In early August, Donald Trump used his social media platform to push a curious argument: When the left criticizes judges and Supreme Court justices, the former president wrote, it’s “probably illegal.”
Two weeks later, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the Republican went a little further, suggesting that judicial criticisms should be “illegal.”
This week, the GOP candidate returned to the Keystone State with a similar message, though this time, he included fewer qualifiers.
Trump says Americans who criticize the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade should be imprisoned: “These people should be put in jail for the way they talk about our judges and justices” pic.twitter.com/IJtQVZPKXc
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 24, 2024
“They were very brave, the Supreme Court [justices],” Trump said. “Very brave, and they take a lot of hits because of it. It should be illegal, what happens. You know, you have these guys like playing the ref. … These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices.”
It seems unlikely that Republicans would succeed in passing a law that criminalizes judicial criticism. If GOP officials were to try, it’s also likely that courts would reject such a measure thanks to those pesky free speech protections in the First Amendment.
But the fact that Trump voiced support for such an approach — or more to the point, keeps voicing support for such an approach — sheds important light on his rather twisted perspective.
For one thing, his failures of self-awareness remain a sight to behold. Indeed, as regular readers know, Trump, more than any modern American political leader, has gone after sitting judges with a vengeance — at times even going after members of their families.
If anyone has any doubts about this, they should feel free to ask U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron or U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, each of whom has been on the receiving end of Trump’s delegitimizing tantrums.
We can also look to the Supreme Court itself. It was just a couple of years ago when justices rejected his emergency appeal seeking to hide his tax returns from Congress. The furious former president wrote online that the Supreme Court “has lost its honor, prestige, and standing, [and] has become nothing more than a political body, with our Country paying the price.”
For good measure, the Republican added, “They refused to even look at the Election Hoax of 2020. Shame on them!”
If “people should be put in jail” for “the way they talk about” justices, Trump probably should’ve turned himself into the authorities quite a while ago.
But there are also broader principles at stake. Trump has now repeatedly insisted that criticizing jurists he agrees with should be criminalized, adding fresh weight to concerns that the Republican candidate is effectively running on an authoritarian-style platform.
We are, after all, talking about a White House hopeful who is threatening perceived foes with prison sentences, endorsing a “strongman” leadership style, bragging about his support from dictators, raising the prospect of a temporary American “dictatorship” and talking about “terminating” parts of the Constitution that stand in the way of his ambitions.
Trump is also arguing that his rivals shouldn’t be “allowed” to run against him, targeting immigrants with Hitler-style rhetoric while promising to create militarized mass deportations and detention camps, promising pardons to politically aligned criminals and threatening the broadcast licenses of news organizations that dissatisfy him.
And did I mention that he’s raised the specter of military tribunals for his perceived domestic political foes? Because he’s done that, too.
It’s against this backdrop that Trump wants the public to know he believes constitutionally protected speech “should be illegal.”
As a Washington Post analysis summarized this week, “For someone who has so strongly objected in recent weeks to the idea that he’s an authoritarian or a threat to democracy, Donald Trump has a funny way of showing it.”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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