Reading MAGA USSC opinions as propaganda, not law

A great way to get lost in USSC (US Supreme Court) commentary is to argue endlessly about whether the six Republican justices are being consistent textualists, principled originalists, or cautious institutionalists. That gives them too much credit. Based on their track record, a more realistic description is that their opinions are primarily propaganda. The opinions are designed to provide elite cover, manage internal USSC politics, and preserve plausible deniability while advancing MAGA’s corrupt authoritarian, oligarchic, and Christian nationalist theocratic agenda.

That is why the Court’s splintered treatment of the major questions doctrine (MQD) in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump matters. The case was about whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorized Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The court said no. But the opinion also exposed something broader and more revealing. Even inside the authoritarian MAGA bloc, there is no stable, coherent account of what the MQD actually is.

The major questions doctrine is a new USSC rule that says agencies need especially clear authorization from Congress before taking actions on issues of “vast economic and political significance”. The court has used that to strike down major regulations by simply saying that the underlying statute is too vague for such major regulatory decisions. And simple as that, an federal agency is mostly gutted. Protections for consumers, workers, citizens and the public interest get stripped away, leaving the deprotected open for special interests to freely exploit.

On paper, the splintering looks like ordinary disagreement among the MAGA judges. But in reality, it is authoritarian legal performance. It’s theater. Law experts note that Learning Resources produced multiple distinct versions of the MQD. Roberts, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh gave a materially different accounts of when it applies and what work it is supposed to do. That is not a principled legal doctrine. It is what happens when doctrine functions as a flexible partisan tool instead of a binding rule.

The key point is not that one should trust any of these justices to be speaking honestly. Quite the opposite. The MAGA bloc is authoritarian, shamelessly outcome-driven, and unbound by rational consistency. Its opinions should not be read as sincere explanations of legal principle. They are partisan propaganda pieces calibrated for specific target audiences.

One opinion gives lower courts and elite lawyers citations and jargon they can repeat with a straight face. Another lets a justice preserve a preferred personal brand—textualist, originalist, minimalist, institutionalist—while still joining an outcome that serves the same partisan agenda. Different paths lead to the same authoritarian destination.

That explains why the judge’s splintering should not reassure anyone of good faith or principled reasoning. It is tempting to look at fractured concurrences and believe there are serious internal legal principles at work. But the fragmentation easily and effectively serves the authoritarian agenda. It provides cover for MAGA elites by allowing legal commentators and the public to talk about complex doctrinal disagreement instead of wealth and power politics. In other words, fragmentation is a means deflection from MAGA authoritarianism.

It manages the coalition by letting each justice maintain a separate identity and audience while staying aligned on the larger goals of gutting the administrative state and growing and preserving authoritarian power. It also preserves plausible deniability. Nakedly political outcomes are masked by enough technical fog that most non-experts are led to believe they are watching principled hard law disagreements instead of than strategic manipulation.

The MQD is a particularly good example because it was unstable right from the get-go. Even its defenders acknowledge that the “doctrine” is new and contested. Critics have reasonably argued that it operates as a judge-empowering rule that can be switched on or off depending on the Court’s appetite for blocking regulation. From West Virginia v. EPA to Biden v. Nebraska to Learning Resources, the MQD has been used not as a neutral principle with clear boundaries. It is used as a flexible weapon against disfavored exercises of power that serve democracy, honest government and the public interest.

The lesson here is pretty simple. Don’t ask whether the six MAGA judges are really textualists or really disagreeing in good faith. That keeps the debate trapped inside MAGA mythology. The real question asks what function does this opinion, or this split, serve in the larger project of legitimizing MAGA judges, coalition maintenance, plausible deniability, and the transfer of wealth and power from us to authoritarian elites. In the current Court, that is usually the shortest path to understanding what is actually going on.

Info sources:
The Degradation of American Democracy – And the Court
Tallying the Votes from Learning Resources, the Major Questions Doctrine Remains Relatively Confined
Special Analysis: Major Questions Remain About the Major Questions Doctrine
What critics get wrong — and right — about the Supreme Court’s new ‘major questions doctrine’
Getting Right What’s Wrong with the Major Questions Doctrine
The Major Questions Doctrine: Origins, Development, and the Road Ahead After Learning Resources
LEARNING RESOURCES, INC., ET AL. v. TRUMP

In defense of DEI & busting MAGA myths

Anti-DEI mindset and propaganda

Context

MAGA demagoguery heavily mythologizes and vilifies DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) policies and implementation. The lies and slanders portray it as things like blatantly anti-white racism, anti-American evil, or radical socialist tyranny. None of those lies/slanders are true, but the myths have an extremely powerful grip on minds convinced otherwise. The propaganda plays on base human emotions and self-identity.

Humans being what they are, beliefs like that are essentially impossible to change with just facts, robust truths and good faith, sound reasoning. Getting to stasis is normally the best one can hope to achieve. But even that is probably a very high bar in view of how emotional and identity-threatening MAGA’s demagoguery-based false beliefs run.

Because of that sad reality, simple clarification of the key details of DEI law is important and timely. The MSM’s reporting of it sucks. American radical right’s reporting of it, or commentary about it, is mostly demagoguery and lies. It is rare for MSM coverage to state in plain language (1) that DEI is not inherently racist, and (2) that EEOC/DOJ rules tightly constrain anything that looks like race‑based favoritism. The nuts‑and‑bolts legal framework typically appears in obscure agency documents, law‑firm alerts, and specialist coverage, but not in general‑audience MSM stories.

Hence, a grade of F for the MSM’s “coverage” of American radical right authoritarianism, its tactics and its cruel and poisonous policies (including anti-DEI policy). MSM coverage of DEI posits political conflict narratives, e.g., “DEI backlash” or “DEI under attack”, or as corporate trend stories. It is rarely reported as a legal‑compliance system with guardrails against racial discrimination. The MSM has colossally failed to report about this important, ignored aspect of DEI.

What DEI really is, not what MAGA lies and slanders say it is

Cost-benefit: First, like all complicated things that humans do, DEI policy and implementation is not and cannot be perfect. Humans aren’t perfect. That is an inescapable fact of the human condition. Yes, some white people have been treated unfairly or even discriminated against by non-white racists in the name of DEI. But that does not negate DEI in its entirety. One needs to consider the cost-benefit of imperfect humans working for the public interest.

Regarding cost-benefit, DEI was a relatively low‑cost way to enforce existing civil‑rights law, widen access to jobs and education, and modestly reduce documented discrimination. Most benefits went to women, people of color, disabled people, and veterans. Research and surveys found that DEI practices such as mentoring, fairer promotion criteria, and classroom inclusion strategies, were moderately to highly effective at improving climate and opportunity. The main costs were administrative, backlash, litigation risk and occasional misuse of DEI. The costs were dwarfed by the broader economic and democratic gains of using more of the country’s available talent in a less hostile society. Link, link, link

Anti-discrimination guardrails: Laws and implementation of DEI are designed to be anti-discrimination tools. When a DEI practice crosses into race‑based favoritism or racism, existing anti‑discrimination laws are there to stop it. MAGA demagoguery erases that law and real‑world practice, allowing mythologizing efforts to address existing racial bias as racist. At present, MAGA demagoguery routinely denies that there is any significant racism directed at non-white people or women. That, like the “unqualified DEI hire” myth, is a lie. Link, link, link

Radical right smears routinely claim that all DEI is illegal racial discrimination against whites. That tactic intentionally conflates actual discrimination with DEI’s lawful efforts to simply ensure fair processes. Preferential race-based treatment under DEI has always been illegal except in a few, very narrow, court‑approved situations. Link, link

To pound the point home again, The EEOC’s official guidance on DEI‑related discrimination at work emphasizes that Title VII protects all workers and that any employment decision motivated by race, sex, or another protected trait can be illegal no matter who is harmed. The agency explicitly rejects the notion of a special “reverse” standard, stating that there is no such thing as reverse discrimination, only discrimination. And, it applies the same standard of proof in all race discrimination cases. Link, link, link

Q: Is DEI just an excuse for racism against white people?

Two good reasons to rationally distrust Trump and MAGA elites in power

Another federal agency rendered incompetent

by MAGA loyalists, Trump’s “best people”

Context

A Scientific American article, Why the FDA rejected a ‘breakthrough’ melanoma drug, provides an excellent example of why distrust in anything even a little unusual from MAGA-corrupted federal agencies is warranted and rational. The facts are that the FDA has twice rejected marketing approval for an experimental drug for advanced melanoma drug. Data from clinical trials indicate that the drug, RP1, works very well. The FDA isn’t answering questions about why the drug is blocked. Outside experts are baffled as to (1) what is going on and why the FDA has shut down on this, and (2) what the implications for other drug approvals might be.

One expert commented: “There’s really no second-line treatments. This is a population that has been left behind. This is where I had hoped RP1 would come in.”

Another expert commented on the FDA’s baffling behavior: “This is all unexpected. It’s been a very disturbing situation…, just the shifting goalposts of FDA regulations and requirements.”

Related context is that Trump and MAGA elites have corrupted all or nearly all federal agencies. The primary goal is stripping average citizens, consumers and workers of their rights, protections and wealth while further empowering, increasing and protecting allied elites and their wealth and powers.

Two bases for rational distrust

Two highly plausible explanations for the FDA’s inexplicable behavior are (1) incompetence of the MAGA loyalists Trump put in charge, and (2) Trump’s pay-to-play politics that requires parties doing business with the federal government to bribe Trump to get service.

On the incompetence rationale, the MAGA idiots running the FDA changed regulatory requirements for marketing approval. At present, it’s impossible to get marketing approval for certain new drugs like RP1. That is because the new MAGA clinical trial requirement requires a treatment protocol that is highly unethical, making the clinical trial basically impossible to conduct. That puts the kibosh on drugs that fall in this stupid regulatory scheme. Link, link

At least equally likely is the increasingly popular “Trump is corrupt as hell rationale”. By now, Trump’s corruption and pay-to-play demands for money are well-documented. There’s no rational dispute about that any more. Of course, there’s plenty of irrational denials and disputes from morally rotted Trump and his MAGAland demagogues and liars.

The chronic liar-in-chief’s track record of lying

Pardon the crooks: A glaring example of Trump corruption is his criminal pardons for profit business. As discussed before, Trump pardons criminals like murderers, drug dealers and tax cheats in return for a bribe estimated at about $1 to $2 million per pardon. His pardons have shafted victims of pardoned criminals or the US Treasury to the tune of about $2 billion by his forgiveness of victim restitution payments and government fines. Trump’s contempt for the rule of law and his callous indifference to the suffering of crime victims are blatant and world-famous. Link, link, link

So, given his pay-to-play track record of governing, one can reasonably believe that unless the company trying to get RP1 approved by the FDA bribes Trump, their drug is never going to be approved. Melanoma patients will die and Trump will not care.

Q1: Absent unusually strong, transparent, and independent (not MAGA-corrupted) evidence, is it reasonable and rational to regard corruption with MAGA as the de facto gatekeeper for what used to be normal government functions like life‑and‑death regulatory decisions? Or, is MAGA incompetence the only factor at play here?

Q2: In view of the track record of Trump and his loyal and usually incompetent MAGA elite allies in power, is it reasonable and rational to distrust most or nearly all of what the federal government now tells us? If not, why not? What is the evidence of their honesty?

Christian nationalist theocracy further limits abortion access

Context

In the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the USSC overturned Roe v. Wade. Under Roe, there was a nationwide right to an abortion in the first two trimesters. The legality of abortions in the 3rd trimester was left to the states. Roe was the law for about 49 years. During that time, Roe did not force not a single girl or woman to give birth. Not a single one.

In the almost 4 years since Dobbs became national law, state anti-abortion laws have forced tens of thousands of girls and women (about 30,000 by a conservative estimate) to give birth against their will. As one would predict, those laws have led to more unwanted and unsafe pregnancies carried to term. Both live births and infant deaths increased. Link, link, link, link

Polls indicate that most Americans continue to support a right to an abortion all or most cases. To no one’s surprise, there is a major partisan difference in the level of abortion support. Link, link

At present, white support for Christian nationalism is a strong predictor of support for criminalizing abortion and using state power to enforce a theological social order. Christian nationalism and white nationalism are among the strongest predictors of support for arresting women who obtain abortions. That data is evidence of a coercive theocratic ideology, not just “pro‑life” concern. Theocratic Christian nationalist religious dogma is working to establish fetal “personhood” in the law. That, along with bans on abortion drugs, and criminalization of abortion is part of a long‑term Christian nationalist theocratic wealth and power movement to reshape US law into a theocracy. Link, link

Christian nationalism expands its theocratic attack on abortions

The theocratic federal 5th circuit is TX, LA and MS

The Christian nationalist 5th circuit federal court of appeals issued a nationwide injunction against sending the anti-abortion drug mifepristone by mail. Despite 25+ years of safe use and extensive data supporting mail and dispensing the drug by telehealth, the Christian theocrat judges shut down sending the drug via telehealth and mail. Medical abortion with mifepristone plus misoprostol is highly effective (about 98% success by 6–7 weeks). There are extremely low rates of serious complications, transfusion, or hospitalization. The judges’ restriction will lead to no significant or even measurable safety benefit. Link, link

Despite proven safety, the 5th circuit judges alleged safety problems. There is no significant safety problem with the drug. This is the face of a corrupted rule of law imposed on everyone by cynical, lying MAGA judges. They are forcing Christian theocracy down everyone’s throat, whether they like it or not. The theocrats’ injunction is obviously medically irrational. It substitutes hostility of Christian dogma to abortion, while denying well-established drug‑safety science. The injunction is aligned with MAGA’s virulent anti-abortion ideology as explicitly laid out in Project 2025.[1] Link, link, link

Footnote:

1. Project 2025 calls for the FDA to reverse approval of mifepristone and misoprostol, effectively ending most medication abortions, and for aggressive enforcement of ancient federal statutes like the Comstock Act to criminalize mailing abortion drugs or devices. It also calls for sweeping federal bans or defunding of abortion in veterans’ care and other federal health programs.