Biden surrogates brushed off questions about reining in the court, while emphasizing the gravity of a second Trump term.

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.

But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.

Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.

“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.

Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.

  • @Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
    13•5 months ago

    When it comes to politics there is one golden rule that explains everything:

    Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice.

    • @nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      14•5 months ago

      I hate when people use the original version of that rule because it’s never a good lense. The original should be ‘Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to profit’, or do people really think the world is run by idiots who just accidentally managed to profit off of every single time things got worse.

      • @Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
        4•5 months ago

        They always say the same. “Oops we did massive war crimes in Korea and Afghanistan and Iraq and oopsie we’re doing a Genocide in Gaza! It was all with the best of intentions we’re just so clumsy haha!”

        • @nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          7•5 months ago

          I want the power Obama had. The power to overthrow an entire nation based on nothing but economic fears and leave in it’s place an open air slave state, then have people who claim to not like war think your biggest scandal is the color of your damn suit. Just doing an oopsie in Libya, whoopsie daisy.

        • AbsentBirdEnglish
          4•5 months ago

          What were the war crimes in Korea? I would have thought Vietnam would be an easier example. Though admittedly I don’t know much about the Korean war.

          • @Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
            6•5 months ago

            The Korean war is weirdly never really mentioned. It was a lot like Vietnam but more at the beginning of the cold war. We did an amazing amount of war crimes. Napalm was really hot back then (badum ts)

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea

            Air forces of the United Nations Command carried out an extensive bombing campaign against North Korea from 1950 to 1953 during the Korean War. It was the first major bombing campaign for the United States Air Force (USAF) since its inception in 1947 from the United States Army Air Forces. During the campaign, conventional weapons such as explosives, incendiary bombs, and napalm destroyed nearly all of the country’s cities and towns, including an estimated 85% of its buildings.[1]

            A total of 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, were dropped on Korea.[2] By comparison, the U.S. dropped 1.6 million tons in the European theater and 500,000 tons in the Pacific theater during all of World War II (including 160,000 on Japan). North Korea ranks alongside Cambodia (500,000 tons), Laos (2 million tons), and South Vietnam (4 million tons) as among the most heavily-bombed countries in history.[3]

            We just see Kim Jong Un waving with his ballistic missiles and thinking he’s a funny crazy man that hates America for no reason. That’s the magic of telling one side of history.