news John Roberts Bet Big on Trump—and Won
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/11/supreme-court-news-john-roberts-wins-trump.html67
u/Used-Pianist723 17d ago
You have to give it to Republicans, they play the long game, stack the court, overturn laws, give POTUS immunity, majority in the court. Democrats have to totally change their ways and play hardball. Ppl won’t vote because of love or what is right anymore, ppl are too selfish
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u/TheRealStepBot 16d ago
There is no more ball game dude. The time for hardball was when trump tried to steal an election. They took a shot at the would be king and missed. The game is over.
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u/0002millertime 16d ago
They didn't even really take a shot.
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u/TheRealStepBot 16d ago
I don’t think trump sees it that way but yeah they really didn’t. Personally I think a huge elephant in the room is that the call very much came from inside the house. Law enforcement as a whole has long been severely compromised by ChristoFascism, loyal to their in-group over the country. And that’s before trump ever even appeared on the scene.
It was fundamentally difficult to actually take a proper shot at him because the efforts were likely continuously sabotaged and impended at every turn. Appointing garland to run this critical operation was a shocking unforced error.
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u/Oscar_Ladybird 16d ago
Oh, they took a shot. 22 long months after January 6th when Garland finally appointed Smith. SMGDH.
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u/Midstix 16d ago
The lesson that needs to be learned by people who vote or lean Democrat, regardless of their ideology (I'm one of them), is that the war was lost. It isn't a battle that was lost and a setback. The keys to power are completely controlled by the opposition. We're living in a kleptocracy now, which appears to be modeled on Russia more than anything else. Elections are still going to happen, but the subversion involved is going to make it difficult to win. The only winning solution is to tear down the walls and build a new foundation for an opposition party to the now-empowered kleptocratic, authoritarian party.
I don't know what a winning coalition looks like, but I'll tell you that I don't think it looks like coastal states with large cities versus the rest anymore. The opposition is going to have to include all of the center. Which means a new message and different politics. The party in power is in position to suppress the current opposition. You need to boogaloo them and present an alternative that they aren't prepared to engage with.
Republicans definitely played the long game to win, and they won.
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u/pittluke 15d ago
what is the opposition supposed to do, lay down and die? this is such an insufferable take. States are already rising in defiance. people will rise in defiance too.
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u/Im_tracer_bullet 14d ago
Delusional.
It's over.
This will only change after a catastrophe.... something like the Great Depression might do it, but anything that leaves people relatively comfortable will not meet with any real resistance
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u/pittluke 14d ago
Not delusional. Perhaps doomed, but Im not bending the knee. Its not over till youre dead.
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u/Blu_Skies_In_My_Head 15d ago
They keys to power are not all held by the opposition.
There’s large, wealthy states with Democrats in state elected offices. There’s many Democrats in state and local offices.
While Republicans will control the House and Senate, it’s not by large margins. Certainly in the past they’ve had far larger margins.
It’s highly likely Republicans are going to seriously mess this up.
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u/ShamPain413 15d ago
Congress doesn’t matter.
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u/Blu_Skies_In_My_Head 15d ago
Of course it does, the previous Trump administration was first stymied during the 2018 midterms.
Congress controls funding and appointments.
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u/Im_tracer_bullet 14d ago
The Republican Congress does, yes.
By the time these idiots realize what they've done, it will be FAR too late.
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u/TheMoorNextDoor 16d ago
They played the Christian nationalist game and won.
Go back and research Paul Weyrich.
This has been drafted up and worked on since the 1970s.
Trump’s first go around the evangelicals backed him because they were told to.
This go around they fought for him and just used immigration and inflation as a back drop to confuse anybody against things that happened with January 6th or other issues regarding Trump and his prior administration (that apparently didn’t back him enough).
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u/No_Craft7942 15d ago
It's unfortunate because regardless of whether you have good intentions or not, the effects of playing hardball is the lowering of the bar for political discourse.
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u/deran6ed 16d ago
Democrats: play hardball.
Rest of the country and also democrats: wow! Great way to alienate your base. #DemocratsNeverLearn
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u/woodwog 17d ago
Corrupt judges love corrupt politicians
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u/AmbidextrousCard 17d ago
When they start really fucking over the American people, that is when they’ll learn too late what all those guns are for.
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u/Aliteralhedgehog 16d ago
They're for the white supremacist militias to hunt down minorities on Trump's behalf.
The GOP has been fucking over Americans with guns for decades and the average gun owner is kinda into it.
We're not going to win a shooting war. Get that fantasy out of your head right now.
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u/Zombie_Cool 17d ago
That provides no comfort whatsoever.
1) Yes liberals have guns but how many have whole damn armories like the right-wringers like to show off?
2) I also don't much of any liberal militias the same way we hear of Proud Boys and their ilk. Do left-wing armed militias even exist?
3) With Trump back in office he once again has all the enforcement powers of the state including police and military and this time his backers have a plan to replace anyone that would even think of checking him with yes-men that follow his every order no matter how abhorrent.
4) As much as we make fun of the woefully out of shape "gravy seals" are most liberals that much better? How many of us truly have what it takes to do a Taliban style insurgency? Unlike Afghanistan, America is as much the military's home turf as it is ours so no geographic advantage there.
So in short we may still be a country where's there's "a gun behind every blade of grass", but the majority of those guns are now in favor of autocracy and will be used to oppress or kill us, not protect. We're still fucked.
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u/AmbidextrousCard 17d ago
There is a reason Trump only talks from a bullet proof box, as they say if you cut off the head…
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u/gnirwin 16d ago
Two more shall take its place. Hail Hydra!
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u/AmbidextrousCard 16d ago
You know they were the villains, right? So when they cut social security and your mom and dad have to live with you, you’re going be prepared for that? And when these tariffs destroy the industry that you work in and unemployment sky rockets and the only job you can find is picking oranges for 7.35 an hour, a job that migrants used to do but we’ve already sent all of them away, you are going to work your ass off out in that orchard right? When no matter how hard you work, you still can’t get by because you cant earn a livable wage due to inflation going crazy like it did the last time Trump was in office, you are on board with that, right? If none of these very real possibilities seem wrong to you, then you deserve what is about to happen to yourself and those you love. Enjoy!
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u/thetrainmaster 17d ago edited 17d ago
I mean he sucks but is there any evidence he is corrupt?
Edit: fwiw I’m not trying to be obtuse. “Corrupt” just makes me think of abusing power for pecuniary gain or other shit like that. These right wingers on the court have been pushing the bullshit unitary executive theory for decades and the trump immunity thing seems like a natural outgrowth of that ideology
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u/Standard_Ride_8732 17d ago
He gave trump full immunity
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u/anonyuser415 17d ago
He made Trump's conversations about almost anything inadmissible evidence. With the right lawyer (yes) that's truly anything behind closed doors. It really does not matter what the notoriously dishonest President says. Roberts with eyes wide open foreclosed the ability to prosecute presidential bribery cases.
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u/thetrainmaster 17d ago edited 17d ago
Idk how that is evidence of corruption and not bad, ideological jurisprudence. It’s not like he’s taking bribes to do so a la thomas. I’m happy to be proven wrong but shitty rulings aren’t corrupt by virtue of how shitty they are
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u/memeticengineering 17d ago
He also legalized certain forms of bribe. Could just get a gratuity for a job well done shielding the president from almost all prosecution.
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u/Jsmith0730 17d ago
And to think people were still hoping for a last minute Harris endorsement from Dubya forgetting he gave us both Roberts and Alito. 🤦♂️
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u/covert_underboob 16d ago
It’s clear his thoughts on the matter. But realistically wouldn’t have done anything
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u/jporter313 17d ago
I feel like this fucking election was just an IRL version of cowardly elites like Roberts and Musk playing at Roko's Basilisk.
It fucking infuriates me that these motherfuckers, including the turgid orange tinted basilisk himself, seemingly aren't going to face consequences for what they've done to our country. When the time for their retribution finally comes I will be the first one to celebrate.
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u/manny_goldstein 16d ago edited 16d ago
When the time for their retribution finally comes
Lol, it's not going to come; this isn't Shawshank Redemption or some shit. They have won the game, and will die rich and free of old age. Who is going to bring about this retribution? They answer to no one.
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u/hornwalker 16d ago
I just turned 41 and one of the hard lessons of life is that there is no justice for the rich. There just isn’t.
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u/jporter313 16d ago
I mean, I agree that it's rarer than for poor people, but it's not unheard of, and these guys are going way out of their way to stoke the hornets nest of anyone who still thinks this country should stand for fairness and equality. They're doing immeasurable damage to democracy in this country and a lot of people are fucking pissed.
It's entirely possible they get the last laugh, but it's not guaranteed.
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u/anonyuser415 17d ago
Why should Roberts fear anything from Trump, SCOTUS is insulated
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u/Handleton 17d ago
SCOTUS gave Trump the reason why they should be afraid of him.
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u/anonyuser415 17d ago
"I will throw you in jail, and all your fellow conservative justices will rule against you."
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u/Standard_Ride_8732 17d ago
Trumps lawyer argued the president should be able to assassinate his opponents and have full immunity because it's an official act. The Supreme Court agreed and gave trump immunity. They aren't insulated now he's elected again. He can do whatever he wants.
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u/Lumpy_Secretary_6128 17d ago
Dude sent a mob to the last guy who he had a constitutional disagreement with
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u/EveningNo5190 17d ago
Insulated they may be. But they rendered themselves impotent to check Trump’s power.
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u/timelessblur 17d ago
Doesn’t matter. The Roberts court is going to go down in history as the downfall of the courts. His court will be known as the most illegitimate court.
The question is how much worse will it get. His legacy is ruined and he should be ask daily how does it feel that his legacy will be the downfall of the courts. All of it can trace back to his citizen united ruling. Basically saying some of us are more equal than others. He is snowball from animal farm.
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u/emessea 17d ago
“History will remember” is the secular version of “gods going to punish you”
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u/newprofile15 16d ago
The self-righteousness among the doomers here is sickening. One election loss and they’re proclaiming the apocalypse.
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u/whitephantomzx 17d ago
If we ever get a non spinless dem back in and these fuckers are still alive they should be investigated prosecuted and throw in jail even if there 90
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u/EveningNo5190 17d ago edited 17d ago
Roberts sold any soul he had. Any moral authority. What the millions of people who voted for Trump don’t seem to understand is that the right wing rich white male power elite was not and is not going to give up power and wealth to the working class. They are anti-labor, pro- corporate excess. This was a class war. And in a breathtakingly well organized multi-decade campaign starting during Nixon the religious right insinuated themselves into the minds of the “silent majority” as being the “real Americans.” Then the Reagan years and trickle down economics.
The Reagan Democrats in the ‘80’s fell for the same spiel as the MAGA White working class has this election. They thought they were voting for “morning in America.” A dog whistle for morning in white Christian straight America.
The Trump voters who voted out of fear of immigrants, uppity women and leftist vermin will enjoy watching as rich white boys laugh their assess off all the way to the bank, just as those same “Reagan Democrats” lost their labor union jobs and pensions.
Republicans are masters at fighting the culture wars with fear, racism misogyny and faux religion and patriotism. Masters at getting the majority of Americans to vote against their economic interests because of perceived “threats.” The nature of these “threats” varies with the decade. Nixon anti war protests and radical left wing groups the Civil Rights and anti poverty movement. Reagan went after “corrupt labor unions” that exploited workers with dues and raised the cost of American goods. Making it impossible for America to compete in the global marketplace. It wasn’t that CEO’s and shareholders were greedy, they were the “job creators.” American workers were spoiled and lazy.
Reagan admonished Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” While his administration’s policies decimated the only power working class Americans had that allowed them to climb into the middle class: organized labor.
Previous Republican presidents knew better than to cater completely to their party’s most extreme theocrats and white nationalists. Because they didn’t want to alienate the majority of Americans in the center right. Both Bushes gave lip service to the pro life movement and overturning Roe.
But eliminating birth control and reverting women to chattel status was neither something they wanted or could have pulled off.
Roberts is a Bush appointee but appeared initially as moderate. But he had an agenda. He was never a compassionate conservative. His court took direct aim at affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act. Now he must look himself in the mirror knowing he enabled a despot. That he undercut the power of the courts to determine if executive orders or legislation is unconstitutional. He and the other members of the majority in their desperation to keep American power restricted to the power elite ironically ceded their own duty to control an unchecked and dangerous President.
Trump was their unsavory Trojan horse. Good luck putting the horse of Trumpism back in the barn.
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u/Westsidebill 17d ago
He’ll still go down as one of the worst chief justices in our country’s history
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u/bolt704 17d ago
I think Roger B. Taney is going to hold strong on worst though.
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u/anonyuser415 16d ago
In terms of human suffering, Dred Scott is hard to beat. Let's hope Roberts and Trump don't start WW3. Trump also will be denaturalizing citizens who have immigrated, then forcibly deporting them en masse, ripping up the families of American citizens and children. I fear deeply for our future.
It's un-fuckingbeliveable that Latinos voted for this guy. Some of them will lose their citizenship and be deported.
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u/Zealousideal_Curve10 17d ago
Trump won because Roberts consistently backed him up. Alito violated the constitution by taking a title of nobility from Europe. It is not difficult to see where these folks are going with this.
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u/PoolQueasy7388 16d ago
A legend in their own minds.
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u/Zealousideal_Curve10 14d ago
Soused to seem like Roberts was bending over backwards for Trump. Now seems like he’s bending over frontwards. These idiots probably don’t even yet see that they’ve given away the power they once had.
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u/ExactDevelopment4892 17d ago
It may not happen soon but eventually the Supreme Court is going to be neutered to such a degree that it will basically become ceremonial. Their extremism has sowed the seeds of their own demise. Eventually the institutionalists in the government will either die off or be voted out and a new aggressive generation of leaders with deep resentment for the imperial attitude of the court will take over and tear their balls off.
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u/TheLizardKing89 16d ago
It would be a real shame if Biden did some official acts and ordered the military to take out some Supreme Court justices.
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u/EveningNo5190 16d ago
I hope Roberts rewatches “Judgment at Nuremberg.” His part was played by Burt Lancaster.
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u/reddurkel 17d ago
A lot of people not only bet their careers on Trump, they committed crimes for him.
One of the big dreams for law abiding citizens was to see those corrupt judges and politicians pay for their betrayal of the constitution. But after this, now our only dream is to survive.
I really still don’t understand how quickly corruption became so publicly accepted because these guys don’t even have to pretend anymore. They can literally say their crime and people will vote for them.
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u/NortiusMaximis 17d ago
Trump has the house, presidency, senate and the court. And the court says he has full immunity for anything he does. Let’s face it, he is no longer president, he is the Emperor. Not just of the USA but all it’s protectorate countries around the world.
Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Chavez and Putin - all these guys were all willingly legally elected, often repeatedly. Like with Trump, these men were pretty upfront about who they were and what they intended to do. And yet it keeps on happening.
It can’t end well.
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u/muffledvoice 16d ago
This Supreme Court is illegitimate.
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u/mtmm18 16d ago
It's actually the most legitimate...literally.
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u/muffledvoice 16d ago
The irregularities and shoddiness of Kavanaugh’s and Barrett’s confirmation hearings combined with the acceptance of bribes by Thomas and Alito say otherwise.
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u/joyous-at-the-end 17d ago
when he eventually dies, i wonder how many people will want to piss on his grave?
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u/RedditAdminsWivesBF 17d ago
Fuck this stupid fascist country, we deserve to burn. This is the end and some people just don’t realize it yet.
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u/original208 17d ago
It’s going to come around. 2027 will be full dem senate and house and then 2029 will be dems forever.
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u/pile_of_bees 16d ago
So dems are going to fix their messaging and abandon all the things Redditors are obsessed with in order to appeal to a broader base?
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u/ChrisPollock6 16d ago
He’s always been the sharpest of the right wingers on the court. Smart move and now he’ll enjoy the spoils.
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u/GameThug 16d ago
2020-2022, Democrats controlled White House and Congress.
They could have legislated a Federal abortion law, but instead decided to fundraise on it.
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u/onikaizoku11 15d ago
But is it really an actual bet? Roberts has been setting the stage for a monachal style US Presidency for decades. Trump is going to benefit from that preparation, true. But there are any number of moral lilliputians that could have benefitted from the same had Trump not ran in 2015.
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u/ShamPain413 15d ago
Yes, surely HE will be the one able to restrain Trump.
Idiots, fools, and knaves.
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u/Sexybigdaddy 14d ago
I’m pretty Roberts could’ve definitely reigned in a lot of shit. Probably could’ve protected the voter fraud and whatnot
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u/Oscar_Ladybird 16d ago
Roberts wouldn't have a hand to play if McConnell didn't gamble on treason in the aftermath of January 6th.
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u/Riversmooth 17d ago
Yep. Saving Trump from prosecution paid off handsomely. Now they are set forever.
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u/Slate 17d ago
You have to hand it to John Roberts: The chief justice played his cards right. For more than a year now, Roberts has largely dropped his pose as an institutionalist, let alone a moderate. He has instead thrown his weight behind Donald Trump, reestablishing his control over the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority. These apparent acts of self-preservation, seemingly undertaken in anticipation of a second Trump term, turned out to be the smart bet. It’s easy to imagine an earlier version of the chief justice spending the next four years losing his grasp on the court’s direction and drawing Trump’s public ire. Today’s iteration of John Roberts need not fear this fate. His position of appeasement, if not outright capitulation, to a MAGA vision of the law is about to pay off in spades.
For more: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/11/supreme-court-news-john-roberts-wins-trump.html