Understanding the State of the Corrupt Supreme Court Today

Legal Realism in CrazyTown facing the chaos-monkey president: Reading the Roberts Court as a Trump‑era power machine as Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barrett turn Trumpist chaos-monkey impulses into what they call “law”. The robes donned are “textualism” and “originalism”. The reality is emergency stays, shattered agencies, and a presidency unchained as hollow promises are made of rule of law and simply calling balls and strikes. The Roberts Court is not really a 3-3-3 court with a moderate center at all, but one with a neofascist two and four neofascist fellow travelers. That is what you see when you look at the Roberts Court as a political‑economic actor in a Trump‑run regime…

There are many people worth respecting and following writing about the current state of the Supreme Court and its right-wing neofascist turn.

I recommend:

• Steve Vladeck <https://www.stevevladeck.com/>

• Adam Feldman <https://empiricalscotus.com/>

• Amy Howe <https://www.scotusblog.com/author/amy-howe/>

• Erwin Chemerinsky <https://www.scotusblog.com/author/erwin-chemerinsky/

• Ian Millhiser <https://www.vox.com/authors/ian-millhiser>

• Leah Litman <https://michigan.law.umich.edu/faculty/leah-litman>

• Kate Shaw <https://crooked.com/podcast-series/strict-scrutiny/>

But they—all of them, overwhelmingly—clothe what is going on in the drapery of legal doctrine and argument. They thus pretend that justices are law-abiding and law-respecting. And that is—except for Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan—a mistake.

We need more Legal Realism Freak Flag Flying here. So let me—stepping far indeed away from my wheelhouse—try to provide some:

• There are two on the Supreme Court—Alito and Thomas—who are fascists in the strict sense: believe that the United States is under dire threat from Wokeism, the U.S. Constitution is thus suspended: Trump, in the words of the late-Roman Republic’s senatus consultum, ultimum, is free to act as he wishes: videat præses ne quid res publica detrimenti capiat, let the president see that the republic suffers no harm.

• There are two on the Supreme Court—Gorsuch and Kavanaugh—who will almost always vote with Alito and Thomas that Trump gets to do what he wants.

• These two will, however, occasionallywant to put a time limit on it—allow Trump to move fast, break things, and establish facts-on-the-ground that then shape the future, but only for a limited time—perhaps a year or so. (Although do note that Kavanaugh dissented and joined the true fascists on Learning Resources v. Trump.)

• Then there is Justice Barrett—her vote will almost always drag Roberts’s along. (The only significant exception I can recall is the two EPA cases Ohio v.