The Supreme Court directly attacks honest governance and democracy

Various sources are reporting that about a USSC decision that, Snyder v. United States, as far as I can tell, has legalized bribery of government officials at least at the state level. In my opinion, this constitutes what amounts to a lethal blow to democracy and honest governance in the states. (I don't know if this applies to the federal government) It opens the door and paves the path for further progress of authoritarian kleptocracy to obliterate what is left of our democracy and honest governance. Vox reports:

On a 6-3 party-line vote, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that state officials may accept “gratuities” from people who wish to reward them for their official actions, despite a federal anti-corruption statute that appears to ban such rewards.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion in Snyder v. United States for the Court’s Republican-appointed majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent on behalf of the Court’s three Democratic appointees.

Snyder turns on a distinction between “bribes” and “gratuities.” As Kavanaugh writes, “bribes are payments made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the official with respect to that future official act.” Gratuities, by contrast, “are typically payments made to an official after an official act as a token of appreciation.”  

It’s also notable that neither Justice Clarence Thomas nor Justice Samuel Alito, both of whom have accepted expensive gifts from politically active Republican billionaires, recused themselves from the case. Thomas and Alito both joined Kavanaugh’s opinion reading the anti-corruption statute narrowly.

It does not take a genius to see the massive hole in corruption laws that this decision has made. Bribery is now a gratuity, not bribery. In this decision, the USSC made bribery legal unless the briber or bribe taker explicitly writes down or is recorded saying “I’m taking/offering a bribe to do X in the future.” Otherwise it’s not corruption. This decision knowingly and purposefully enables vast corruption by ignoring how corruption works. In my opinion, this is the most insane shit possible. It basically makes corruption non-prosecutable.

The poison here

Clarence Thomas commented on at least one occasion, was that there is an constitutional absolute right of people and corporations to (i) spend unlimited amounts of money on politicians, judges or anything else, and (ii) that right includes the right do spend the cash in absolute secrecy. This decision in Snyder is the embodiment of Thomas' sentiment. Perplexity comments:

Clarence Thomas argued for a right to anonymous political spending in his concurring opinion in the 2010 Citizens United case. Specifically:

• In his concurring opinion in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, Thomas pushed to invalidate all political spending disclosure laws, insisting that donors have a constitutional right to anonymously influence politics with unlimited amounts of cash.

• Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion: "This court should invalidate mandatory disclosure and reporting requirements". He argued that donors could face retaliation and "ruined careers" when they disclose their political spending.

• Thomas contended that there exists an "established right to anonymous speech" and that transparency requirements enable private citizens and officials to implement strategies against "peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights".

I think that what Thomas articulated is where this is ultimately going to go.