March 4, 2024 - 9:45pm
On Monday, even the US Supreme Court’s staunch liberal minority agreed that the 14th Amendment does not allow Colorado to bar Donald Trump from the presidential ballot on the grounds he engaged in or aided an “insurrection”. The decision was unanimous.
If you placed bets based on media coverage of the case, though, you likely lost good money. The New York Times’s token conservative legal columnist David French called the argument against Trump “strong” in a January column which carried on as though only partisan hacks would think otherwise.
“Seems pretty clear to me,” Rachel Maddow laughed on MSNBC, similarly suggesting to viewers it would take a feat of legal gymnastics for MAGA judges to side with the former president. (One popular X account collected a list of the poorly-aged commentary from pundits on the Left and Right.)
Media favourites Laurence Tribe and J. Michael Luttig, who co-bylined an Atlantic essay in favour of barring Trump last year, projected their confidence all over the media after Colorado’s court ruled in December. Luttig, once appointed to the Fourth Circuit by President George H. W. Bush, said of the decision: “It was brilliant, and it is an unassailable interpretation of the 14th Amendment.” USA Today reported on Luttig’s assessment, issued on “Morning Joe”, with the headline “Masterful: Former conservative judge applauds decision to remove Donald Trump from Colorado ballot.” The article included no counterarguments.
Tribe, for his part, echoed Luttig in an interview with the Harvard Gazette, heralding the decision as “unassailable” and categorising the dissents as “extremely weak, surprisingly weak”.
Contrast the much-amplified opinions of Tribe, Luttig, French, and others with what Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson wrote in their concurring opinion. Colorado’s move, they decided, would “create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles”.
While they criticised the majority’s full opinion as too sweeping, they pulled no punches against Colorado, writing: “It would defy logic for Section 3 to give States new powers to determine who may hold the Presidency”. “To allow Colorado to take a presidential candidate off the ballot under Section 3,” said the minority, citing a 1994 decision on term limits, “would imperil the Framers’ vision of a Federal Government directly responsible to the people”.
This stark contrast echoes the infamous disconnect between nearly unanimous media predictions of an easy victory for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and the results of the election itself. What’s worse is that since being caught off guard by Trump’s win, the media broadly doubled down on excluding voices of dissent. This exposed an industry characterised by two qualities journalists traditionally found shameful: bias and inaccuracy.
Ideally, today’s media would have assured its readers and viewers that Colorado’s case involved a novel legal theory that would likely run into trouble, even with liberal justices.
Instead, Colorado’s Supreme Court and its Secretary of State were treated like paragons of legal genius by journalists and their anti-Trump sources. Revisiting the coverage reveals a clear and resounding press consensus on the case.
When 9-0 decisions come from a deeply-divided SCOTUS, flying in the face of expectations set by the media’s chorus of experts, we’ll at least know not to blame MAGA-addled simpletons breathlessly bending the Constitution to serve their glorious leader.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeBoris will never make a speech as powerful as Margaret Thatcher’s on climate change for one very simple reason.
Margaret Thatcher, for all her faults, was also a qualified scientist and worked as a research chemist.
Boris did the classics.
What an accurate summary of Boris; it also describes why he is not suitable to be PM. The fact he is a liar also disqualifies him; if he consistently lies to his family who he loves in some way, he will definitely lie to me who he has never met.
Which politicians don’t lie? Now think of the US who gets such huge coverage. For 4 years I listened to people moaning about how Trump lied. Now there is Biden and the lies are coming thick and fast.
You are right. However, Boris and Trump both seem to be narcissists, a trait which Biden has not yet shown.
I get the impression that Swedish politicians and scientists dont habitually lie which is why their population did not need to lockdown – because their honesty was trusted !! A rare phenomenon…
If a prerequisite to being a politician was never having lied, not one person on earth would be fit for office
Boris Johnson was singlehandedly instrumental in saving Brexit and ensuring that it took place. If he did nothing else as PM he has achieved more than any other PM which I regard. As regards lies. Are these some of the same lies which the press and opposition accused Boris Johnson of when he promised to “get the job done” but then was thwarted in achieving that promise by the opposition and press who then accused him of being a liar when he did not “get the job done”? Despite being a coal miner’s son and lifetime labour supporter (up until I was totally turned off politics by Tony Blair) I decided to vote for Boris in the last election. The BBC’s John Curtice was arbitrarily declaring the vote as being a “binary” choice for either a new referendum or Boris’s plans. The “binary” choice was actually one for democracy (by respecting the 2016 vote) or the absence of democracy so I voted for democracy and Boris Johnson (and the avoidance of the national bitterness which would have followed the overturning of the 2016 referendum vote).
One person who is definitely not fit for office of Prime Minister (or any other public office) in telling us lies and taking us to war with Iraq on the basis of the lies of the existence of weapons of mass destruction is Tony Blair
Boris has the rare ability to say memorable things. In one day he made his view on Macron’s AUKUS histrionics (Donnez moi un break etc) and his preference for technical innovation not behavioural change to tackle emissions (It is easy being green) in vivid, humorous ways. I bet you can’t remember anything any other politician said on the same day. That is why he is tough for his opponents to beat.
You make valid arguments, but there are many people who are emphatically put off by preachy, doom-laded, science-heavy speeches – and this one managed to lighten the message, get lots of coverage, and quote one of the late-20th century’s better comedy double-acts.
I’m out of the loop: don’t know who Kermit or Miss Piggy are, so his speech is lost on me. Is this not a good example of dumbing down? The comparison of character between the two PMs is Premier League to First Division.
You overlook the point that Margaret Thatcher was a Christian, as well as being scientifically trained, hence the tone of her comments.
As for her legacy, she almost single handedly changed the post war ‘Butskellite’ consensus. Yes there were intellectuals before her, like Hayek, and intellectual politicians like Keith Joseph, but Thatcher actually implemented, over time and with the opposition of much her own party and cabinet, the enormous reforms needed to see those ideas work. I think her reputation, along with Attlee (whether you agree or not with their policies) is therefore entirely well deserved. It is her policies, not joining the EU, that led to a huge improvement in Britain’s economic performance.
Typed after a few glasses of red wine and through a pile of pistachio nut shells, however, my view of Thatcher was that she flogged off the family silver. Just like Darwin, much of what she/he put forward would have been discovered anyway. Sorry! They were ideas whose time had come. Maybe we would have been better off had we hung on to the family silver a little longer when world capitalism caught up to Thatcherism. Googling I find that Ted Heath took us into Europe. So yes, probably Thatcher deserves some credit for standing up to Europe when we were in it. Still think that Boris is the No1 PM post 1960 which is my own living memory.
Are you serious or just looking for entertainment?
Not nearly as disappointed as I am watching all the virtue-signalling mendacity of our corporations and industry in all the years following that speech !!!!!!!!!!