David Horsey’s dystopian vision of life in America under Donald Trump (right) has become a shocking reality. With Trump’s Deportation Force rounding up immigrant familiess from Latin America and jailing them in internment camps, and Trump asserting dictatorial powers over the courts and constitutional due process, today the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban in a 5-4 decision in Trump v. Hawaii(.pdf).
This is what creeping fascism looks like.
The conservative majority on the Court demonstrates exceeding deference to executive authority, and exceeding indifference for individual liberties. Chief Justice John Roberts, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch joined. Kennedy and Thomas filed concurring opinions.
Effectively the conservative majority holds that as long as there is a minimally rational neutral (pretextual) reason for the action taken under the Immigration and Naturalization Act, the Court will accept that reason as reasonable and disregard other evidence of the president’s numerous and repeated discriminatory public statements exhibiting a discriminatory animus. So Trump can be a raging racist religious bigot against Muslims to his heart’s content, and it does not affect the validity of this immigration order so long as the government can provide a minimally rational (pretextual) reason for the order.
One has to pose the hypothetical question whether this decision would be the same if this was a travel ban on Christians from predominantly Christian countries, instead of Muslims from predominantly Muslim countries. Sadly, I think we all know that we can presume the answer is no, and that is why this is a suspect opinion.
To their shame, all of the justices ruling in favor of the Muslim Travel Ban are Catholics. Given the past history of the Church, I’m sure Pope Francis is most displeased with the bad optics.
