cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17119069
“In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” warned Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
Isn’t that written in the constitution clearly? Isn’t that what Impeachment for, the only way to prosecute a president over his acts during the presidency?
Previously, by Justice Department custom, the president was immune from prosecution while in office. That was just an internal stance and didn’t make him immune from prosecution indefinitely, just that you can’t arrest the president in the Oval Office. It could be seen as a pragmatic stance that we shouldn’t tie the president up in court battles while he’s supposed to be doing the job of presidenting or that he’d just obviously order his Justice Department not to arrest him so don’t try to do irrelevant things.
Now he’s immune forever, even after he’s no longer in control of the people who would be prosecuting him and he has no critical role to play in society. And it’s officially declared by the Supreme Court, not just custom.
Well, fellow Americans. This experiment with democracy was fun while it lasted. Every significant goal of the founding fathers has been systematically thwarted by these Christofascists. We once again have a de-facto monarch.
The consequences of this decision will be dire, and unpredictable. Every law, every right, every freedom can now be undone by an official wave of the president’s hand. Rights to privacy? Gone. Due process? Gone. Bill of Rights? Gone.
No one—democrat or republican—should be happy about this. The right to bear arms is now on the chopping block right along with LGBTQ+ and abortion rights.
Hopefully I’m wrong. Hopefully I’m misreading the situation. But it sure sounds like every right that previously defined us as American people now hinges on the benevolence of our president. Americans can no longer brag about “American freedom.”
This experiment with democracy
I agree with the thrust of your comment, but I think it’s an overstatement to say the US was ever a democracy.
Our country is an imperial power that was built ontop of a genocide, by slaves, to support white male property owners. It was always designed as an oligarchy with features like the electoral college to make sure the will of the people could never compete with the will of the powerful. Policy outcomes haven’t reflected public opinion on any major issues since the 70s.
I’d say what’s going on is moving from a broad oligarchy to a narrower more centralized oligarchy. Which is still moving in the wrong direction and will definitely make life worse for most Americans.
Well, European cousins, hope you got more room in those countries of yours. 😬
This is oversimplifying it. They did not define “official acts”, obviously, but goose and gander. Biden is now available to use these new powers, and should.
Biden for King 2024! Vote blue! Brought to you by conservative Chief Justice Roberts.
If Biden does the exact same thing as the orange turd, the packed courts will rule that Biden’s actions were not official but the angry orange’s were.
The decision is entirely a power grab that will be abused by conservatives and not by anyone with morals. That is what these fascists are counting on.
Biden won’t abuse this power because he isn’t a complete trash person and SCOTUS knows it. They know that the only party that will abuse this power is the Republican party.
So until this trash opinion is undone, every single election is an imminent threat to democracy.
Biden could unpack those courts as an official act and pack it with his own judges, who would rule on the outcome.
This is obviously what Trump would do in the same position. But it’s highly doubtful that Biden will.
It would set an insanely dangerous precedent. But if he doesn’t, Republicans will the next time they hold the presidency.
They don’t even need to. The same court that made this decision will say everything he does is official and (now) very legal. Some old conservatives will retire to be replaced by Eileen Cannon (she gets both of their seats), and the court just needs to sit back and endorse the fascism. They’ve already done the daring act, now everything else is procedure.
In her dissent, Sotomayor made it pretty clear that that doesn’t matter.
“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,” Sotomayor wrote. “Orders the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
“In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” the justice added.
The dissent is not the prevailing ruling though. The other MAGA dip shits on the court just left the door open to anything for the next 6 months. All horrific derivatives of this timeline, sure. But they can’t stop the current administration apparently from doing the same shit without immunity until the next ruling. They’re just banking on the fact that Biden isn’t a gigantic piece of shit and will never pull the trigger on using any of these options.
I guarantee his team is sitting in a room right now coming up with ideas.
If Biden were to use his powers to force the 6 conservative Supreme Court Justices out, then there wouldn’t be anybody on the court who would disagree with the minority interpretation.
Yeah I hear you, but that door they left open is exactly why it doesn’t matter. By not defining official acts, they essentially gave themselves the authority to make that determination later, which means anything done as president can be considered official, as long as they say so. This was another power grab for them and any republicans who want to use it, but you can be sure the rules would be different for democrats.
Even discussing this ruling is pointless, because words no longer have legal meaning. Even if he was so inclined, Biden wouldn’t be allowed to take advantage of this concept of immunity. We’re just making up whatever shit we want and calling it Law.
Pretty much. The reality that this is has always been the case is finally smacking everyone upside the head. If there is no consistent application of the law, laws become meaningless. Might then makes right, and bedlam follows. America has been on a dangerous path for decades, this ruling is the the turn. Conservatives are displaying that they want Trump as dictator, and will do everything in their power to make that happen.
