he enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, two courts have issued rulings striking down this purported right, recognizing that one can have a democracy or a dictatorship, but not both.

“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power – the recognition and implementation of election results,” states the unanimous opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, issued this past February, upholding a lower court’s take on the question. “Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and have their votes cast.”

You can’t well keep a republic if it’s effectively legal to overthrow it. But at oral arguments last week, conservative justices on the Supreme Court – which took up the case rather than cosign the February ruling – appeared desperate to make the simple appear complex. Justice Samuel Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, argued that accountability was what would actually lead to lawlessness.

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[-] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 34 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You gotta love the brazen, balls-to-the-wall craziness of the "accountability leads to lawlessness" argument. Especially coming from the supposed religious party, it's a stunning assertion, devoid of morality or even a sense of direction. It's just another version of the stupid fucking "too big to fail" argument.

The argument is this: Yes, the people in charge have committed crimes, but they're the top of the food chain now. If we take them out, there will be a power vacuum - the very chaos we are supposed to prevent! (no it's fucking not, retards, THAT's just the free market in action, you know, the thing you always masturbate about, you're supposed to be protecting these enterprises from falling into criminal behaviour, incentivising correct behaviour, and generally FIXING SYSTEMS not making them worse)

Idiots. What use preserving a corrupt system? It's just an admission that they're paying you. "Why would I change it now that I'm in a position to benefit from it?" Here's why: accepting money to hurt your own people is TREASON. Put that shit in your pipe and smoke it.

[-] blazeknave@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I agree with everything but don't use the R word

this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024

576 points (97.5% liked)

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