“It’s Scalias All the Way Down”: Why the very thing that scholars think is the antidote to Trump is in fact the aide-de-Trump
Mike Allen is reporting this morning:
Trump was upbeat and brought up a Kim Strassell column in The Wall Street Journal, “Scalias all the way down,” giving the president credit for “remaking the federal judiciary.”‘
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. While political scientists warn against the norm erosion of the Trump presidency—and dwell on the importance of the courts, the Constitution, and the rule of law as antidotes—the most far-seeing leaders of the conservative movement and the Republican party understand that long after Trump has left the stage, long after the Republican Party has lost its hold over the political discourse and political apparatus, it will be Trump’s judiciary—interpreting the Constitution, applying the rule of law—that preserves and extends his legacy.
People often ask me why I criticize this language of norm erosion, why I go after social scientists ringing the warning bell against Trump. One of the reasons is that the very terms of their analysis not only ignore the real long-term threat of Trumpism but actually hold up that long-term threat—an independent judiciary interpreting the Constitution (for that is what, in 30 years, Trump’s judiciary will be)—as somehow the answer and antidote to our situation.
That analysis is completely backassward, and it really does us a disservice. Trump’s real threat is not that he will destroy institutions or the Constitution; it’s that institutions and the Constitution will preserve him, long after he’s gone.