If we were going to be serious about:
Immunity
1) We’d all take vaccines that have been proven safe and effective if they were recommended for us without questioning their political soundness.
2) We’d recognize that the reason no former President has ever been prosecuted for crimes committed while in office is that only one has ever done so as publicly and admittedly as Mr. Biden’s predecessor and he was pardoned by his chosen Vice President. The hypotheticals that have been publicly presented as arguments for and against the concept are as ridiculous as the notion itself. Most Presidents have conducted themselves so that the question doesn’t come up and the apparent fact that the 45th did not doesn’t open the floodgates for future holders of the office, a fact well demonstrated by his immediate successor and, after a little wobbling, his own former VP.
3) The Supreme Court would come back into session tomorrow morning and announce a 7-2 decision to the effect that no one in this country, including especially the elected head of the Executive branch, is above, beyond, or outside the law and is accountable and responsible in his/her/their person for any illegal acts they commit. This has been established in principle by Judges Engeron and Kaplan in their civil findings and detailed by Judge Chutkan and the Appellate Court in Washington, D.C.
The Supreme Court has damaged its position almost beyond recall, and failure to do anything other than uphold the Appellate decision will drive a final nail into the coffin of the idea that this is a country ruled by law.
I am an eternal optimist. And I find myself near tears most of the time these days. Any sense of security has vanished ~ and I am old and debt-free. I can only imagine what 20- and 30-somethings must be feeling...
All the reporting I have read so far on the arguments has left me horrified. I am very much afraid the SCOTUS is going to decide Trump has immunity. I say Trump because they are not hearing this to decide if future presidents (aside from Trump) can commit crimes in office with impunity, they are hearing this to save Trump's filthy butt. The questions they are asking are groping for a way, however weak and transparent and constructed of flimsy deliberate pretenses regarding reality (with that last bit I'm struggling to describe Alito's pretense at being aghast grand juries almost always provide an indictment when a (well prepared of course) prosecutor requests one. That of course is just one example of the kind of weird willingness we're seeing to appear blatantly ignorant.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson constructed clear and compelling hypothetical examples which demonstrated faults in theirs, but being in the minority I fear she's trying to interject truth into a hostile environment where it cannot possibly survive. Far more than prior courts, this one has made it easier to see where they are going because their decisions do not require a knowledge of the law, but only a knowledge of their politics.
I am begging Providence, the fates or whatever works, to be wrong, but it looks like the Supreme Court decision will decide Trump cannot be held responsible for his crimes committed while in office and their arguments as to what that includes reveal they would gladly extend the protection as far as possible. This seems like one of the most flagrant displays of disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law and the balance of power this body has yet put on.
I also fear that even if we can give Biden a House and Senate with a majority of Democrats that he won't increase the Supreme Court. He had the proper conditions before and he said he didn't think it was the way to go. I'm very pro-Biden, am in awe of what he's been able to get done, but he does have blind spots and can be a stone wall about them... and I fear this is one. I suspect he is stuck in the "if we do it they will do it" without noticing "they" haven't been waiting for precedents before they break guardrails and that guardrails aren't actually delineating the honorable thing to do, just the prior norms under prior realities.
I really, really want not to be outraged again tomorrow. This is a big one.