Is the Trump Reconfigured Supreme Court Reserved for Those with Wealth and Income?

Is the Trump Reconfigured Supreme Court Reserved for Those with Wealth and Income?

"This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this court than ordinary citizens [resting on a theory that the court has refused to apply in cases brought by less powerful plaintiffs… Also, I worry that the fuel industry's gain comes at a reputational cost for this court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests… This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this court than ordinary citizens." 

 Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s June 20th scathing dissent on a case involving the EPA’s right to grant California a waiver for more stringent vehicle emissions regulations.

“We have come to a point at which campaign finance regulations reviewed by the Supreme Court are almost presumptively unconstitutional. It’s very difficult to imagine that the justices agreed to take up this case to buck that trend, rather than continue it.” 

Steve Vladeck, Professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

“At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity.” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wiritng for the majority in Trump vs US, 2024.

“The United States is more ideologically divided than it has been since Reconstruction. The court’s October 2024 term, which ended June 27, presented a number of cases that posed politically controversial issues concerning the aspects of the culture wars and challenges to the actions of President Donald Trump. Time and again in these cases, the court came down on the conservative side, in 6-3 decisions.”

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

Does it strike you as profoundly un-American for a wealthy President and his billionaire cronies to threaten to “primary” a sitting member of Congress of that President’s own party (i.e., over fund his/her primary opponent in the next election) to oust any dissenting members of Congress? On average, a member of the House represents about 800,000 constituents, faces an election every two years, and spends 70% of their workday seeking campaign contributions. Senators (two per state) have it easier, with elections only every six years. Money defines American elections like no other on earth. Virtually all Republican members of Congress, solely out of fear of being primaried out of office by MAGA billionaire contributions, openly and willingly defied their own statements, their own pledges to their constituents, held their noses and voted for their abominable Big Ugly Bill. Nary a Democratic vote was anywhere to be found. Ugh!

There are lots of high court cases on campaign contributions, which contributions are severely curtailed in number of major democracies around the world… but money decides US elections like never before. A political system that accords political power based on personal wealth is a “plutocracy” or an “oligarchy,” and where government is structured for advantages, favors and exoneration based on payments to the leadership, the term for that form of government is “kleptocracy,” reflecting a system of legitimized political theft. Like watching major Trump campaign contributors greasing a pardon for a criminal pardon? Yep!

The main issue is allowing big money to buy elections, often creating a waterfall of cronies getting juicy, sometimes lifetime, appointments that define government. In short, in these un-American governmental structures, the rich call the shots and get the benefits and the rest of us are screwed. In the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs FEC, the Court opened the floodgates to SuperPACs (Political Actions Committees) able to spend in support of issues and candidates without any caps, as long as such contributions were not directed by the candidates themselves. What followed resulted in a MAGA takeover of the GOP, as billionaires funded extreme primary candidates willing to dig their heels in and never compromise. But that result wasn’t enough for the Republican Party.

Under an effort led by then Ohio-Senator, JD Vance, the Republican Party filed a lawsuit to allow candidates to have direct control of SuperPAC financing, also without limits. National Republican Senatorial Committee vs FEC, is the case now set for the Supreme Court’s October term. As the above quote from constitutional law expert, Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, suggests, this use of money has effectively created a one-party rule. Add in the recent shadow docket decision, Trump vs CASA, where individual federal trial courts are now severely limited in issuing national injunctions, even in cases of obvious unconstitutional Presidential executive orders or mandates.

The period leading up to the July 4th signing of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill saw a number of Republican members from both the House and the Senate voice the most obvious objections to the proposed litigation – funding tax cuts for the mega rich by cutting survival level benefits for the poor – yet the Presidential threat of “consequences” to Republicans (being primaried out of office) produced a near unanimous GOP vote to pass the legislation. The most dire cuts in Medicaid (which provides essential medical services for poor Americans) won’t take effect until after the 2026 mid-term elections. How convenient!

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions seem to have leaned heavily in favor of conservative religious beliefs, classes of individuals who have enjoyed social and cultural dominance since the nation was founded and big money squirming to limit individual rights to challenge their corporate practices or attempt to make the tax code responsive to the needs of those most vulnerable. Allowing the powerful to get special treatment does indeed seem to be the Court’s most consistent recent legacy. From allowing SuperPACs funded by the rich to use their money to sponsor political causes without limits to giving the President of the United States a get out of jail free card for ostensibly criminal acts with some nexus to the purview of his office.

Recently, the Court deprived the Governor of California of the right to object to the President’s federalization of his National Guard and effectively using such troops to assist a very unpopular ICE purge of undocumented workers, very intentionally and effective provoking angry citizens in what was otherwise a mass of mostly calm and peaceful protectors in Los Angeles. Using very flimsy evidence of “out-of-control” violence that mirrors the minor violence that has occurred in celebration of local baseball and basketball championships. The Supreme Court ignored the Presidential gloating on Truth Social, reflecting on how he can do whatever he wants now. The Big Beautiful Bill also created massive new funding for ICE agents, resulting in the largest police force this country has ever seen.

As a personal note, I know of friends and acquaintances who are leaving the United States for “elsewhere,” or at east funding their child(ren) to move overseas for college… and life. For some Americans in countries where Trump’s tariffs and immigration policies are viewed as direct threats, there are stories of Americans being refused service in restaurants in major ex pat enclaves in Mexico. Many are returning to the United States, some looking for other countries to move to. The United States has become a country where individual votes matter less and less, where the government and its monied supporters, live within a nation with the greatest income/wealth divide in American history.

And while the undertone of the lower income MAGA voices is to revitalize rural values at the expense of urban majorities, it is precisely this rural population that is getting screwed the most by Trumpian leadership. For vast swaths of MAGA supporters, they will watch local nursing homes and hospitals close, access to Medicaid denied, all as they face horrific climate change damage, explained aways by their representatives in Congress as “bad weather,” cutting FEMA funding along the way. Big Oil is snarling with laughter.

Indeed, the powerful belief in God – a major shared trait in isolated farming communities dependent on nature to water their crops – is precisely what manipulative MAGA politicians use to purge climate change containment and the creation of cheaper alternative energy… suggesting that the Bible tells us that after the Great Flood, God promised no more global natural disasters. Funny, that the Pope doesn’t see it that way, but it’s the way Trump wants them to react.

I’m Peter Dekom, so in answer to the above title question, unless Americans get angry enough to force change, is a resounding “yes”!