The Supreme Court’s decision to hear Donald Trump’s claim that he should be shielded from criminal prosecution keeps the justices at the center of election-year controversy for several more months and means any verdict on Trump’s alleged subversion of the 2020 vote will not come before summer.
The country’s highest court wants the final word on the former president’s assertion of immunity, even if it may ultimately affirm a comprehensive ruling of the lower federal court that rejected Trump’s sweeping claim.
For Trump, Wednesday’s order amounts to another win from the justice system he routinely attacks. The justices’ intervention in the case, Trump v. United States, also marks another milestone in the fraught relationship between the court and the former president.
Cases related to his policies and his personal dealings consistently roiled the justices behind the scenes. At the same time, Trump, who appointed three of the nine justices, significantly influenced the court’s lurch to the right, most notably its 2022 reversal of nearly a half century of abortion rights and reproductive freedom.
I would not underestimate how pissed off the liberal electorate is at the Court right now. And while you are correct that Democrats are unlikely to retain the Senate, they were also not likely to keep it last time, and they did.
Even if Biden is not inclined to do so, if Democrats do manage it there will be a push for it.
And it’s been demonstrated that Republicans only respond to force (metaphorical, in this case). The way to get them to support term limits is to limit their choices so if they don’t, they get an even worse outcome.