:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/3EUDB73QWE34IF5ERI5GJBLL7I.jpg "OPINION: Trump’s court declares war on the rule of law")
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Senator Dan Sullivan often puts protecting the “rule of law” at the forefront of federal affairs. At no time since Reconstruction has the rule of law been more at risk than it is now.
The Republican presidential candidate is a convicted felon who has also been held civilly liable for rape.
That alone would be appalling, but if the legislative and judicial branches were able to perform their constitutional duties, the rule of law would be secure. Tragically, the Supreme Court has brought two horrifying realities to light in its recent decisions:
1. It is not bound by the letter of the law or decades of precedent, but will enact laws based on the extremist beliefs of Republican appointees.
2. The court will act as a legal shield for Donald Trump, granting him broad immunity for virtually any crime.
Before Donald Trump’s tenure as president, the composition of the Supreme Court was relatively balanced, with both Democratic and Republican presidents having been appointed. More importantly, at least a slim majority of the court believed in following both the letter of the law and precedent. Trump’s appointees – radicals seeking to impose a bizarre combination of religion and unlimited corporate power – have overturned more than two centuries of law by reinterpreting laws based on their personal religious views or the financial interests of billionaires and corporations.
Make no mistake: The Trump court rulings are stripping away the constitutional rights of individual Americans and giving CEOs and elite politicians unprecedented and unlimited power.
One of the judges who dissented from the recent court ruling exempting the president from all laws rightly observed: “In every exercise of his official power, the president is today a king above the law.”
The court claims it is speaking on the basis of “originalism,” but of course that is a lie: America’s original purpose was to protect individual rights from abuse by a king. By giving the president and corporations unfettered power, Trump’s court has declared war on democracy and constitutional rights and sought to destroy the American project of individual rights.
Trump is a single person, and I doubt we will ever see the extraordinary combination of lies and criminality he embodies again. The threat posed by Trump’s court extends far beyond the lifespan of this single aging conman, threatening our rights, our economy, and America itself.
Many of us, myself included, have served and risked our lives to defend freedom. We did not sign up to protect the rights of a king or president who imagines he is above the law. We did not sign up to represent the interests of corporations who would usurp and trample on the rights of real Americans. We signed up to defend freedom as enshrined in our Constitution – what Senator Sullivan called the rule of law.
The rule of law is under attack today by a convicted felon and the radicals he has already placed on America’s highest court.
Kevin McGee is a Vietnam veteran, former president of Anchorage NAACP Branch 1000, current Equity Officer and member of the Board of Directors of ACLU Alaska. He lives in East Anchorage.
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