by
Alex
Wong/Getty
Images)
If
there’s
one
thing
that
Chief
Justice
John
Roberts
loves
more
than
stripping
Black
people
of
meaningful
voting
rights,
it’s
playing
the
disappointed
dad
act
with
the
public.
Over
the
last
several
years,
Roberts
has
fed
the
media
manicured
sound
bites
as
a
reluctant
scold,
chastising
the
public
for
not
understanding
the
Supreme
Court’s
very
important
work
and
getting
pre-occupied
with
unimportant
trifles
like
“justices
taking
hundreds
of
thousands
of
dollars
under
the
table.”
It’s
just
so
TRAGIC
that
people
care
more
about
the
Supreme
Court
erasing
decades
worth
of
civil
rights
as
opposed
to
the
real
threat:
hurting
the
Court’s
public
approval
rating.
At
the
Third
Circuit
judicial
conference,
Roberts
was
at
it
again.
Roberts
defended
the
Supreme
Court
from
what
he
characterized
as
the
public’s
unfortunate
misconceptions:
“I
think
at
a
very
basic
level,
people
think
we’re
making
policy
decisions,
[that]
we’re
saying
we
think
this
is
what
things
should
be
as
opposed
to
this
is
what
the
law
provides.
I
think
they
view
us
as
truly
political
actors,
which
I
don’t
think
is
an
accurate
understanding
of
what
we
do.”
Yes,
how
could
anyone
mistake
the
Supreme
Court’s
conservative
majority
for
“political
actors”
mere
days
after
throwing
aside
decades
of
well-settled
law
to
rewrite
the
nation’s
election
laws.
A
move
that
the
Supreme
Court
took
only
after
Democrats
in
California
and
Virginia
responded
to
Republican
gerrymandering
efforts,
creating
a
new
political
crisis
for
the
Republican
Party
that
didn’t
exist
over
the
prior
61
years.
After
all
that
time,
the
majority
decided
it
was
so
obviously
unconstitutional
that
they
had
to
rush
out
a
decision
in
the
middle
of
an
active
election
and
waive
its
longstanding
rules
to
make
sure
other
states
get
their
new
maps
in
under
the
wire.
One
has
to
wonder
if
Roberts
prepared
this
speech
expecting
that
decision
to
come
later.
If
the
public
views
a
Supreme
Court
staffed
by
justices
who
previously
worked
on
stifling
the
2000
Florida
recount,
drafted
DOJ
memos
plotting
to
disenfranchise
Black
voters,
or
married
Big
Lie
activists,
as
“political”
that’s
quite
accurate
really.
It’s
not
that
the
justices
can’t
have
political
preferences
—
that’s
the
nature
of
the
process
at
this
point.
But
it’s
one
thing
to
be
an
advocate
and
another
to
be
a
judge.
The
fact
that
this
Court
consistently
finds
a
way
to
rule
against
decades
of
precedent,
always
in
line
with
their
personal
political
hobby
horses
—
often
without
even
explaining
themselves!
—
is
how
the
perception
of
Supreme
Court
legitimacy
sank
to
an
all-time
low.
John
Roberts
and
company
could
easily
write,
“I
wish
Section
2
of
the
Voting
Rights
Act
wasn’t
the
law,
but
it
is
and
this
Court
has
long
held
it
constitutional,
so
this
is
a
matter
for
Congress
to
change
if
it
decides.”
That’s
what
a
judge
would
do.
A
political
actor,
on
the
other
hand,
would
join
Callais
v.
Louisiana.
Speaking
of
“without
even
explaining
themselves,”
Roberts
whining
about
the
public
misunderstanding
the
Court’s
decisions
lands
at
a
particularly
ironic
moment.
The
New
York
Times
just
published
the
leaked
memos
revealing
how
Roberts
took
the
Court’s
emergency
docket
and
reimagined
it
as
a
political
blunt
instrument
to
block
liberal
policies
without
having
to
concoct
a
written
justification.
Using
a
tool
that
only
Supreme
Court
nerds
ever
cared
about
to
exercise
the
power
of
a
superlegislature
without
the
scrutiny
made
for
a
tidy
little
racket.
Until
the
public
started
to
notice,
and
now
Roberts
has
to
put
on
his
“disappointed
in
us”
face.
But
rather
than
more
scolding,
if
Roberts
didn’t
want
to
be
seen
as
a
political
actor,
he
could
consider
explaining
these
decisions.
But
while
lipstick
is
cheap,
getting
it
on
the
pig
is
still
hard.
“We’re
not
simply
part
of
the
political
process,
and
there’s
a
reason
for
that,
and
I’m
not
sure
people
grasp
that
as
much
as
is
appropriate.”
“As
much
as
is
appropriate,”
feels
like
a
slip.
It’s
not
a
truth
the
public
needs
to
grasp,
it’s
a
position
that
an
appropriately
disengaged
and
docile
public
should
accept.
John
Roberts
uses
his
year-end
reports
comparing
critics
of
the
Court
to
cross
burning.
It’s
like
when
Roberts
can’t
even
convince
himself
that
we’ll
believe
his
“apolitical”
nonsense,
he
tries
to
bully
us
into
being
ashamed
that
we’ve
noticed.
“One
of
the
things
we
have
to
do
is
issue
decisions
that
are
unpopular.”
Bad
faith
and
unpopular
are
not
the
same
thing.
Recognizing
that
the
First
Amendment
protects
Nazi
marches
is
“unpopular”
but
an
even-handed
conclusion
based
in
law.
There
is
a
hypothetical
justice
—
willfully
shutting
themselves
off
from
history
and
nuance
—
that
could
embrace
an
absolutist
position
on
Equal
Protection
and
declare
affirmative
action
unconstitutional…
but
that
justice
would,
in
theory,
not
turn
around
and
call
racial
profiling
“common
sense.”
The
animating
rule
of
this
Court’s
race
jurisprudence
is
that
racial
discrimination
is
bad
when
it
inconveniences
white
people
and
fine
if
it
brutalizes
minorities.
America
allows
“unpopular”
to
stand
in
for
“principled”
far
too
often
—
sometimes
unpopular
things
are
unpopular
because
they’re
actually
wrong.
It’s
not
just
race
either.
The
majority
declared
it
a
dangerous
assault
on
religious
freedom
for
a
public
school
to
teach
kids
to
respect
their
LGBTQ
classmates,
and
turned
around
to
bless
a
state
mandating
that
every
classroom
display
a
specific
sectarian
translation
of
the
Ten
Commandments.
A
Democratic
president
invoking
explicit
statutory
authority
to
forgive
student
loans
is
an
unconstitutional
power
grab,
a
Republican
president
arbitrarily
impounding
congressionally
allocated
funds
gets
approved
without
comment
on
the
shadow
docket.
It’s
all
Calvinball
with
the
twist
that
Republican
policy
initiatives
always
win.
Even
the
decision
to
strike
down
Trump’s
tariffs
—
a
genuine
result
based
on
the
clear
constraints
of
the
statutory
text
—
only
sided
against
Trump
because
the
Republican
Party’s
free
traders
wanted
the
result.
And
even
that
was
a
split
decision
among
the
conservatives.
Clarence
Thomas
just
gave
a
speech
claiming
progressives
are
incompatible
with
America.
Sam
Alito
flies
insurrection
flags.
Neil
Gorsuch
has
been
on
Fox
News
multiple
times
this
week.
Meanwhile,
liberal
justices
suggesting
the
Court
made
an
ill-considered
decision
are
made
to
apologize.
The
Supreme
Court
ruled
that
Trump
could
use
the
military
to
assassinate
political
rivals.
Can
we
just
stop
with
the
fucking
gaslighting?
Ken
White
of
Popehat
fame
has
taken
to
calling
Roberts
“Temu
Taney,”
which
is
a
great
line,
but
might
be
too
generous.
History
won’t
remember
Roberts
as
a
cheap
knockoff
of
Roger
Taney.
Roberts
comes
as
the
new
and
improved
luxury
model.
Taney
with
better
PR!
Even
now,
there
are
mainstream
outlets
willing
to
pretend
he’s
a
centrist
—
the
man
who
managed
to
keep
mainstream
legal
reporters
calling
him
a
centrist
while
he
oversees
the
dismantling
of
America’s
constitutional
order.
But
as
his
defenses
of
the
Court
grow
more
frequent,
it
suggest
is
that
he
knows
the
facade
is
cracking.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
you’re
interested
in
law,
politics,
and
a
healthy
dose
of
college
sports
news.
Joe
also
serves
as
a
Managing
Director
at
RPN
Executive
Search.