We saw a rarity in the news last week in a quite possibly consequential and much-discussed presidential debate. That, however, was not the biggest political news of the week just past. The honor, if honor it is, goes to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and the appropriately styled Trump v. United States.
The Raimondo ruling signals a fundamental shift in the role of government, and it is what the “conservative” members of the Court are there to do. That is, while some of them may care about the abortion issue, for example, their sponsors in academe, in the Heritage Foundation, in the Federalist Society, and in Congress couldn’t care less. What they care about is dismantling, or at least disabling, much of what they call the “deep state,” and, in the process, decimating the rights of workers and consumers.
It’s highly probable that the average Democratic voter is smarter right now than the average Republican voter. Yet, the intellectual power behind the tsunami of the right-wing political forces worldwide has been quite enough to outmaneuver the best minds of the middle and left for the last half century. It’s a huge mistake to think these people are stupid. Their pots may be cracked, but some of them are brilliant. They want to destroy the government, and they’re very close to doing it.
Let’s look quickly at these two cases. Raimondo dismantles a longstanding legal convention called the Chevron doctrine, which required courts largely to defer to the academic and legal expertise of federal agencies in cases challenging federal regulations. The arrogance of the Supreme Court is now such that the judiciary is there to settle all such disputes, with no further expertise required. To put it as plainly as possible, this nuts the federal government’s regulatory powers, inviting delay through endless lawsuits.
The Trump case hardly needs explanation here. It puts the president above the law, with no precedent and nothing in the Constitution to explain or justify this radical departure from centuries of jurisprudence. It’s Richard Nixon’s dream.
Now combine those with the release by the Heritage Foundation of a political terrorist’s road map called Project 2025. Heritage president Kevin Roberts calls it “a second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” The left? Here in America? What on Earth is he talking about? This document, all 190 pages of it, puts hideous flesh on the bones of the infamous (Lewis) Powell Memorandum of the Nixon years. It promises to dismiss tens of thousands of civil servants, replacing them with right-wing zealots; to deport or even kill untold numbers of recent immigrants; and to consolidate much of the government’s power under a single person, the president. Or should we just go ahead and say dictator?
There is a word for all this, and it is fascism. Fascism sometimes denies precise definition, but it always involves these several elements: an autocratic ruler, a common enemy in the form of a group such as Jews or immigrants, a combination of state and corporate power, and utter intolerance of any political opposition or alternative belief. The shoe fits perfectly. That last point, by the way, includes repression of the free press. You know, “the enemy of the people.” I suspect that’s in the part the Heritage people say exists, but isn’t in their report yet.
Donald Trump is far too stupid to think this all up. He’s also not an ideologue. He’s a tool. He’s a wrecking ball, and any old piece of heavy junk will do for that. It need not be Trump. Prepare for a President Tucker Carlson down the road a slight bit. Their work will be defined for them by people like Roberts, Thomas Sowell, Jonah Goldberg, Steve Bannon, Richard Spencer, and my own neighbor, Paul Gottfried.
Is this just hand wringing? Is it overblown? Read Project 2025, if you can stand it. Read any good summary of it. Wikipedia has one. This is real, in the open, and terrifying. Roberts didn’t even express a preference for a peaceful revolution.
The corporatists thought they could control the last powerful fascist dictator, Adolf Hitler. They were wrong. The Trump voters in America seem to believe that we have a Constitution, and that its safeguards like checks and balances preclude the possibility of an autocracy. Here are some things they forget: The Constitution is a piece of paper. We agree on the meaning of only a few of its broad provisions. What it means is what the Supreme Court says it means, and the current Court consists largely of psychologically disturbed ideologues of the extreme right. Trump doesn’t give a feather in a whirlwind about the Constitution. He doesn’t even know what is in it, but he has suggested that it should be “suspended.” The check of the judicial branch is gone, and the balance of the Congress is, too, as every Republican in it soils his drawers every time. Trump casts a glance askance.
Can I put this any more plainly? Or will it take a little time in a re-education camp?
Well, you have come pretty close to straightening out this pig trail .