Clarence Thomas And The Revival Of "The Grand Inquisitor"

 

Clarence Thomas' recent comments regarding the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and their "hate group" designations being libelous or defamatory are revealing. (Exposés regarding "Coral Ridge Ministries Inc," and their bigoted propaganda against LGBTQ citizens rights)  It is more than another step toward press censorship. 

It is Thomas openly defending various extremist organization's right to conduct hate speech, speech which is provably incitement to violence against targeted minorities and public figures. It is an atrocious legal provocation by an extreme right-wing charismatic Catholic religious bigot which is more suited for Tomas de Torquemada's Spanish Inquisition than the Supreme Court of the United States

This comment by Thomas exposes his transparent political and religious bias, as these are the very groups which his wife Ginni and other Trump acolytes organized in large numbers and brought to the Capitol on buses to violently obstruct the transition of power on behalf of Trump's illegal coup. The January 6th attack on the Capitol was led by "hate groups" and extremists identified as such by SPLC, such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, violence inciting Christian fundamentalist cults and Neo-Nazis spinning out of QAnon. Therefore it is relevant that Thomas focused upon SPLC in his remarks calling for changing the standards for defamation and libel cases against the media.

It should be obvious that the mainstreaming of insurrectionists, extremists, and hate groups goes hand in hand with the SCOTUS radicals intention to hollow out our Constitutional protections.  Their recent rulings are designed to literally break up the United States into feuding red and blue entities. The authoritarian GOP needs Neo-Confederate religious bigots and racists organized into a militant and potentially violent force to add the factor of physical intimidation against their political opposition.  Having a legitimized fascist rabble on "speed dial" is a classic authoritarian strategy for crushing dissent through targeting of their "enemies."  

It is also obviously an attempt to create a political precedent for killing a free press via bankruptcy through libel and defamation suits. But most important is that it reveals that Thomas is himself a full fledged member of what should also be designated as a hate group, the so-called conservatives on the Supreme Court. The fact that he used SPLC's expose of this gay-bashing pseudo-Christian cult as his pretext to invoke his originalist gobbledygook brings it all into sharp focus.

They seek to destroy free speech and other protected Constitutional rights by redefining it as defending "religious freedom" for those who wish to eliminate most of our other freedoms. (With one exception, the Second Amendment's "freedom" to conduct mass shootings)  The Supreme Court was never meant to exert such staggering political or cultural power.

This is a monstrous development amongst a cascade of abominations. And inexplicably, President Biden has patently rejected the only available Constitutional remedies for this, which is either an attempt to the expand the Court, reform the filibuster, clearing the way for Congress to codify pre-existing settled law, or to Impeach some of the Justices. The question is why, and the answer to that is what too many people don't want to think about. In my view, there are "palace politics" at work which are thoroughly shakespearian in their implications.

The President himself has invoked the history and tradition of Franklin Roosevelt for solving the crisis of today, which is what we need. However, FDR, despite his Polio, "walked the walk" when it came to the Supreme Court of his day sabotaging our recovery from The Great Depression.  

It's about time some leading figures in President Biden's White House team learned that FDR wasn't just an economic "Keynsian"  who spent a lot of money to create jobs. He fought the Wall Street robber barons and the fascists, and was prepared to junk bipartisanship when the opposition party degenerated into obstructionist radicals. 

Some of the President's advisers should listen to the archived Fireside Chats and hear the brutal and withering attacks made by FDR against the GOP and SCOTUS back then. They are spectacular masterclasses on history, current events, and civics. He was speaking a different language, because the United States was not going to go fascist or communist on his watch.  But doing that would mean learning something from history, no?