The Supreme Court was hit by a flurry of damaging new leaks Sunday as a series of confidential memos written by the chief justice were revealed by The New York Times.
The court’s Chief Justice John Roberts was clear to his fellow justices in February: He wanted the court to take up a case weighing Donald Trump’s right to presidential immunity—and he seemed inclined to protect the former president.
“I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently,” Roberts wrote to his Supreme Court peers, according to a private memo obtained by the *Times. *He was referencing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to allow the case to move forward.
Roberts took an unusual level of involvement in this and other cases that ultimately benefited Trump, according to the Times— his handling of the cases surprised even some other justices on the high court, across ideological lines. As president, Trump appointed three of the members of its current conservative supermajority.
And luxury vacations. And forgiven “loans.” And property purchased as “gifts.” And free flights on private jets. And…
These fuckers. These absolutely amoral fuckers.
The biggest blunder of the framers was assuming we’d never form factions (i.e. parties). The assumption was that the branches would oppose each other, not collude.
At least one of them (maybe Jackson but I’m probably wrong on who) specifically warned about political parties
Yeah Andrew Jackson was not a founding father. He was a person who owned hundreds of human beings as slaves and conducted genocide against the native population. He was a total piece of shit really. Trump ordered Jackson’s portrait hung in the oval office during his presidency.
It was Washington. However, Washington also tended to side with Hamilton against Jefferson in practice, and those two would quickly form political parties that are the ancestors of the modern ones.
The “Founding Fathers” were far from a monolithic block of philosopher kings like American mythmaking likes to portray.
Duverger’s Law was developed in the 1950s and 60s, so it wasn’t understood way back then.
I don’t think that’s their fault. They specifically addressed a two party system in multiple writings (they didn’t like it) in addition to explicitly stating that they expected future generations to update the constitution as necessary to protect the republic from those who would seek to undermine or replace it. We didn’t heed their warnings and now here we are.
To be clear, I don’t think the framers were infallible or able to see all possibile challenges that our nation would face. However, they seem to have been pretty damn good at learning from history and that’s something modern Americans are absolutely abysmal at. For all their faults they have a lot to teach us in that respect.
they expected future generations to update the constitution as necessary to protect the republic from those who would seek to undermine or replace it.
The problem with this is that it requires people in power to vote to limit their own power. And while there have been some, certainly, who have been willing to do so, getting a supermajority of people willing to do it is simply not something I see as remotely possible anymore.
