My Biggest Fear...
By Rhonda Williams
Wikipedia: Early on November 9, 2016, the day after the election, Trump was projected to have secured the presidency. Trump won the presidential election with 304 electoral votes, while Hillary Clinton received 227, though Clinton won a plurality of the nationwide popular vote, receiving nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump.
His election was not my biggest fear. The American Constitution still existed and checks and balance afforded therein were still in place. Surely in four years, how much damage could he do? My first twinge of abject dread was: "What happens if he is able to stack the Supreme Court" in his four years. It was then balanced with just a, so slim, liberal tilt. Decisions could go either way.
Two events occurred. Obama approached Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) and tactfully ask that she retire to allow a younger (liberal) appointment. She said no, feeling she earned her place on the Supreme Court, and did not think she should stepdown to allow for a younger judge to fill her position.
Judge Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly nearly a year before the end of Obama's term. However, Mitch McConnell made the unprecedented decision to steal the seat by holding it open until the next president took office. No Obama nomination would be allowed to come before the Senate. By this time it was to late for RBG to retire, meeting the same fate with the McConnell decree. McConnell had made it clear that he would not allow Obama to successfully nominate another Justice. The Scalia vacancy on the Supreme Court was eventually filled by Neil Gorsuch during the first year of Trump's first administration.
During Neil Gorsuch conformation hearings, many Democrats raise concerns about his judicial philosophy, moral character and potential impact on social issues. Much angst surfaced during his hearing which, in my opinion, has influences his decisions to this day.
RBG died September 18, 2020 at the age of 87, six weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Mitch McConnell wasted no time breaking his rule and allowing a nomination to go through. Another conservative, Amy Coney Barrett replaced RBG and she was confirmed by the Senate on October 26, 2020.
After a contentious exit fight, Trump left office in January 2021 with his "Dream Team" Supreme Court in place. Even in his absence as presided, this court ruled in his favor protecting and slowing his criminal actions from prosecution.
Fast forward to January 2025. Trump is back, now unencumbered by judicial restraint. June 27, 2025 is a day Trump's dream of absolute authority came to fruition through his handpicked Supreme Court majority. Executive powers rules supreme.
Writing in dissent for the court’s three liberal members, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority had “shamefully” played along with the administration’s “gamesmanship” in the case, which she described as an attempt to enforce a “patently unconstitutional” policy by not asking the justices to bless the policy, but instead to limit the power of federal judges around the country. She warned that under the ruling:
“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.”
“Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may [through Executive order] try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship,” Sotomayor wrote. “The majority holds that, absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief.”
The court’s senior liberal member took the rare step of reading parts of her dissent from the bench on Friday.
“With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a ‘solemn mockery’ of our Constitution. Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent,” she wrote.
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There is a song the bemoans the "Day the Music Died". As Executive orders go unchecked, June 27, 2025 is a day that will be remember...
Read Also Huffpost: Trump's Victory In Birthright Citizenship Puts Him 1 Step Closer To Being A King
