{ "cells": [ { "cell_type": "markdown", "metadata": {}, "source": [ "(veiled-resentment)=\n", "# Veiled Resentment\n", "\n", "Donald Trump’s second presidency, should it continue on its current trajectory, is not merely a political rerun—it is a structural assault on the very heart of the First Amendment. And let’s be plain: the First Amendment is not a lullaby sung to keep society calm. It is a sword placed in the hands of the public, a weapon forged for adversarial democracy. It presumes conflict. It sanctifies dissent. It is the explicit design of the U.S. constitutional order to foster public disagreement—not suppress it. To deport students, penalize institutions, and chill the speech of those who resist—especially through legal intimidation—is to invert this foundational principle. What we are witnessing is not just governance; it is the attempted domestication of democratic fire.\n", "\n", "Let us use the epistemic architecture—Sea, Ship, Pirate, Crucible, Island—to make sense of this. The Sea is the realm of truth, raw and unfiltered. The First Amendment is born from this sea. It says: the state cannot be the gatekeeper of what is true. It cannot silence the voices of protest because those voices, rough and dissonant as they may be, belong to the surf. Trump’s efforts to expel foreign students engaged in protest is an act of epistemic cowardice. It is the fantasy of an emperor who wants to still the ocean with command. But the sea does not listen. It roars.\n", "\n", "\n", "```{raw} html\n", "\n", "\n", "
\n", " Trump and Roberts shake hands after Trump’s speech to Congress earlier this month.\n", "\n", "John Roberts and his fellow Republican Supreme Court justices not only paved the way for Donald Trump to retake the White House, but encouraged him to seize dictatorial powers upon his return. Now, the Trump Court’s rightwing ideologues appear poised to green light many of his authoritarian actions, thereby enabling him to further destroy the foundations of our democracy.\n", "\n", "But Roberts and his extremist compatriots on the Court face one serious problem: Trump also wants the justices to endorse his campaign against the authority and independence of the judiciary, potentially rendering the Court into a shameless stooge. As a result, the cost of the Supreme Court continuing to do Trump’s bidding may be to undermine the judicial power and authority that Republicans devoted so much effort to obtain.\n", "\n", "---\n", "\n", "**Roberts Prepares a Throne**\n", "\n", "After voting against convicting Trump for his January 6 coup attempt, Mitch McConnell said there was no need for Congress to act because \"we have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.\"\n", "\n", "But Trump escaped such accountability — with the crucial help of John Roberts.\n", "\n", "The rightwing jurists on the nation’s highest court effectively crippled Jack Smith’s prosecution through a combination of calculated delay and a ruling that undermined the rule of law. First, the Court delayed its immunity ruling for months, and thereby held the Trump prosecution in abeyance. Trump’s initial assertion of immunity in October 2023 was rejected by the trial court in December; but proceedings remained stayed until the Supreme Court finally ruled in July 2024.\n", "\n", "When the ruling arrived, it was a gift to Trump. Authored by Roberts, the decision made it nearly impossible for Trump to be tried before the election and granted him a broader immunity than even his lawyers had requested. Roberts declared that a president enjoys “absolute” or “qualified” immunity from prosecution for any action taken in his “official” capacity.\n", "\n", "Justice Sotomayor, dissenting, wrote that the Court had made the president a “king above the law.”\n", "\n", "---" ] }, { "cell_type": "markdown", "metadata": {}, "source": [ "```{raw} html\n", "\n", "\n", "\n", "
\n", " (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty)
\n", " — From Print Edition\n", "