There will be no hot limousine liberals’ summer in 2023. The Supreme Court has in a series of rulings struck down everything that those high earning, Uber Black-ordering, sushi and box-seats-at-Taylor Swift liberals favor when it comes to government policy. If you are someone who knows all the indie films and foreign contenders for the Oscars every year, our hearts go out to you in your moment of pain. You have been dealt an excruciating blow by the 6-3 conservative majority on the court.
Even your previously beloved traitor to his class, Chief Justice John Roberts, got in on the action, joining in rulings that emphatically struck down requirements that Christian bigots must bake the gay marriage website; that the student loans of your feckless child who still lives in your carriage house could be forgiven, and that the affirmative action policies that made you feel good there were more black students at the ridiculously overpriced institution of her choice are all at the end of the day unconstitutional.
Joe Biden, the president you maxed out to twice, has done his best to deliver on your priorities. Pretending that an act focused on bonuses for buying electric cars, even though it would increase ownership by people who weren’t in on hybrids from the beginning like you, was actually about halting inflation was a genius move. Ignoring the working-class priorities he espoused as a candidate to fulfill all the things favored by the expert writers at the Atlantic allowed you to feel superior without feeling guilty about it. And the anti-populist nature of his policies became almost a calling card of his trust in the expert class — treating the American people as if they only deserved dismissive answers while walking along a rope-line was, in a sense, a vindication of your beliefs about how the rabble deserve to be treated.
Yet therein lies the weakness: given that these policies were not something that he could sell within the legislative branch, or even attempted to in the least degree, even when it was in Democratic hands, the risk was that the Supreme Court would dig around and find the stones to utterly reject a president who was their only defense against the January 6 usurpers. Surely they would see reason! Surely they would go along with the convenient lies that everything done was in the national interest.
It was not to be. Perhaps their Atlantic subscriptions lapsed. Instead, what the limousine liberal run at the court has left you with is an absolute wasteland of failed and now rejected policies that lacked the legal and institutional support to withstand constitutional and congressional inquiry.
It turns out at the end of the day that the US Constitution does a very good job of protecting the rights of individuals, of clearly defining the limits of executive power, and of requiring, as the Declaration made clear, the equal treatment of all Americans under law.
If one were to summarize this court’s rulings in the last week, you would be accurate to declare that it amounts to: “Who cares if you’re an ally? What matters is the law.”
For Americans who believe in the rule of law and who celebrate our founding documents and all the lessons they establish as essential to the greatness of the American project, this Independence Day will be a day of true celebration. If you’re a limousine liberal, feel free to stay home. Those fireworks may not seem appropriate for you, with their stench of sulfur and black powder. And that’s fine — more barbecue for the rest of us.
