How Trump's Judges Stuck a Pin in the 'Stop the Steal' Balloon

[DonViejo]

It was because of, not in spite of, Trump’s influence on the judiciary that the peaceful transfer of power was ensured.

Jake Whitney

Published Mar. 14, 2021 5:07AM ET

On Monday, the last judicial shoe dropped on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his third and final high court challenge. As America transitions to a Biden presidency, the court’s ruling exemplifies why the judiciary is our nation’s strongest bulwark against authoritarianism. Indeed, during the biggest threat to our democracy in modern history, the American court system was our last line of defense, proving, as Andrew Jackson once wrote, “All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing...except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous judiciary.”

When Donald Trump left office in January as a one-term president, he had nonetheless made a vast impact on the American court system. In four years, Trump had appointed 226 justices to the federal bench, including 54 to the appellate court. This latter number is just one justice fewer than Barack Obama appointed to that court in his entire eight years as president. Of the nation's 13 federal appeals courts, Trump succeeded in flipping three from liberal to conservative majorities. His three Supreme Court justices, meanwhile, were the most appointed in a single term since Richard Nixon. Indeed, Trump’s mark on the American judiciary will be long-lasting and profound.

Which is why it was so significant that Trump’s bogus, execrable claim that the election was “stolen” from him—the “Big Lie” as many have called it—was unequivocally, even contemptuously, repudiated by the courts. In doing so, the American judiciary saved our democracy. That may sound hyperbolic, but in an age so politically volatile that members of the American right wing plotted to kidnap a governor, broke into the U.S. Capitol, and believed the Democratic party was being led by Satan-worshipping cannibals, the judiciary proved our only institution immune to the virulent hyper-partisanship infecting this country. It managed to maintain, if just barely, the legitimacy of both political parties.

But here’s the really interesting thing: It was because of, not in spite of, Trump’s influence on the judiciary that the peaceful transfer of power was ensured. Sound crazy? Imagine if the courts, like Congress and the media, had split along partisan lines—with Democratic appointees ruling against Trump’s election challenges and Republican appointees ruling in favor. Imagine further that no Trump appointees had heard the cases. The right wing, already aflame with conspiracy theories, would have considered the entire process a sham. Worse, a partisan split would have instilled an even deeper sense among all Americans that the country possessed no objective arbiter—that truth was only what our respective political leaders deemed it to be.

More
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-trumps-judges-stuck-a-pin-in-the-stop-the-steal-balloon?ref=scroll

RawStory is running an article about the above column:

Here's how Trump's court-packing ended up blowing up in his face as he tried to cling to power
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-court-losses/

[brewens]

1. They wanted to still be a Supreme Court. If they let Trump over throw the election, they would

be nothing. He'd own them. He would then have basically been able to effectively just appoint Congressmen and judges with no oversite. If they even bothered to go through the motions, Trump could have his Congress impeach and remove any of them that went against him.

If people rose up and overthrew Trump, they wouldn't even be puppet judges. No telling what they would be replaced with.