Getting rid of Donald Trump as president is crucial, and can be accomplished (but won’t be, of course) in a number of ways. Getting rid of the Supreme Court is more difficult. And while explaining Donald Trump is relatively easy, explaining the Supreme Court is simply impossible (IMHO).

Perhaps the first villains in the piece were Anthony Scalia and his pals at the Federalist Society who (for reasons understandable to me) fooled the entire judicial and political worlds by inventing a way of looking at the Constitution which they called originalism. They convinced the entire judicial world that originalism was a real thing, a real way to interpret documents, and that it wasn’t simply a fiction designed to allow them to decide whatever they wanted and call it the result of originalism. It was like developing a religion, convincing everyone that there is a new god-like being that no one noticed before, but that really exists.

This set the stage. Now, the Court could do anything it wanted, call it originalism, and people would say things like “well, I don’t agree with that, but they reached that conclusion because they are originalists”. As Scarlett O’Hara famously said, “Fiddlesticks”. Like the Wizard of Oz could have said: “Fooled ya’”.

What the originalists really had in mind was not a way to analyze documents, but a trick to stop this country from becoming what it was becoming: a multiracial, multicultural, bilingual, globalized country. They wanted the America of their youth, the America their parents and grandparents knew (even if they had to reconstruct their parents and their grandparents). They wanted a white, English speaking America, with enough Spanish speakers to do the laundry, pick the crops and mow the grass, and with a native Black population which (except for Booker T. Washington’s talented tenth) would know their place and be kept there.

And lo and behold, it looks like they succeeded.

Well, not exactly. They didn’t succeed because the America that exists is in fact multiracial, multicultural, bilingual (at least) and globalized. So, they had to resort to extreme measures to reach their goal. We see that in ICE and we see that in the destruction of the Voting Rights Act, etc., etc.

Having convinced the judicial world that originalism was a real thing and, in fact, THE real thing, they then convinced the financial elite that they should support originalism and that, in fact, originalism supported them. Just look at the Citizens United case that allowed unlimited amounts of money to come into American political campaigns, and how much of that money could be “dark”, i.e., its source would not have to be disclosed. Yes, now all of the moneyed class can now selfishly support originalism, because originalism supports it (you see, Donald Trump was not the inventor of transactional thinking).

Now that the wealthy could put unlimited funds into American politics and not have to account for their contributions, they could direct all that money to politicians who would support originalism, i.e., who would support trying to move the United States back to more heterogeneous place. And of course, the politicians they selected would, in turn, select them for special favors, making them richer and richer, while they gave the politicians more and more support.

Everything went along its merry way, until something new happened. That something new is called Donald Trump, and it charmed its way into their circles, enshrining originalism more and more as The Way, the Tao of the 21st century. But he was so unique, so out of his element, that the originalists had to make another decision. Do you support this weird and crazy guy? Or do you support some form of normality and sanity.

We all know what was decided. From the perspective of the originalists, Donald Trump was a loon, for sure, but he was “our loon”, so we will support him and he, in turn and in his odd way, supports them. And, to support him, the originalists (Congress and Courts) need to become more and more and more extreme. And that is what they have done.

So, now we have an inevitable contradiction. The decisions of the Supreme Courts of the past, upholding the Constitution and sometimes molding parts of it to fit the times, have been, one by one, thrown out and overturned. Pretending to be originalists, the Supreme Court is rewriting the Constitution to suit their own desires. This isn’t a brand new phenomenon. It started with decisions that said that corporations are like people and have personal rights, that the Second Amendment allows all sorts of fancy weapons that have no business in a civilized world, and so forth. And where it stops, nobody knows.

Donald Trump has two more years to cause chaos and havoc, and the Court will support him, as will so many uber-wealthy individuals and interest groups. In fact, he will probably have the opportunity to appoint more Supreme Court justices, more compliant and much younger than those currently on the Court, who will be able to stifle the progress of the country for more decades than I will ever see.

UNLESS! Unless, the Democrats can take control of the House and the Senate following the November mid-terms. And especially, the Senate, where the Democrats will be able to block the dangerous appointments that Trump will undoubtedly decide to make to the Court and elsewhere. This is why the Just This One Time! campaign that I suggested a few weeks ago is so important, and should be supported. All Independents and all non-Trump Republicans must support the Democratic candidates in November, everywhere. They can go back to voting otherwise in 2028, but this year, their vote must go to those who will vote against Trump’s nominations and legislative proposals which make so little sense and are so dangerous.

Otherwise, where are we going to end up? As Antonio Gramsci once said: “The old world is dead. The new world is not born. Now is the time for monsters.”