How Democrats Should Prepare For A Corrupt SCOTUS Trump-Immunity Decision

The Republican-appointed justices might not actually place Trump above the law, but Dems should be prepared to respond aggressively if they do.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Thursday’s Supreme Court oral arguments over Donald Trump’s claim to dictator-like prosecutorial immunity for the crimes he committed as president sent most liberals into paroxysms of outrage and despair.

Here was a thoroughly corrupted court—stuffed with justices nominated by popular-vote losing GOP presidents, including three of Trump’s own appointees—and instead of taking their oaths to uphold the Constitution seriously, they were test-driving arguments for the proposition that the president might actually have been above the law for over 200 years before anyone noticed. Maybe only a little above the law. But enough above it that Trump’s many indictments might have to be reviewed for months and months—well past the election—to protect the presidency from wanton prosecutorial abuse. Pity, that—though of course nobody disputes the January 6 insurrection was Very Serious Indeed, no sir.

After listening to the arguments,

Joyce Vance

concluded, “all paths seemed to lead to the bad place.”

My friends

Dahlia Lithwick

and Mark Joseph Stern wrote that the proceedings shattered a final illusion they’d harbored about the court—about where it would land if confronted with an all-or-nothing contest between Trump’s will and the rule of law.

The arguments were jarring to sit through, and it’s easy to understand why so many liberals are girding for the worst. But I’m both not certain we’re destined for a devastating pro-Trump opinion, and completely certain that liberals and Democrats can offset both the odds and consequences of a bad ruling, if they steel themselves to take some risks.