Wow, what a game changing, a nation changing, ruling by SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States), giving a broad immunity from prosecution for any official acts of a sitting President of the United States. Some say this allows the president to act like a king, ruling by fiat, hardly in keeping with any version of American democracy.
All of our minds tended to go to what this means for the legal actions in process against former-president Donald Trump. Not only that, but what does it presage for another Trump presidency, should he be elected. Many see disaster, disaster, disaster on the horizon and perhaps a looming dictatorship with such broad and unquestioned power.
Whoa, let’s stop and think a moment. Has the Trump Court perhaps created a dilemma in spite of itself. They have forgotten that no matter who is elected as the next US President, Joe Biden will be president for 7 more months, until the inauguration on January 20th, 2025. This also means that he now has the power, through official actions, to do nearly anything and be immune from legal action.
Wow, what an incredible oversight for this very political court.
With this direct threat to the core of American democracy, what can, and should be done to head off the culmination of this quiet, tyrannical coup ending American democracy. This is an emergency, far beyond the ordinary stricture of fair play. The Court has discarded that ideal and put the presidency above the law. So, let’s play their game and use it to take back control of our democracy.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare used the phrase “hoisted on your own petard” for someone whose plan is to punish the enemy, but that plan backfires and blows up in their face. A petard was a small bomb. Being hoisted on your own petard was about being blown up by the very bomb that was intended for the enemy. The Supreme Court ruling is not a small bomb, it is a nuke, planned to destroy the remnants of democracy in this nation. It is time to use their ruling of presidential immunity to blow up their plans for a tyranny.
It is time to take control and use their weapon of immunity against them to restore American democracy.
