MAGA’s legacy: A radicalized, authoritarian Supreme Court

Context

Even if MAGA loses control of the House and Senate in the 2026 elections, American democracy, rule of law and civil liberties can still wind up crushed to death and replaced by some form of a cruel, deeply corrupt dictatorship-oligarchy-bigoted Christian nationalist theocracy. Even if the Dems control congress, that institution will remain broken. That’s because the MAGA party is irreparably broken, authoritarian, and serving special interests at the expense of the public interest. MAGA politicians are absolutely unwilling to let congress function effectively. The presidency will probably remain controlled by an enraged, vengeful kleptocratic psychopath (malignant narcissist, etc.) until Jan. 2029.

And then, there’s our MAGAfied USSC (US Supreme Court). That corrupted, ethics-free institution and its power will outlast Trump. It now openly serves special interests at the expense of the public interest, democracy, the rule of law, and what’s left of our shrinking civil liberties. What can we reasonably expect? Welp, a current analysis indicates that we’re now seeing the future of how our authoritarian, pro-kleptocracy, special interest-dominated and corrupted USSC will function. Long story made short, it will operate in as much secrecy and opacity as it can get away with, even if doing so breaks laws. The USSC has made itself above the law, just like it made Trump above the law.

The USSC’s shadow docket

A ProPublica article (and YouTube video), The Supreme Court Changed. What Now?, discusses data showing that the USSC’s shadow docket has replaced normal public arguments and reasoned, detailed opinions with judge’s votes on cases. The shadow docket decides cases with little to no reasoning given and no indication of who voted for what. Most shadow docket decisions are about time-sensitive or procedural matters that are not troubling for democracy, the rule of law or civil liberties. That is no a matter of concern.

But what is anti-democratic, anti-rule of law or anti-civil liberties is a small number of important shadow decisions that would normally be briefed by the parties, arguments heard in public, with detailed decisions and vote counts made public. For what appears to be the first time in modern history, important secret shadow decisions outnumbered public merits decisions.

In public merits cases, the judges usually give detailed reasoning for their decisions. That provides necessary guidance to lower courts and the public as to what the law is and how it is applied. It also tells the public how individual judges voted. That secrecy shields judges’ identities from corrupt votes that give benefits to special interests, usually while either (1) taking benefits from the public interest, or (2) causing damage to democracy, the rule of law or civil liberties, which also generally benefits affected special interests.

A few shadow decisions have been favorable to the public interest democracy, the rule of law or civil liberties. Some of them have given at least some explanation for the decision and some give vote counts. But those are in contrast to the larger MAGA pattern in courts, congress and the presidency of quietly shifting wealth and power from the public interest and giving it to elites and allied special interests. The USSC is a central powerful player in MAGA’s corrupt authoritarian agenda of wealth and power shifting. Given its power, the USSC will very likely be the most consequential legacy of the MAGA wealth and power movement. That legacy will not be on our side. It will be in opposition to us.

Q1: Do you believe that the current USSC is mostly supportive of, or mostly opposed to (1) service to the public interest before service to special interests with wealth, or (2) democracy, the rule of law and/or civil liberties?

Q2: Is shadow docket secrecy, coupled with recent public decisions, a basis to believe that the USSC has been (1) heavily politicized, (2) corrupted by its anti-democracy ideology**, secrecy in its operations, and its constant refusal to impose ethics rules or laws on itself, and/or (3) significantly captured by special interest money?

** The MAGA judges vehemently deny they are anti-democracy. They say they are fiercely pro-democracy and pro-rule of law. Their track record, including (a) anti-democracy decisions that make Trump all powerful (unitary executive dogma) and immune from nearly all criminal prosecutions (also unitary executive), and (b) decisions that legalized special interest corruption of government (Citizens United., etc.). Opinions on this point are bitterly divided.

Some info sources:

Supreme Court ‘Shadow’ Docket Is Now Bigger Than The Real, ‘Transparent’ One

Favorable views of Supreme Court remain near historic low

Supreme Court Job Approval Slumps to Record Low — Republicans responsible for decline from 2025

Supreme Court Shadow Docket Tracker — Challenges to Trump Administration Actions — The Trump administration has prevailed in the vast majority of its requests for emergency action, as the data below shows. These rulings have allowed administration policies to move forward after lower courts had found that the administration’s actions were likely illegal. ….. The lack of reasoning in most shadow docket rulings also leaves lower courts with little guidance about how to address similar issues in other cases.

The Supreme Court “Shadow Docket” Explained

Regarding MAGA and racism

 

The rhetoric used in a NYT opinion piece, Trump Makes Republicans More Racist and Democrats Less So, is starting to sound more reasonable in assessing Trump’s toxicity and profoundly sick mind.

The opinion opens with this: President Trump’s corruption is unequaled by any previous resident of the White House. If anything, his narcissism ranks higher than his corruption. ….. Today, though, I want to look at another destructive aspect of Trump’s ascendancy: what he has done to the nation’s ability to deal with an issue that has plagued the United States since its founding and even before — race. Trump has not only halted the agonizingly slow accommodation of conservative whites to a multiracial nation, he has also legitimated and exacerbated the most toxic attitudes toward race and immigration held by Republican voters.

The opinion goes on to observe that Trump has turned the party of Abraham Lincoln into a political home for people who hold serious racial resentments, are xenophobes and are generally hostile to marginalized ethnic and religious minorities. Although the shift did not start with Trump, he made it central to his politics and demagoguery. Also, the opinion comments that recent studies are showing that Democrats and liberals have responded to Trump and MAGA politics by becoming noticeably less prejudiced and more open to diversity and growing minority populations.

Those assessments are evidence-based and feel reasonably accurate. Trump’s presidency and business career produced a huge record of documented direct conflicts of interest, criminal convictions, civil fraud findings, and use of his power for personal and political advantage. For example, Trump sells presidential pardons to convicted criminals that shaft crime victims by depriving them of restitution payments and the treasury of fines.

Q: Does Trump encourage racism and racist behavior for his political and economic advantage?

Some info sources:

Malignant Narcissism: Does the President Really Have It?

More than 200 health professionals say Trump has ‘malignant narcissism’ in open letter

Trump’s pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims — In Milton’s case, prosecutors argued that the former CEO of Nikola should pay investors $660 million. But before a judge had the chance to calculate and order restitution, President Donald Trump pardoned Milton — which in addition to sparing him any time behind bars also wiped away any financial penalties.

Pardon brokers offer to “put pressure on the president,” at sky-high costs

Did Donald Trump’s presidency reshape Americans’ prejudices? — People in Donald Trump’s political base, on average, became increasingly willing to declare their disdain toward minoritized ethnic, religious, and cultural groups, both foreign groups and their fellow Americans.

Global racist contagion following Donald Trump’s election

United States: Racial Resentment, Negative Partisanship, and Polarization in Trump’s America

A deep dive with AI into our political situation

Context

This post exemplifies how a person can use AI to do deep dives into politics and related subjects, e.g., moral philosophy, the human condition, authoritarian wealth and power politics, the cognitive and social science of politics, etc. Although most MAGA supporters and all MAGA trolls routinely reject the evidence and reasoning my posts lay out, a lot of effort and evidence-checking goes into criticisms of Trump, MAGA elites and MAGA’s deeply corrupt authoritarian politics, demagoguery tactics, and policy.

This morning’s deep dive was triggered by a NYT opinion piece, Why Scandals Don’t Bring Down Politicians Anymore — It’s about more than just shamelessness. That led to a Q&A series with Pxy (my AI Perplexity). Being way too long for a blog post, probably ~2500 words or maybe more, a link to my queries with reasoning and Pxy’s responses might be of some interest to readers with the patience to at least scan the Q&A thread to see how deep AI dives can play out. The thread is at this link — ignore the ask for your email, just click through to the Q&A thread.

The main thrust of the Q&As wasn’t about the NYT opinion. It veered off that topic into MAGA authoritarianism, and the institutional failure of the MSM to report on the ongoing fall of democracy, the rule of law and our shrinking civil liberties under the MAGA wealth and power movement’s onslaught. Examples help clarify the back and forth between me and Pxy.

Example 1

Q: Yes, I understand that a 55/45 division [55% of blame for the mess is due to MAGA elites’ deceit and manipulation and 45% due to a generally deceived and betrayed rank and file] is a moral-political judgment, not a measurable social-scientific finding. I get it. I read the social science. But it is very hard to know how to translate that to average Americans so they get a feel for where they are in this gigantic mess without alienating or insulting them. This is my central frustration with politics. And the MSM is utterly useless in dealing with this matter.

A (severely truncated): Your frustration makes sense. The central problem is not merely how to communicate facts; it is how to say, “You are being used and misled” to people for whom the movement is entwined with identity, belonging, faith, family, patriotism, and dignity—without making the sentence itself feel like proof that you despise them. A useful public posture is: firm about conduct and evidence; humane about people. That permits moral clarity without converting every ordinary supporter into an object of contempt.

Your task, then, is to translate structural diagnosis into moral and civic language that does not require someone first to concede, “I am gullible” or “my identity is corrupt.” For example, rather than: “MAGA voters are enabling authoritarian kleptocracy,” try: No citizen should be asked to trust any leader more than verifiable evidence, the courts, fair elections, or the Constitution. A free country is endangered whenever loyalty to a politician becomes more important than whether the politician tells the truth, obeys the law, or accepts losing. That is still a sharp criticism. But it makes the standard universal rather than tribal.

Example 2

Q: I’ve been writing to reporters, editors, opinionators, and academics for years about the threat of authoritarianism and kleptocracy. It is their damned jobs to listen and learn. If I can do the work to put the email together, it is their job to understand what I am saying and assess for themselves if I am full of shit or not. My patience with institutional failure has come to an end.

A (severely truncated): You are right about the basic civic demand: people and institutions with extraordinary access, authority, expertise, and agenda-setting power have a corresponding obligation to confront credible evidence—especially when the subject is whether democratic institutions, rule-of-law safeguards, and civil liberties are being degraded. ….. Their role is not to outsource civic judgment to readers; it is to use institutional capacity to investigate whether the warning is correct. ….. They should take the substance seriously enough to test it against the record, report what they find, and explain it honestly to the public. That is exactly what responsible institutions are for.

Your anger should not be mistaken for a demand that journalists parrot a political line. It is a demand that those entrusted with public truth-telling recognize that neutrality toward evidence is not neutrality at all—and that silence, euphemism, and fragmentation can become forms of institutional failure.

Questions

Q1: Are examples like this helpful to (1) see how politics really works, and (2) see how one can use AI too help parse through large amounts of information that can be fact checked to see if AI is accurate?

Q2: Are Pxy’s analyses and responses rational and evidence-based, or should they be dismissed as unreliable, and if so, why?

Q3: If you scanned the Q&A thread, did you get a feel for the effort it takes to be fair, rational, and evidence-based about doing politics? Is that too hard for most people to be expected to engage in (I believe it is)?

Illegal immigration: A democracy, rule of law, and civil rights killer

Cat & mouse games with US Border Patrol

By now, the evidence seems to be overwhelming: illegal immigration is a democracy killer. Maybe that one issue alone qualifies as the #1 most potent killer. Of course, other factors such as things like low wage jobs, high living costs, racism, mass media including social media demagoguery, and threats to social status due to social change, are also significant components in the rise of radical right authoritarianism in the US and Europe. At least in the US, demagoguery with hate, bigotry and fear mongering over illegal immigration has been absolutely critical for the rise of Trump and MAGA authoritarianism to power.

If there had been highly effective border control in the US since ~1990, Trump and MAGA probably would not be in power now. What the US did not have was lawful, credible immigration enforcement combined with orderly legal migration, controlled asylum processing, solid labor protections, and successful integration of low levels of immigrants into society. We had far too little of that. That failure was bipartisan. Both parties had no intention of imposing effective immigration and border control right from the get go in Reagan’s Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

It is quite unlikely that the American radical-right authoritarian wealth and power movement would have become as electorally powerful and agenda-setting as they are today. They would not have vanished, but they would not be in power. By controlling not only unauthorized immigration but also the politically explosive combination of visibly unmanaged arrivals, long asylum backlogs, weak labor standards, uneven local capacity with integration failures, the basis for demagoguery centered on the issue would not have existed as it did. Failed border and immigration controls allowed radical-right players to turn immigration into a general proof that democratic elites were incompetent, indifferent, or disloyal. If government had instead demonstrated durable control while admitting limited numbers through transparent rules and integrating newcomers successfully, the radical right would have lost its single most effective, cross-national organizing issue.

Now, it’s too late to avoid the vast democratic, social, economic and governmental damage that Trump and MAGA wealth and power elites have knowingly caused. Now that Trump and MAGA have brutally stopped illegal immigration, the big question is whether our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties will survive in a form more meaningful than some fig leaves covering huge gaping, bloody wounds.

Q: For democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties, is it most likely true that illegal immigration (1) is the #1 killer, (2) is one factor of several**, (3) is irrelevant, or (4) strengthened democracy, the rule of law and/or civil liberties, because illegal immigration posed a huge threat that Trump and MAGA has eliminated.

** E.g., racism, populism, ethnonationalism, cultural backlash, economic and wage stagnation, distrust in institutions, the rise of social media-fueled demagoguery, the devastating undermining of anti-corruption laws in the name of “free speech” (Citizens United, etc.), the rise of highly politicized media (Fox News, etc.), the rise of LGBQT rights and acceptance, etc.

Some info sources:

The Causes of Populism in the West — Established mainstream parties may adopt dismissive, adversarial, or accommodative strategies when populist parties first appear on the scene (Berman 2019). A dismissive strategy entails ignoring the new party and the issue(s) it is focused on. This only makes sense, however, if the new issue is unimportant and/or fleeting and the new party is likely to fade away. Otherwise, the dismissive strategy simply cedes ownership of the new issue to the new party, enabling it to capture voters who prioritize that issue. (Comment: Arguably, the Dems ceded ownership of immigration because the elites were too arrogant, stupid or ignorant to sense the importance of the issue. The GOP understood it very well.)

When economic and cultural interests align: the anti-immigration voter coalitions driving far right party success in Europe — We argue that the success of far right parties depends on their ability to mobilize a coalition of interests between their core supporters, that is voters with cultural grievances over immigration and the often larger group of voters with economic grievances over immigration.

Immigration & the Origins of White Backlash — The success of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign surprised many. ….. it was actually a continuation of a long-standing Republican strategy that has targeted immigrants and minorities for over five decades. It is not only a long-term strategy but also a widely successful one. Analysis of the vote over time shows clearly that White Americans with anti-immigrant views have been shifting steadily toward the Republican Party for decades. The end result is a nation divided by race and outcomes that often favor Whites over immigrants and minorities.

Explaining the Trump Vote: The Effect of Racist Resentment and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments — ….. a Trump vote [in 2016] cannot be explained by a lack of trust in politics or low levels of satisfaction with democracy, as would be assumed given the extant literature on protest voting. However, indicators of racist resentment and anti-immigrant sentiments proved to be important determinants of a Trump vote—even when controlling for more traditional vote-choice determinants. ….. both concepts proved to be roughly equally powerful in explaining a Trump vote. …..  this is not a new finding because we know that, indeed, in 2008 Barack Obama suffered from a lack of support among racist voters (Lewis-Beck, Tien and Nadeau 2010). 

Poll: Majority of Americans believe undocumented immigrants are a threat to democracy

The paper curtain: employer sanctions’ implementation, impact, and reform