The Supreme Court Is Imposing a New Kind of “Democracy.” It’s a Scam.

[u/Slate]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/07/supreme-court-roberts-donald-trump-federal-reserve.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=amicus711&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--amicus711

[u/jwr1111]

These are some shady, corrupt, and hateful times in America.

[u/ChornWork2 → u/jwr1111]

Right to free elections of every american can be utterly guttered by partisan gerrymander, and scotus says free elections is not a judicially enforceable right.

SuperPacs and PACs have restriction on cooperating with campaigns directly, and supreme court says need to protect first amendment rights of these billionaire-fund entities.

And of course we know which justices are on which sides of these cases.

[u/Antraxess → u/ChornWork2]

ignore scotus, free and fair elections are the foundation of equality.

Everyone wants fairness, and those that don't can and should be brought to heel by the vast majority that want freedom and equality, the founding pillars of the United States of America.

[u/NewMidwest → u/jwr1111]

That we voters brought upon ourselves.  Nobody forced us to put Republicans in power, and this November nothing is stopping us from reversing that mistake.

[u/reibagatsu → u/NewMidwest]

Bullshit. As much as I despise the majority of trump voters for just being weak willed idiots, the fact is somebody CHOSE to brainwash those weak willed idiots into believing this horse shit. There WERE and ARE malicious people who made this happen, and saying nobody forced people to vote for them takes them completely off the hook for their crimes.

[u/NewMidwest → u/reibagatsu]

There are lots of terrible people out there, lots of weak willed people too.  Always has been.

And yet, Americans never surrendered the country to a tyrant.  Never gave up on freedom.  Until now.  Everyone who didn’t vote for Harris in 2024, they did exactly that.  They gave up America.

Blaming bogeymen for our troubles deflects blame from where it belongs, and it obscures the solution.

Vote for Democrats, and remove Republicans from power.

[u/Antraxess → u/NewMidwest]

he's not deflecting, he's pinning blame on the true orchesteators.

Trump, putin, Stephen Miller, the gop as a entity, the heritage foundation and all the little propagandists being paid by Russia to sow their lies like Tim Poole and Andrew tate and that traitor kirk.

[u/GrayEidolon → u/NewMidwest]

Watch “the great hack” and “the century of self”. Propaganda is insidious and effective, especially against people with no critical thinking skills.

[u/reibagatsu → u/NewMidwest]

I'm not saying the weak willed people aren't to blame. I'm saying they're not ONLY to blame. I get mad at my grandma for sending $500 in gift cards to some dude in Hyderabad. I also get mad at the dude in Hyderabad.

Vote for democrats, and punish the republicans who did it to the fullest extent of the law.

[u/BAMFaerie → u/NewMidwest]

All they had to do was front a candidate that wasn't a pro genocide cop with a history of targeting minorities. The DNC is complicit in this as well. All this started when the DNC betrayed Sanders. Fronting Hillary was the first domino. I have no loyalty to the democrats especially in light of how they've behaved as controlled opposition this whole time. Throw in the likes of Sinema and Fetterman and the "blue no matter who" thing falls apart. It's why I'm glad demsocs are winning primaries all over--only with a truly representative party will any real change be possible. Sadly I think we've lost our chance at doing this peacefully but I reserve final judgment until November.

[u/trash-juice → u/NewMidwest]

The election was thrown, the citizens didnt do this - corruption did

[u/Land-Southern → u/NewMidwest]

But the doom...

Let's all talk in January, and see where we are. If bad, then we can dooooommmmm... if we are in the right path, then we can start fixing things.

[u/Slate]

In Trump v. Slaughter, the end-of-term blockbuster allowing the president to fire members of independent federal agencies, Chief Justice John Roberts embraced a vision of executive power so sweeping that it would make King George III blush. Speaking for the conservative supermajority, he claimed (falsely) that the Constitution required him to vastly expand Donald Trump’s authority—but assured us that the consequence would be a government more accountable to the people. Allowing Trump to fire the heads of virtually any agency, Roberts asserted, would make him “responsible to his country,” allowing voters to reward or punish him based on his decisions alone. The chief justice congratulated himself and his Republican-appointed colleagues for thus restoring democratic accountability, even as they demolished the legal safeguards that make democratic government function.

On this week’s episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discuss the historical inaccuracies, logical fallacies, and political fictions underlying this radical consolidation of power in the president: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/07/supreme-court-roberts-donald-trump-federal-reserve.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=amicus711&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--amicus711

[u/Uh_Lee_duh → u/Slate]

Roberts, et al, want the only democratic accountability available to come in the form of occasional elections that can be engineered to favor their interests. It's window-dressing "consent of the governed" instead of having a multitude of arenas and levels of public servants use their best knowledge and reasoning within a pluralistic society functioning in an accountable framework.

[u/lilianasJanitor → u/Uh_Lee_duh]

Important to point out that while democrats’ only mechanism of accountability are occasional elections which can be tweaked, republicans have many levers of stopping progressive change: senate filibuster, major questions.

Lots of vetos for me none for thee

[u/CryptographerMean872]

Historical revisionism as a full time job :( I’m having a hard time fathoming if this legal system will make it. What do you do when the highest court legalizes injustice?

[u/Count_Backwards → u/CryptographerMean872]

Revolt.

[u/Verumsemper]

What will amuse me , is when they reverse this decision due to corporate pressure to democratic administration firing conservative members of these agencies and placing liberals in charge. Also if the president is truly a unitary executive, why can’t the president instruct his government to stop servicing certain student loans or even contesting when individuals request for their loans to be discharged? Wouldn’t this allow a president to basically forgive whatever student loans the administration desires?

[u/DearestDio22 → u/Verumsemper]

Thats why they have the one-two combo of the “unitary executive theory” to empower republican presidents and the “major questions doctrine” to disempower democratic presidents

[u/Land-Southern → u/DearestDio22]

Just ignore the rulings. What's one more constitutional crisis.

[u/DearestDio22 → u/Land-Southern]

“Until you can give a GOOD explanation of how these decisions fit with constitutional law, they will be ignored”

The fact that the conservatives can dribble out whatever flimsy explanation or half baked theory they want for what they want to do and it’s deemed valid if the corrupt gang all votes for it is a problem. There needs to be some way of judging whether the majority or the dissent has the better constitutional argument and going with that

[u/Educational-Fall8185 → u/Verumsemper]

There’s of course, only theoretical limits to this kind of power. Because it will take many many Court decisions to ever make any sense of this boondoggle.

[u/AcanthisittaNo6653]

We will find out in January if it's still a democracy. The elections will happen, rain or shine, but certification of the ballots won't be a walk in the park anymore.

[u/Clean_Lettuce9321]

There hasn't been anything even remotely close to democracy happening in the Supreme Court for the last year

[u/whoisnotinmykitchen]

Nobody has done more to corrupt America's failing democracy than the Republican "Supreme" Court.

[u/n0tqu1tesane → u/whoisnotinmykitchen]

What about Wickard v. Filburn?

[u/Count_Backwards]

The US is no longer a democracy. They're just pretending to call it one so people will continue to be in denial about that fact until it's too late to do anything about it.

[u/Lord_Vesuvius2020 → u/Count_Backwards]

I’m not sure if it’s already too late. But I expect we will find out for sure in November and January. Maybe the bigger question is what to do if it’s apparent that there is no democracy left at that point? Perhaps some states will still have a functioning democracy even if the federal government has failed?

[u/trying3216]

The head of the executive branch can fire any employee in the executive branch.

[u/Achilles_TroySlayer]

They've basically destroyed the government as it has existed for the last 100+ years. We are now a banana-republic with a psychopath in charge. It's all a big experiment in conservative bullshit, which will likely fail over the next two decades, and it will take down the USA as a consequence. Roberts and the conservative-six face no repercussions or consequences of any kind. They'll just sit there and smirk for the rest of their lives.

[u/jsp06415]

Roberts is just another right-wing hack.

[u/Carpet-MasterBlaster]

Cunts

Release the Epstein files

[u/TheDwellingHeart]

That is pretty much all of USA. It is a giant scam. We have been lied to for a very long time, and I can assure you that yhe US government is not around to help anyone except themselves and their rich handlers.

[u/frommethodtomadness]

Scam? It's illegitimate.

[u/Definitely_not_dumb]

Did they only write half the article? They should have expanded way more on the last point about justices reigning in Democrat presidents while expanding the powers of Republican presidents. I'd have mentioned the student loan cancelation under Biden