Guardrails needed to protect democracy from vindictive president, bent on destroying rivals

Editor:

A lot of people are criticizing the conservatives on the Supreme Court for stalling on the Trump immunity issue.  But if you listen to Justice Alito – with whom I seldom agree due to his hubris  overreaching to impose his opinions on us rather than apply settled law –  he did say, “I am not concerned about the circumstances of the Trump case; I am concerned about the long term.”  That may concede Trump trampled over the line.

He and I come from it from opposite sides of the spectrum but he could be saying that he sees democracy in decline. I see that’s a decline because of the radical right. He sees it in decline because of change that he doesn’t like.

But were the two may meet is with a need for guardrails to make sure that something like Trump and partisan prosecution and use of the courts cannot be used to accelerate the process or completely undue democracy in one swoop as proposed by Trump.

As Nicole Wallace, former White House Bush administration official put it during her show on MSNBC, we know if Trump says it the most extreme hypothetical is going to happen.  That includes prosecution and death of political opponents. Before the Supreme Court, Trump’s  attorneys discussed that that a coup overthrowing the government could be and protected official act.

Obviously we have to wait for what the decision is. However, if the conservatives on SCOTUS install guardrails rather than creating an avenue authorizing decline, the wait may be understandable and worth it even if Trump never answers for some of his crimes.

We’ll have to see.

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion