On Monday, the final judicial shoe fell on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his third and final appeal against the high court. As America moves to a Biden presidency, the court ruling exemplifies why the judiciary is our nation’s strongest bulwark against authoritarianism. In fact, during the greatest threat to our democracy in modern history, the American judicial system was our last line of defense, proving, as Andrew Jackson once wrote, “All rights guaranteed to citizens according to the Constitution is worth nothing … except guaranteed by an independent and virtuous judiciary ”.
When Donald Trump left office in January as president for a term, however, he had had a major impact on the U.S. judicial system. In four years, Trump had appointed 226 judges to the federal bank, including 54 on the appellate court. The latter number is just one less justice than what Barack Obama appointed to this court in his eight years as president. Of the nation’s 13 federal courts of appeal, Trump managed to change three from liberal majorities to conservatives. His three Supreme Court justices, meanwhile, were the most appointed in a single term since Richard Nixon. In fact, Trump’s mark on American justice will be lasting and profound.
That’s why it was so significant that Trump’s false and abominable claim that he “stole” his election – the “Big Lie” as many have called it – was unequivocally repudiated, even contemptuously, by the courts. In doing so, American justice saved our democracy. It may sound hyperbolic, but at a time so politically volatile that members of the American right wing plotted to kidnap a governor, stormed the U.S. Capitol and believed the Democratic party was run by cannibals who worshiped Satan. , the judiciary proved that it was our only institution immune to the virulent hyperparty that infects this country. He managed to maintain, albeit barely, the legitimacy of the two political parties.
But here’s what’s really interesting: it was because of Trump’s influence in the judiciary, despite Trump’s influence, that the peaceful transfer of power was guaranteed. Does that sound crazy? Imagine if the courts, like Congress and the media, had split into partisan lines: Democratic candidates would rule against Trump’s electoral challenges and Republicans would vote in favor. Imagine further that no one nominated by Trump had known the cases. The right wing, already ignited by conspiracy theories, would have considered the whole process a farce. Worse, a partisan division would have instilled in all Americans an even deeper sense that the country did not possess an objective arbiter: that the truth was only what our respective political leaders considered it to be.
The mass insurgency, at the very least, or a Trump coup, at the very least, would have been the result. The January 6 Capitol riot was the party ready to ignite the conflagration.
We were saved by these results only because of the bipartisan nature of court decisions and because Trump-appointed judges heard key cases: in more than 60 post-election lawsuits, a total of 86 judges, including 38 Republicans and eight elected by Trump himself. —He rejected the electoral challenges. Even the Supreme Court, with a third of the judges appointed by Trump, ruled against him. Not a single Trump nominee in any court voted in favor of his fraud claims.
This clear repudiation had powerful effects. He forced several of Trump’s top supporters to finally admit that the election had not been stolen. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had refused for weeks to acknowledge Biden’s victory. He referred to him as an “elected president” only after state voters officially voted, which followed after the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear a challenge from Trump. Even William Barr, the Trump psychophanic head of Trump’s Justice Department, finally admitted in early December, after massively rejecting election challenges, that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Reversals like these further delegitimized the “Stop the Steal” movement and threw cold water at pro-Trump groups willing to act on their incendiary claims. (According to the FBI, right-wing militias planned armed protests in the state’s 50 capitals. They never materialized).
While many Trump supporters still believe he won the election — according to a January poll, more than 70 percent of Republicans believed Trump received more votes than Biden — when faced with the fact that even designated judges for Trump rejected fraud claims, The Democratic Conspiracy became much harder to sell. Two unconvincing explanations landed on my news feed: one was that the courts were “submerged in the deep state”; the other was that the judges had been “paid.” They’re ridiculous, of course. Trump-appointed judges could hardly have been more scathing or exhaustive in their reproaches.
“An incumbent president who did not prevail in his re-election candidacy has sought help from federal courts to set aside the popular vote,” wrote Brett H. Ludwig, a District Court judge appointed by Trump in Wisconsin. Ludwig considered Trump’s election challenge to be “strange” and added: “This court allowed the plaintiff the opportunity to present his case and he has lost the merits.” Steven Grimberg, a Trump district court judge appointed by Trump, wrote, “Stopping certification literally at 11 a.m. would create confusion and potential disenfranchisement that I find has no basis in fact or law.”
“Unlike the electorate, judges were unified in their views. ”
Statements like these helped preserve our democracy, because virtually any other American institution that could have verified the presence of Trump’s power had been co-opted by Trump or denigrated to near impotence. The media was “fake news” propagated by Democrats. The intelligence agencies were run by “Obama remnants” and were staffed by members of the “Deep State” who hated Trump. Meanwhile, most Republican congressmen publicly supported the false allegations of fraud. It was not even clear how the military would respond to a takeover, as Trump had held key leadership positions with comrades. (Congressional hearings on the Jan. 6 riot revealed that it took the Pentagon more than three hours to approve the request for help from Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund of the DC National Guard. Army leadership, including the brother of Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, backed down on the request, Sund said.)
On February 13, the U.S. Senate had a chance to fulfill its duty as a control over the misconduct of executives. Days earlier, the House of Representatives had sent to the upper house its second indictments against President Trump. This historic second impeachment accused Trump of “inciting insurrection” by the Capitol riot. House administrators argued that Trump had “encouraged and cultivated violence” to overturn a free and fair presidential election. Rep. Liz Cheney called Trump’s actions “the greatest betrayal of the presidential oath in U.S. history.” The Senate voted 57-43 to condemn, but that meant 10 votes above the third majority needed to do so.
The vote was by no means an exoneration: seven Republicans and two independents joined the majority, making it the largest condemned bipartisan vote in U.S. history, but a condemnation would have been a deterrent. unmistakable for future presidents who would exercise autocratic tactics. In addition, the acquittal, like the one following Trump’s first ouster, encouraged him. On February 17, after weeks of silence, the former president returned to the media floating the same false claims that had already fired more than 60 court cases. In an interview with Newsmax, Trump repeated his fallacious saying, “It was a stolen, fixed and manipulated election.”
But fortunately, in this case, the president was not the one who decided. The courts were. And, unlike the electorate, judges were unified in their views. As Judge Stephanos Bibas of the Third Circuit wrote in response to a challenge from the president who appointed him: “The accusations of injustice are serious. But calling it an unfair election does not. Charges require specific allegations and then evidence. We don’t have any here. “