“Democracies are separated from within,” Judge Gorsuch warned Sotomayor.
They are ideological opponents of the U.S. Supreme Court, but Wednesday’s judges Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch joined in a rare joint public appearance to declare the spread of misinformation on social media an urgent threat to national security.
“I am less concerned in any way about foreign enemies,” Gorsuch said in virtual statements during an event hosted by the National Security Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The issue we’re talking about is internal … if we don’t tend to the garden of democracy and the conditions that make it right, it’s not an automatic thing.”
Sotomayor cited a recent MIT study that found that fake news is 70% more likely to be retweeted than real stories. “This is terrifying, it’s not,” he said, “that people don’t learn both true and false statements through social media. This is a real threat to our national security.”
Neither Gorsuch nor Sotomayor explicitly mentioned former President Donald Trump, the January 6 Capitol uprising, or Russian interference in the last two U.S. elections. But the recent facts seemed to be clearly thought out, as both judges spoke directly of the need to combat intolerance, hatred and division.
“Democracies are separated from within,” Gorsuch noted. “They collapse because (one faction) wants to impose its will on others instead of working together to resolve our differences through legal processes.”
“Ways, listening, tolerance,” he continued. “These have become bad words. I’m very worried.”
As Judge Stephen Breyer did in a passionate two-hour speech last week, Sotomayor tried to directly refute the account that the Supreme Court is a partisan institution.
“We respect each other fundamentally,” he said of his colleagues, who now include a conservative six-member majority. “They’re as passionate as I am about defending all these things. We don’t agree on how to get there. But I’m not starting to challenge their motives. And I think a lot of misinformation is starting today.”
Gorsuch added, “Everyone focuses on the few cases where Judge Sotomayor and I tend to disagree this year, okay. That happens. We do it with respect, even with love, sometimes.”
“And passionately,” Sotomayor intervened.
“And passionately,” Gorsuch agreed. “It’s part of love. Part of love.”
The judges did not discuss recent partisan proposals to expand the court or revise its membership terms. Both Sotomayor and Gorsuch have made the defense of expanded civic education a key part of their tenure on the bench.
The court meets again on Monday during the last two weeks of oral arguments of the current term.