I don’t buy what some critics of this “conservative” Court say, predicting the Court will keep Trump on the ballot because the Republican-appointed Justices are “pro-Trump.”
Yes, they probably will rule for Trump, but not because they’re Trump partisans.
What they are is Republican partisans. Or, more accurately, partisans of the plutocratic, corporatist political force that put them on the bench. Partisans of a political force that has worked for two generations to gain control of the Court (working through e.g. the Federalist Society).
(Yes, this is an exceptionally “partisan” Court. I don’t believe there has been a Court this partisan since the time of the Dred Scot decision in 1857, in which pro-slavery partisans ruled that the black man “had no rights that the white man was bound to respect.”))
These Republican-appointed justices have contorted the Constitution, the law, and history to reach Republican-favoring results on a variety of major issues (such as the meaning of the Second Amendment and the protection of Voting Rights).
But they have not seemed so eager to help Trump. This Court has ruled against Trump plenty enough to show they are not his lackeys.
Meanwhile, we pretty well known that a substantial part of the established Republican political force would like to be free of Trump. They support Trump because he has the power to destroy them politically, by getting the base to reject them in the next primary. His power produces their fear which results in their serving Trump.
In the Republican world, only the Republican-appointed Supremes have the opportunity to drive Trump out of politics, without Trump being able to weaponize the Republican base against them, as he did with Liz Cheney and others.
So we can imagine these plutocratic partisans asking themselves, “How do we best serve the plutocratic/Republican force going forward with this disqualification case?”
Even if the plutocracy thinks it can do OK with Trump, the way he calls the plays feeds Trump’s sick drama more than it advances the causes that corporate America advocates. So it is likely they believe the Republican Party would be better off if Trump just disappeared.
So it would be a temptation to disqualify this domineering, somewhat unhinged, and self-centered man.
But the Court pushing him off the stage incurs risks not present if Trump simply disappeared on his own.
Getting rid of Trump would make those justices the targets of Trump’s following, which includes a segment prone to political violence.
Also, this Court is already in some disrepute with a large segment of the American public, polls show, and this Court will not want to add the Trump base to the public antagonism toward the Court.
So, my expectation is that this Court will leave Trump on the ballot not because they are pro-Trump, but because they are cautious. Despite wishing Trump would just vanish from the scene, these agents of the plutocracy will likely find a plausible-sounding way to avoid being seen by the somewhat cult-like base as having robbed them of the leader to whom they’re passionately devoted.
So caution will lead the Republican-appointed Justices to lay low, and stay out of Trump’s way.
Why gamble — and we have good reason to believe that this Republican-appointed majority on the Court does not much care about American Democracy, or even fidelity to the Constitution — when the clock is so clearly ticking on this man who has openly assaulted the American constitutional order?
It’s a cost/benefit analysis, I figure— not really a constitutional one.
The corporate power probably figures it can do FINE under Trump’s fascism, and so it might not mind so much a few more years of Trump dominating the Republican Party. Also, given Trump’s age and condition, the plutocratic force probably figures that it won’t be long before they are freed by time itself from this reckless, unbalanced, fascistic leader.