As a new term begins, the justices have continually failed to provide a check on presidential power – with disastrous consequences
Two 0f the world’s best-known authoritarian leaders – Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president – have each had at least 15 years at their country’s helm to pack the courts with loyalists and to pressure and intimidate judges. And no surprise, judges in those countries have repeatedly done what Orbán and Erdoğan want.
Donald Trump has not had the opportunity to pack the US supreme court to nearly the same degree. Nor has he, despite his brash, bullying ways, done much to pressure or browbeat the court’s nine justices. Nevertheless, the court’s conservative supermajority has ruled time after time in favor of Trump since he returned to office. The six conservative justices have fallen into line much like Hungary’s and Turkey’s judges, even though the supreme court’s justices have life tenure to insulate them from political pressures.
Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues
