The Supreme Court may very well deliver President Donald Trump his greatest expansion of executive power yet as it weighs several monumental cases expected to conclude within weeks, and based on its history, appears to have “signposted its intention” to support Trump’s “fascist project,” argued journalist Peter Rothpletz in an analysis Wednesday on Zeteo.
The Supreme Court has already handed Trump several victories in expanding the power of the executive branch, perhaps most notably with Trump v. United States, which established broad criminal immunity for the office of the president. On the near horizon, however, lie several more cases that could bolster Trump’s power even further, and that history suggests may be decided in Trump’s favor.
“This term, the Court is in the process of hearing a slate of cases that would, in any normal, sane, functioning democracy, be treated like the constitutional equivalent of a five-alarm fire,” Rothpletz wrote.
“At the top of the docket is Trump v. Slaughter, which asks whether a president may remove heads of independent agencies at will, bypassing statutory protections meant to prevent exactly that kind of political purge. The conservative justices have signaled skepticism toward these protections and, if they side with the administration, a president could purge agency leaders, replacing them with mindless, loyalist toadies who do only his bidding.”
Another impending case before the Supreme Court is National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, which could potentially see the elimination of federal law that limits how much money political party committees can spend in coordination with candidates. Rothpletz warned that should the Supreme Court rule in Trump’s favor, it “would allow grand poobahs of the party to effectively dictate who runs in primaries and who prevails,” and become a “sordid recipe for authoritarianism.”
Taken together, Rothpletz argued that both cases held the potential to expand Trump’s power and authority to unprecedented levels and to such an extent that it could become irreversible.
“Layered atop each other, [the two cases] form a structural pathway for the president and/or his MAGA successor to wield enormous power even in the absence of popular support, destroying the Constitution as both we and the extremist textualists know it!” he wrote.
“So remember: if Trump succeeds in his fascist project, he will have [Supreme Court Justice] John Roberts and his MAGA pentet to thank.”
