This is how I think of Roberts. While we go berserk about the in-your-face judicial outrages committed by Thomas and Alito we miss that the true and lasting damage has all been at Roberts’ hand. Citizen’s United was all by itself a death blow to participatory democracy. It did so many terrible things in one decision that is almost tedious to list them all. Legalization of political bribery. The opening up of election funding to unnamed, dark sources that could be and often are foreign sources (think Russia, Russia, Russia and also China, China, China); conflating the donation of money with speech which eliminates any concept of one man one vote); effectively bestowing citizenship on corporations…
The other death blows became almost after thoughts after Citizens. Gutting the Voting Rights Act, declaring gerrymandering non-justiciable, Dobbs (if you think Roberts didn’t play a major role you’ve lost the bubble), the granting of some sort of made up non-Constitutional immunity to the chief executive, denying that Trump’s insurrection didn’t automatically invoke the 14th amendment… It is all too much and it happened in plain view.
I’ve found myself marveling at the ruthlessness,’the precision strike against the fundamental pillars of American representative democracy, and the smirking arrogance of John Roberts.
He was birthed in the stinking bowels of the Federalist Society and he has been their most effective weapon by far. What Roberts has done simply dwarfs anything Roger Taney did in the Dred Scott decision. That one decision ultimately meant a bloody protracted civil was. But what the Genial Assassin has done most likely means an end to even our attenuated version of democracy and the ushering in of a right wing dictatorship and the elimination of any sort of law that could garner any respect or admiration.
And he is doing it all with a simpering, bobble headed smile on his face. It is so easy to focus on the scowling faces of Alito and Thomas. But while we are distracted the Honorable Justice John Roberts is gutting our entire system of justice.
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