In a solemn segment full of faux-intellectualism, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell trashed the Supreme Court as a “stain on America’s claim to the world that it is a democracy” and claimed that slavery is the only reason why a majority of the justices have been appointed by Republicans.
O’Donnell began by hyping Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s interview with another O’Donnell, “The Supreme Court ruled that any crime that Donald Trump conspires to commit in the oval office with appointed members of the executive branch, any of those crimes, are crimes that the Supreme Court leaves the founders wanted the presidents to get away with. The Republican Supreme Court is, of course, insanely wrong about that. Here's what Ketanji Brown Jackson said to Norah O'Donnell about that tonight.”
The clip showed Jackson criticizing the immunity ruling, including “I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances. When we have a criminal justice system that had, ordinarily, treated everyone the same.”
For Lawrence O’Donnell, the fact that every justice who was in the majority proves, “That decision was not a product of legal scholarship, that decision was a product of Republican convenience.”
That every justice who dissented was appointed by a Democrat and maybe their opinion was pseudo-scholarship based on Democratic convenience was not something O’Donnell was even willing to consider.
O’Donnell then recalled, “Every justice who voted in support of that opinion is Republican. Only one of those Republican justices was appointed by a president who entered the presidency by winning the most votes. George H.W. Bush is the last Republican president who entered the presidency by winning the most votes. That was 1988 and he gave us Clarence Thomas.”
Still, O'Donnell claimed that:
If you lived in a democracy, where the candidate with the most votes wins, there would be no other Republican justice currently serving. Clarence Thomas would be the only one. The current composition of the Supreme Court stands, in my view, and in my view alone, as a stain on America's claim to the world that it is a democracy. In no other democracy in the 21st century with seven out of 50 states decide presidential elections through an electoral contrivance created in a slave-holding country 235 years ago, a contrivance they tried to make sound serious by calling it a college, the Electoral College.
O’Donnell is assuming his viewers aren’t very smart because he is simply wrong about that. If voters found the Electoral College as offensive as O'Donnell does, they could've sent George W. Bush home in 2004, but instead, Bush won the popular vote and then appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Different democracies have different ways of selecting members of their supreme courts, and those courts have varying amounts of power. Different democracies also have different ways of selecting their leader, but swing states are not unique to America. For example, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has lost the popular vote to the Conservative Party in the last two Canadian general elections, but Trudeau is still the prime minister because the party won enough of their version of swing states.
O'Donnell is trying to delegitimize the Court, but he can't even get his basic political science facts correct.
Here is a transcript for the August 27 show:
MSNBC The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
8/27/2024
10:04 PM ET
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: The Supreme Court ruled that any crime that Donald Trump conspires to commit in the oval office with appointed members of the executive branch, any of those crimes, are crimes that the Supreme Court leaves the founders wanted the presidents to get away with. The Republican Supreme Court is, of course, insanely wrong about that. Here's what Ketanji Brown Jackson said to Norah O'Donnell about that tonight.
NORAH O’DONNELL: In your dissent, you wrote that the Court “declared for the first time in history, that the most powerful official in the United States can, under circumstances, yet to be determined, become a law unto himself.” It sounds like a warning.
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: Well, I mean, that was my view of what the Court determined.
NORAH O’DONNELL: You’re concerned about broad immunity?
JACKSON: I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances. When we have a criminal justice system that had, ordinarily, treated everyone the same.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: That decision was not a product of legal scholarship, that decision was a product of Republican convenience. Every justice who voted in support of that opinion is Republican. Only one of those Republican justices was appointed by a president who entered the presidency by winning the most votes. George H.W. Bush is the last Republican president who entered the presidency by winning the most votes. That was 1988 and he gave us Clarence Thomas.
If you lived in a democracy, where the candidate with the most votes wins, there would be no other Republican justice currently serving. Clarence Thomas would be the only one. The current composition of the Supreme Court stands, in my view, and in my view alone, as a stain on America's claim to the world that it is a democracy. In no other democracy in the 21st century with seven out of 50 states decide presidential elections through an electoral contrivance created in a slave-holding country 235 years ago, a contrivance they tried to make sound serious by calling it a college, the Electoral College.
