Public Notice: John Roberts created a monster. It's about to eat him.

[Dennis Donovan]

Public Notice - John Roberts created a monster. It's about to eat him.

The Supreme Court faces an existential dilemma of its own creation.

David R. Lurie
Mar 31, 2025

John Roberts and his fellow Republican Supreme Court justices not only paved the way for Donald Trump to retake the White House, but encouraged him to seize dictatorial powers upon his return. Now, the Trump Court’s rightwing ideologues appear poised to green light many of his authoritarian actions, thereby enabling him to further destroy the foundations of our democracy.

But Roberts and his extremist compatriots on the Court face one serious problem: Trump also wants the justices to endorse his campaign against the authority and independence of the judiciary, potentially rendering the Court into a shameless stooge. As a result, the cost of the Supreme Court continuing to do Trump’s bidding may be to undermine the judicial power and authority that Republicans devoted so much effort to obtain.

Roberts prepares a throne

After voting against convicting Trump for his January 6 coup attempt, Mitch McConnell said there was no need for Congress to act because "we have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one."

But Trump escaped such accountability — with the crucial help of John Roberts.

While much has been made of the delays in prosecuting Trump under Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, the players that actually ensured Trump would not be held accountable for his assault on the nation’s democracy were the rightwing jurists on the nation’s highest court who effectively crippled Jack Smith’s prosecution through a combination of calculated delay and a ruling that undermined the rule of law.

/snip

[Mysterian]

1. The pardoned MAGA freikorps will storm the Supreme Court

now they know there are no consequences to their sedition.

[BoRaGard]

2. #ShamelessStooges (R) now going viral

[appmanga]

3. The Roberts Court has existed to put their finger into every legal pie.

The thing that differentiates Republicans and Democrats is Republicans have no issue whatsoever with dismissing their hypocrisy. The Court taking up Trump's challenge after the D.C. Appeals Court handed down a decision for the ages, speaks to the Roberts Court not being able to countenance a lower court having the last word on anything, and something nearly everyone in this country accepted: no one is above the law. A simple tenet that spoke to the most fundamental concepts of American Democracy, and the Roberts Court trashed it for yet another confusing, inconclusive, unresolving piece of trash jurisprudence that can only be seen as the judicial equivalent of indecipherable software code created as job insurance. There was a time when it was thought the Supreme Court should be the clear last word on the question before it. This Supreme Court's decisions tend to open the door for yet more litigation, and Roberts' embarrassingly bad writings are the stuff of unfunny comedy routines.

For what they've done to this country, he and Mitch McConnell should never get another good night's sleep.

[NotHardly]

5. Count on it.

[BComplex]

6. Seems to me they're already trying to make monkeys out of ALL courts, and USING what right wing judges

they can to further that endeavor. This supreme court is full of right wing monkeys that helps prove trump's point.

[newdeal2]

7. Eloon's DOGE is coming for them

Probably replace judges and juries with AI.

[StarryNite]

8. Probably just the judges they don't like.

Then replace them with more trump ass kissers.

[erronis]

9. No need to. Better to have a bought and paid-for court system to rubber-stamp everything.

Gives that nice veneer or lawfulness. Many diktatorships keep the courts - but keep them in line.

[RVN VET71]

11. BINGO

Good dictators love creating and promoting veneers of justice and law. Veneers are good for their image.

[RVN VET71]

13. BINGO!

Good dictators love building and maintaining veneers of justice and law. Veneers are good for their image.

[Old Crank]

12. They will keep it around.

Part of the constitution but decisions by their lackey appointments will just follow what the GOP wants.

[dalton99a]

14. Dictators need judges as rubber stamps

[DENVERPOPS]

16. You bet

When Trump was saying at his rallies: "vote for me this one last time, and you will never need to vote again", his trumphumping voters didn't have the brains to realize what he was telling them.....He was also yelling out over and over again: "I love my un-educated voters, I love them alot"........ THEY have now all outgrown their usefulness to Trump, and like he has done with everyone his entire life, the will throw them under the bus.......(Most recently, SOME of them have realized that Trump is screwing them over worse than even the Libtards......

Now comes forth the Legislative and Judicial branches, that without question, put him in office, and kept him there.........
Only one problem, The Republican Members of the House and Senate, as well as the Republican Members of the U.S. Supreme Court, aren't anywhere near as smart as they think they are......An Authoritarian, Tyrannical Government doesn't have any need for either the the Legislative Branch or a Judicial Branch.......And, at some point they will all find themselves in the gutter, run over by a bus called Trump.......(or actually Putin)

[ShazzieB]

18. If the SCOTUS doesn't rubber stamp everything he wants to do? Sure, he'll go after them.)

When the Court passed the ruling granting him "presidential immunity," Schlump obviously took that to mean that he would have carte blanche to do absolutely anything he wanted once he was back in office. As bad as that ruling was, I have a hunch that wasn't quite what Roberts had in mind. (What the other conservatives may have had thought is another question entirely; I'm just talking about Roberts here.)

It should have been obvious how Trump would take the ruling, but Roberts evidently thought the Court was doing something more nuanced. (Again, I'm only talking about Roberts; some of the other conservatives may have had something entirely different in mind.) The problem is Schlump doesn't do nuance; I doubt he even knows what the word means, because it has no meaning in his black and white world view.

So Schlump won the election, by hook or by crook (personally, I'm on Team "It Was Rigged" ) and the bull was let lose in the china shop. So here we are, and here Roberts is, evidently starting to realize what kind of monster he helped to create, as the article says.

So what now? The court rulings that have been going so firmly against Schlump are eventually going to be appealed to SCOTUS, who will either let them stand or issue their own ruling(s). If the court were to, God forbid, start striking down most or all of the lower court rulings, Trump would have no reason to get rid of SCOTUS. If (as I devoutly hope), most of the rulings are allowed to stand, or are (to Schlump's horror) affirmed by a SCOTUS ruling, he'll begin to see the Court as an enemy, and he'll go after them with all guns blazing. Far be it from me to predict exactly how he will do this (I am, admittedly, very bad at predicting the actions of lawless criminals), but he'll probably start by posting blistering. condemnations of SCOTUS on Lies Social. And may whatever deity one chooses to invoke have mercy on us all!

[DET]

20. Catch-22

Well said. SCOTUS is in the unenviable position of trying to contain the monster that they created. I suspect that Roberts, at least, deeply regrets his immunity decision. They either sign on to TSF’s lawlessness, in which case they’ve effectively castrated themselves and condemned us all to lawlessness, or they rule against him, in which case they will have made an implacable enemy of a despot whose overriding purpose in life is revenge. I hope that they finally show some courage and stand up to a tyrant who stole the election and who is operating on behalf of a foreign enemy to destroy our country.

[ancianita]

10. As Americans cope with legally blonde Bondi, DU's Garland detractors must remember SCOTUS undermined the DOJ:

While much has been made of the delays in prosecuting Trump under Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, the players that actually ensured Trump would not be held accountable for his assault on the nation’s democracy were the rightwing jurists on the nation’s highest court who effectively crippled Jack Smith’s prosecution through a combination of calculated delay and a ruling that undermined the rule of law.

[Ray Bruns]

15. "And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one."

And Bitch McConnell was wrong, wasn’t he.

[MayReasonRule]

17. Ain't No Way One Man Alone, Hid The Bodies Bought The 'Throne'...

But buying in to sell us out, odd to say I ain't go no doubt.

[Hassler]

19. Everything that we're dealing with now is on McConnell

Roberts and the rest of the SCROTUS 6.