The Left’s Bonkers Attack on the Supreme Court

T he fix is in.

That’s the belief of all conspiracy theorists, and the Left instantly went there upon the news that the Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s immunity claim in Jack Smith’s January 6 case.

On MSNBC, Chris Hayes alleged, earnestly and unabashedly, that an obvious conspiracy with Trump is at work: “Today, the Supreme Court signaled that it is in cahoots. The plot is on. It is a go.”

His colleague Rachel Maddow said much the same thing, upbraiding the Court for taking up the case “to help your political friend, your partisan patron.”

Former Obama-ite Dan Pfeiffer sees the same dynamic at play: “The MAGA justices thanked Trump by giving him a massive, possibly campaign-altering gift.”

This take on the Court’s action is confirmation, yet again, that conspiracism is a phenomenon on both the right and the left. It has become more prominent on the right because Trump has done so much to encourage it. But the Left is shot through, too, with feverish and irrational thinking, and among people with high-profile platforms.

On the right, the most common conspiracy theories these days tend to be about the electoral system (or, um, Taylor Swift). On the left, they tend to be about the Supreme Court. Amy Coney Barrett was being put on the Court as part of a deal to repeal Obamacare. Clarence Thomas is beholden to a few wealthy friends. Dark money has created the new conservative majority. And now this.

The Left’s conspiratorial attacks on the Court reflect its disappointment and outrage at no longer controlling it, and its goal to delegitimize the institution in the hopes of undermining its unwelcome decisions and preparing the ground for a possible Court-packing scheme.

Another motive is to set up the argument that the election was rigged by the Court in the event of a Trump victory in November. In this respect, the conspiratorial jags about the Court share the same ultimate goal as the last great conspiracy theory on the left — the insistence that Trump must have been in league with Russia in the 2016 election, which, of course, was a way to delegitimize his victory.

(Rachel Maddow, who is a left-winger with mainstream credibility, has been all in on both conspiracies.)

Consider the absurdity of the charges against the Court. As we noted in our editorial, it was special counsel Jack Smith who first asked the Court to settle the immunity issue. It declined, instead — entirely defensibly — letting the normal appellate process play out. Now, it has taken up the case, but only on an expedited basis.

For the Supreme Court to take the case in late February, schedule oral arguments in April, and rule on it by the end of the term is an extraordinary, lightning-fast schedule. Trump wanted the Court to hear the case next term, which would have been completely reasonable — it’s not clear why it should play along with Jack Smith’s politicized rush to have a trial before the election. But the Court worked, within reason, to accommodate the special counsel.

The Court’s critics argue that there’s nothing to be decided here because the immunity case is so cut-and-dried against Trump. But there’s a legitimate case that, even if the circuit court’s bottom-line ruling is correct, its reasoning is flawed and the Court shouldn’t let it stand.

More broadly, it’s not the fault of the Court that Jack Smith brought a convoluted, legally novel case against Trump that was inevitably going to raise fresh questions of law. Or that he had unrealistic expectations of jamming it through the system without anyone pausing to consider the fraught, consequential, underlying legal matters.

But reality is less emotionally satisfying and politically convenient than a lurid tale of a dark conspiracy.

It’s only March. There’s much more where this came from.