Nobody wants to be Roger Brooke Taney

I grew up near the birthplace of Roger Brooke Taney.

Under normal circumstances you would think being the home of a Supreme Court Chief Justice would be a matter of great civic pride.

Museums, monuments, schools, roads, buildings—all named in your honor. All for the fame that you brought your hometown. It’s what typically happens with locals who achieved great heights.

But there was nothing around me named for Roger Brooke Taney. There was no museum. No monuments or statues—not even in the era of erecting statues to controversial figures as a symbol of defiance.

The only indication that we had any connection whatsoever to Roger Brooke Taney was a small historical plaque near his birthplace, a sign so insignificant when driving past it at 60 miles per hour that barely any of our own long time residents knew it existed.

For Roger Brooke Taney was the author of the Dred Scott decision, an infamous ruling denying the humanity of fellow human beings kept in slavery which is almost universally regarded as the worst decision ever in Supreme Court history.

Nobody wants that legacy. Not the least of which being other members of the Supreme Court, regardless of ideology.

Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett all owe their seats to Donald Trump (and to some extent Mitch McConnell and his hypocritical machinations as well).

They received a position for life, and one where the burden to remove them prematurely is extremely high.

No doubt about it, they will be on the wrong end of many, many bad and unsavory decisions for years to come. And that’s quite a sad and depressing fact.

But dare I say none of them want to be put in the company of Roger Brooke Taney.

None of them feel the need or loyalty to Donald Trump to the extent they would support his demands to overturn a fairly decided Presidential election and disenfranchise millions of American voters.

They got what they wanted from Trump. And now they’re done with him. And none of them want to follow him down the path towards American infamy.

This is not a matter of principle on their part but rather mere practicality.

Nobody wants to be Roger Brooke Taney.