BREAKING: Trump walks into Biden's Supreme Court trap
It's all happening
Last week in this space I argued that Democrats should make the Supreme Court a centerpiece of their campaign messaging this year. Today, The Washington Post reported that President Biden is on the verge of announcing support for Supreme Court reforms including term limits and an ethics code. That would be a huge shift for Biden, an institutionalist who has been reluctant to embrace Court reforms. It is indicative of the growing momentum for Court reform and reflects the widespread public outrage with the Supreme Court’s Republican supermajority.
From a policy standpoint, term limits and an ethics code are worthy reforms, but they aren’t sufficient: They wouldn’t disempower the right-wing extremists who control the Supreme Court and are using it to attack the freedom and wellbeing of the American people and dismantle democracy itself.1 But they are major reform proposals, and Biden deserves recognition and credit for embracing structural reform.
But what really caught my eye today was Donald Trump’s reaction to the news about Biden embracing Court reform:
Trump is fully embracing the corrupt Supreme Court and denouncing reforms that are extremely popular with the American people: Polls consistently find roughly two-thirds of Americans support term limits for the Supreme Court, and ethics reforms are even more popular.2
Embracing the MAGA Supreme Court is exactly what I expected Trump to do, and it’s a big part of why I think taking on the Court can be such an effective campaign issue for Democrats. Here’s how I explained in a piece for United for Democracy back in April:
The court as an institution is deeply unpopular among a broad swath of the electorate: Disapproval of the Supreme Court exceeds 60 percent among Democrats, Independents, liberals, and moderates – everyone except Republicans, more than 60 percent of whom approve of the court. Individual justices – particularly Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito – make for classic campaign villains, issuing cruel and unpopular decisions while hobnobbing with billionaires on all-expenses-paid luxury vacations. All of that adds up to a rare opportunity for Democrats to appeal to the left and the center simultaneously with an aggressive campaign critique of the Supreme Court. It can be both a persuasion and a turnout message – and because Republican candidates and voters like the court and revere justices like Clarence Thomas, GOP candidates can’t easily co-opt or duck such a critique.
Republicans like Donald Trump love the GOP Supreme Court because they’re working hand-in-glove with it to ban abortion and attack American democracy. They won’t distance themselves from the Court because they are the Court. Meanwhile the rest of America is outraged and disgusted by it. It’s a perfect campaign issue for Democrats.
Trump-Thomas 2024. That’s the real Republican campaign ticket this year.3
As I concluded last week:
From abortion to Trump immunity from prosecution for his crimes to eviscerating the Voting Rights Act and the government’s ability to ensure Americans have clean air to breathe and water to drink, the Republican Supreme Court has issued a steady stream of deeply and justly unpopular edicts that are fundamentally reshaping America and paving the way for a Trump autocracy, all while indulging in the kind of flagrant corruption only those who believe themselves accountable to none would dare exhibit. The result is intense and broad public disapproval of the Court, and a classic potential wedge issue with the left and center alike angry at the GOP Court and the Republican base reverential towards it.
Trump and the Republican Supreme Court are joined at the hip substantively. Democrats should aggressively ensure they are just as closely linked politically.
If Sam Alito, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas never hobnobbed with a right-wing billionaire they would still have gutted the Voting Rights Act, overturned Roe v. Wade, and given Donald Trump immunity for his crimes.
The Marquette Law School poll (the public poll that most frequently surveys public opinion relating to the Supreme Court) found last year that 54 percent of Americans support increasing the number of justices on the Court.
JD Vance is a malevolent and noxious disgrace whose presence atop the formal ticket reinforces Trump’s hostility to abortion and gay people but mostly seems to be an effort (wildly successful so far) to firm up Trump’s support among some of the nation’s most odious billionaires, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel to Marc Andresssen.
And the MAGA party leader picked Vance because the misses is a litigator herself, having clerked for Kavanaugh and Roberts and was the Heritage Foundation pick!
Biden needs to hit the Supreme Court issue HARD in order to win some of the independent and uncommitted Republicans. It IS a another issue as polling has shown.