Left-wing activists are working overtime to smear the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in a blatant attempt to undermine rulings coming out of the nation’s highest court. They attempted to stop Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination with dubious, vague and uncorroborated sexual assault accusations. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was painted as a Catholic extremist — Senator Dianne Feinstein declared during her confirmation hearing that “the dogma lives loudly in you” — and her husband was targeted with a Rolling Stone article that charged him with the crime of… being a lawyer. Justice Clarence Thomas has fended off a series of ProPublica investigations that imply he has ruled more conservatively on cases because of his friendship with billionaire Harlan Crow. Justice Samuel Alito is the latest to be in the crosshairs; the left first went after him for flying an American flag upside down amid a spat with nasty neighbors, and the latest non-troversy is a series of conversations he had at a public event that were secretly recorded.
Lauren Windsor, a self-identified “independent journalist” who surreptitiously records conservatives while pretending to be one of them, was responsible for the leaked tapes. Windsor has a history of dropping secret recordings of top conservative and Republican figures, which are never the bombshells she paints them as. Take the slate of tapes involving Alito. The justice, openly a conservative Catholic, confirms that he believes America would be better off if more people were religious. This might surprise you, but Supreme Court justices are allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and are allowed to think that doing so might be good for others. Unfortunately, the Catholic justices on the bench are subject to prejudice related to historical anti-Catholic bias in America, which rested on the idea that Catholics have outside loyalties (namely to the Pope) that prohibit them from properly serving their country.
When asked about the political divide in America, Alito responds simply that things probably won’t get better until one side or the other wins out as there are some things that are impossible to compromise on. In a separate recording from 2023, Windsor pushes him to point to say that the Supreme Court has a role in healing this divide; instead, he affirms that the court’s role is to decide cases, not to play politics. Scandal!
Windsor neglected to characterize any of the recordings honestly, providing helpful bait for anyone who declined to actually listen to her tapes or dishonest left-wing activists who don’t care what Alito actually said. “Justice Alito admits lack of impartiality with the left,” Windsor said on her X account, adding in interviews that it was concerning what he was willing to admit to a stranger. What he was willing to admit? More like Alito behaved agreeably with someone who was probing him at a public event and, even then, didn’t say much of anything.
Nonetheless, Democrats have seized on the latest round of attacks. President Joe Biden warned that he needs a second term in office because if Trump is elected he will “appoint two more” Supreme Court justices “flying flags upside down.” Biden of course has also done everything possible to skirt SCOTUS telling him he does not have authority to forgive student loan debt. Democratic senator Chris Murphy described the court as being in “crisis” and said it is “brazenly corrupt” and “brazenly political.” Many have called for Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from cases related to January 6 as former president Donald Trump seeks presidential immunity. The Supreme Court introduced new ethics rules in 2023, the first time this was done in the court’s history. Others would like to see the conservative justices removed entirely.
There is obvious hypocrisy at play when the crowd who accuses “extreme” or “ultra MAGA” of undermining democracy and American institutions openly attempts to delegitimize the Supreme Court. But it seems to be a very predictable reaction from the left as they are used to controlling institutions and tend to lash out when they lose. The draft Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade was likely leaked from a liberal clerk or justice to put pressure on the conservative justices to change their opinion. In the aftermath there were arguably illegal protests outside of SCOTUS justices’ homes plus a thwarted assassination attempt. In response to a decision striking down an ATF rule that improperly reclassified semi-automatic guns equipped with bump stocks as “machine guns,” liberal activist groups accused SCOTUS of having “blood” on its hands.
The left is also likely gearing up for a second Trump term in which lawfare and legal harassment are two of the biggest tools they have to thwart his agenda. An article in the New York Times revealed that the anti-Trump “resistance” is already preparing for a Trump win in November by drafting potential lawsuits to policies they oppose, particularly on immigration. They can likely tie his administration up in court — but for their grand plan to be successful, they need a Supreme Court without a conservative majority.
