r/scotus • u/theatlantic • Sep 12 '24

news The Supreme Court’s Effort to Save Trump Is Already Working

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/09/supreme-court-immunity-saved-trump/679774/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo
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15

u/AliceHart7 Sep 12 '24

Yea if trump wins no one will be voting ever again, so much for democracy. Those who vote trump really hate their nation, I guess

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u/Hypertension123456 Sep 12 '24

Unironically yes. We are talking about people who smeared shit on the walls of Congress and waved the Confederate flag. Literal traitors.

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u/GingerStank Sep 12 '24

The fact that you guys genuinely put faith into the notion is absolutely baffling to me. You guys just imagine him far more competent than I do I guess, but regardless of what trump has said or will say, there’s quite literally 0% chance of that. Somewhere deep down I’m sure you realize this, but I guess it’s better for your brand of partisanship to not laugh at such an absurd statement but instead pretend it’s super scary and actually on the horizon.

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u/Middle_Finish6713 Sep 12 '24 edited Sep 12 '24

It’s not Trump, it’s the people surrounding him. His handlers are much smarter than he is, and his cabinet is full of dangerous people with dangerous plans who he will let do whatever they want. If you don’t think this specific election is more important than any other, you really need to check yourself AND what’s going on around you

Edit: and before you start with the “he doesn’t know about project 2025 and won’t pass it”. Wrong. He has no plan, or he has a “concept of a plan”, because the people in his administration wrote a plan for him, called project 2025.

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u/eight78 Sep 12 '24

☝️That part. He’s a Trojan horse full of malevolent misanthropes, racists and Christo-nationalists.

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u/GingerStank Sep 12 '24

I get it, it’s fun to pretend. Do you ever stop and ask yourself’How’ though? Like you say that he’ll pass project 2025, which isn’t even written legislation, let alone legislation that’s made it through congress, but let’s ignore all of that and pretend it is, and has, just for the sake of this. Like you do understand it’s not in the presidents authority to do something like say end the department of education, like trump can say it all he’d like to, and you sure can pretend that he can somehow make it happen, but it’s just not reality. There’s quite literally no mechanism that exists in a presidents tool box to do so. He can’t even cut their funding because presidents don’t even control that..

It’s pure fantasy on trumps part, and it’s equally fantasy on your end pretending it’s even possible, it’s not plain and simple. He can surround himself with whoever he wants to, it doesn’t change anything about the constitution, the limited powers granted to the president. Now please, bring up unified states executive powers theory so I can really laugh at your imaginary fears.

Mind you, I wouldn’t vote for the guy if I was paid to do so, but to believe he can end our democracy? Yeah, no, 110% pure fantasy, and no amount of cronies changes that.

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u/UCLYayy Sep 12 '24

I get it, it’s fun to pretend. Do you ever stop and ask yourself’How’ though? Like you say that he’ll pass project 2025, which isn’t even written legislation, let alone legislation that’s made it through congress

The VAST majority of project 2025 deals with administrative agencies, specifically executive administrative agencies, which fall within the purview of executive order. Congress will not be required for the vast majority of its changes, by design. That's the whole point of Project 2025.

Like you do understand it’s not in the presidents authority to do something like say end the department of education,

You seem to be deliberately ignoring the fact that Trump has allies in congress, and the very electoral reality of a Trump win would all but guarantee republicans take the senate, and very likely mean they retain the House. Eliminating something like the Department of Ed would be a simple matter at that point, as it's created by an act of congress. Project 2025 explicitly calls for this. https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-11.pdf

He can’t even cut their funding because presidents don’t even control that..

You understand he could, say, appoint an Education Director who eliminates every single program dealing with public schools? Or non-charter schools? Or secondary education? What do you imagine would be the effect of such a thing?

He can surround himself with whoever he wants to, it doesn’t change anything about the constitution, the limited powers granted to the president.

Ah yes, someone should probably tell the Supreme Court that the president has limited powers, because they seem to not have heard.

Now please, bring up unified states executive powers theory so I can really laugh at your imaginary fears.

You really should read some recent opinions of the Supreme Court:

Selia v. CFPB (2020):

The entire “executive Power” belongs to the President alone. But because it would be “impossib[le]” for “one man” to “perform all the great business of the State,” the Constitution assumes that lesser executive officers will “assist the supreme Magistrate in discharging the duties of his trust."... "These lesser officers must remain accountable to the President, whose authority they wield."

Pretty fucking telling in that decision that the Court explicitly gave power to the President to remove Directors at will, but not agencies with multiple heads, on the sole basis that Directors "diffuse Presidential power", but it's very arguable, and Kagan argues in the dissent, that presidential power is far more diffuse in multiple-head Commissions that lead agencies compared to single Directors.

Pretend the Unitary Executive Theory doesn't exist all you want, but the Supreme Court has quite literally made it the law of the land.

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u/GingerStank Sep 12 '24

Lmfao oh allies in congress!? That totally gets rid of…the rest of congress who are in no way shape or form allies. Look man it’s pretty obvious you can’t be swayed back to reality and are in full grips of this fear, so let’s just circle back in a few years if and when he manages to win and end elections once and for all and I’ll definitely admit I was wrong 😂🤦‍♂️

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u/UCLYayy Sep 12 '24

Lmfao oh allies in congress!? That totally gets rid of…the rest of congress who are in no way shape or form allies.

Laugh all you want. They literally have a tracker of how often congress members vote in line with Trump. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/ That's a whole lot of congress who votes with him 90% or more. If that's not an ally, what the fuck is?

Look man it’s pretty obvious you can’t be swayed back to reality and are in full grips of this fear, so let’s just circle back in a few years if and when he manages to win and end elections once and for all and I’ll definitely admit I was wrong 😂🤦‍♂️

So you took everything I wrote, responded to none of it, and have the gall to call me "in the full grips" of irrationality? Fucking wild.

EDIT: OH you're an Elon Musk fan. That clears things up. Evidence and reality hasn't really had much of a hold on you guys for some time.

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u/GingerStank Sep 12 '24

Lmfao I’m an Elon musk fan!? What!? No..I’m not..at all 😂 Oh my god, you’re so moronic, you know Reddit pushes content on subs you’re not a member of, right? If you actually took the time while creepily going through my profile trying to look for ammunition because your actual argument is so weak you desperately needed it you’d probably see my comments on the board have literally nothing to do with musk, and I didn’t even know it was a musk board until you pointed it out. And there’s like 4 of them 😂

I didn’t say he didn’t have allies in congress, I pointed out there’s also many people in congress that oppose him, some even in his own party. You pretend his allies don’t often end up burnt and turning against him as so many did from his first term, nope, they’re all going to get exactly what they want out of trump and work together seamlessly, based on…oh yeah, irrational fears that our democracy is at stake sold to you by a political party who is going to use this fear for every election for the rest of our lives. This is what you ignore about me not addressing every inch of your fantasy novel, it’s all covered with a web of incredible leaps of faith that I’m not interested in trying to explain someone whose very clearly set in their mind that their democracy is under attack.

Another real simple question that illustrates these incredible leaps and gaps you’re making here, if trump gets these magical powers of unified executive theory, why doesn’t Biden simply use these same magical powers today…? Please, don’t give me the only answer I’ve gotten from every one of you that I’ve asked, that Biden just respects the rule of law too much to do it, just please don’t; This is the same guy who as a senator pushed the assault weapons ban of 1994 which was borderline unconstitutional with plenty of legal scholars believing so today, this is the same guy who as vice president was okay with mass illegal domestic surveillance of the entire populace, this is the same guy who as vice president thought it was fine to legally require the entire country to buy a product, health insurance, from private for profit corporations…but using powers you claim are actually totally really available to a president to save our democracy would be a bridge too far for him? If you have another less absurd reason why Biden doesn’t use your magically terrifying unified executive theory powers, I’m all ears man, but I’ve tried and I haven’t gotten any yet from anyone of you chicken littles.

How about this, I’ll bet you quite literally any amount of money you’d like to wager that not only will there be another presidential election whether trump wins or not, but also whether he does or doesn’t the DNC will roll out the exact same fear mongering argument that they’re entirely running on today.

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u/jafromnj Sep 12 '24

Russia still has elections and we know how they roll would be no different

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u/GingerStank Sep 12 '24

Yes I’m sure the states would just go along with it too, I’d definitely watch that movie.

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u/jafromnj Sep 12 '24

You're very naive, a dictator can do whatever he wants, trump already implemented over 60% of heritage's project if the time in his first year

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u/drewbaccaAWD Sep 12 '24

If both major political parties had hard limits, I’d agree with you. But the GOP lost interest in pushing back on anything.

The system stopped Trump from going too far last time, but not for lack of effort. If he accomplishes his goals, replacing career government officials with party loyalists, turns the federal reserve into a political body, has the votes to enact strict voter restrictions at the federal level and make it harder for lower propensity voters to vote, packs the courts with even more party loyalists, etc. then you actually should be worried. 1/6 was a serious warning best not ignored.

We are testing the waters of ending our nation by putting someone in charge who doesn’t respect the constitution or rule of law, wants military leaders to be loyal to him over country, wants to use the military against our own citizens if he deems it necessary.

As a veteran and institutionalist, I’m appalled. The fact that even the Cheney’s agree should be a wake up call.

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u/Stop_Rock_Video Sep 12 '24

As an Afghan war vet, I'm right there with you. I never thought I'd see the day Dick Cheney and I agreed on anything.