Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas appeared in public last Friday to say things, and as usual, it was pretty much dreadful and an example of all that is wrong with the country. The whole affair appeared to be set up as an ode to pompous bullshitting, with the gathered press there to make sure the bullshitting was presented to you, the news-consuming public, with as little context or pushback as possible.
Oh, and by "in public" we mean “at a conservative conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and other hardliner groups,” because the conservative Supreme Court justices have long made a habit of headlining arch-conservative events for arch-conservative causes while simultaneously getting pissy at anyone who might dispute their omniscient legal neutrality in the arch-conservative rulings they dole out afterward.
We live during an American era when the most conservative Supreme Court justice is married to a vigorous supporter of an anti-democratic coup—and writes up rulings that help to protect the coup's plotters from investigation. It sounds very pre-Civil War when you put it that bluntly, and if you're not putting it that bluntly, then you are doing it wrong.
Christina Reynolds, VP of Communications at EMILY's List, talks about spending $150 million to center abortion rights in this November’s elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
Anyway, Clarence Thomas claims the court has been utterly shattered by the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's brazenly theocratic draft opinion nullifying federal abortion rights—and hints that this terrible rudeness could lead to the destruction of democracy. As per The New York Times:
“What happened at the court is tremendously bad. I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them.”
Clarence Thomas—the man whose wife was a driving force in demanding Donald Trump purge non-Trump-loyal employees from the American government in all departments and ranks, who was an open supporter of an attempt to erase the results of a United States presidential election so that the election's loser could be reinstalled in defiance of the Constitution, the man who recently issued a bizarre opinion that would have backed coup plotters in their attempts to hide evidence—says that this is the thing that's going to undermine our institutions.
You don't have to take Thomas seriously, and you don't have to treat him with anything but contempt. The man has long been authoritarian's greatest, if dullest, ally, and it is almost certain that he genuinely believes that you momentarily getting any insight whatsoever into what the court intends to next unleash on the country is, in fact, worse than toppling the United States government on behalf of a delusional B-tier reality television star.
The Times does not mention his own family's role in pressing for an authoritarian coup, mind you. Nor does the Times mention that one of the most compelling theories about who leaked the Alito draft is that it came from anti-Roe conservatives who had advance access to it by someone on the court, and that a blazingly conspicuous anti-Roe conservative who brags of close access to the court and whose court-connected husband has already signaled willingness to "undermine" whatever institution he wants to would be Thomas' wife Ginni, the aforementioned purge-obsessed backer of an insurrection.
The Times mentions that Thomas' remarks came during a conference "after-dinner conversation" with "one of his former law clerks, John Yoo," but dodges any mention of the reason why Yoo became an infamous figure in American politics. Yoo offered the Bush administration legal rationales for torturing prisoners of war. Yoo is the "architect" of United States torture policies. He remains in such good standing, for this contribution to conservative autocratic legal theory, as to earn a spot hosting a congenial discussion with the movement's hardest-right pro-torture Supreme Court justice. The new American fascist movement loved him to death even before it turned to full fascism; inventing reasons why human beings who may or may not have committed the crimes the state suspects them of can be stripped of their human rights is a defining authoritarian feature and one that reappears most commonly in conservative discussions of why, say, the infants of refugees ought to be intentionally starved by federal immigration officials.
Getting back to Thomas' less-than-sincere griping, he really is devoted to his theory that this thing that happened to him is the worst thing to happen in his long career of stripping away American civil rights:
“Look where we are, where that trust or that belief is gone forever. And when you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder.”
At the very least, Clarence, you might want to keep closer tabs on the documents you've got laid out in your home office. But sure, whatever, you're the victim here. Clarence Thomas is always the victim, all the time, and Clarence Thomas being treated somewhat rudely at the climax of a half-century battle to strip abortion rights solely on the say-so of a religious coalition built by American televangelical leaders angry that they could no longer claim tax breaks for their segregated religious schools—that is truly the deepest wound anyone on the court has suffered or will ever suffer.
Oh, and a bunch of American women and children will die horrific deaths because Sam Alito says that our laws should be based on his own personal religious beliefs coupled with the wildly misogynistic rantings of a 17th-century tyrant who believed his community's unmarried women were quite possibly causing toad plagues or whatever it was they were accused of—but the main thing is, again, the arch-conservative fanatic with a lifetime government job is feeling disillusioned over the rank rudeness that stripping away American civil rights is met with nowadays.
What are we supposed to say here? Honestly, I'm at a loss. Thomas has been a terrible justice for a very long time; he and Alito are the two living justices most famous for having no "judicial" ideology that lasts longer than it needs to in order to arrive at the Republican-backed decision of the day. He and several other of the current conservative justices have dropped more than a few hints in their questions and rulings that suggest they adhere to crackpot Republican Party conspiracy theories promoted by the fascist far-right, which is as good an explanation as any for why Thomas angrily demands to be treated as a legitimate voice despite sharing a home with an activist who has worked incessantly to promote one-party, authoritarian rule.
Yeah, yeah, his feelings are hurt. Or he's just lying, which is the other thing conservative justices are now known for. He might have a very good idea of who leaked the end of Roe, and he might know just as much about the resulting string of court leaks that all have been credited to conservative sources.
The Supreme Court is certainly a broken institution, thanks to a devoted Republican effort to break it. It is not broken because the public has audaciously been given a single leaked tidbit of how all these people go about their government-paid jobs. It is broken because the court has turned so hard-right and anti-rights that it claims it is flummoxed by claims that states can violate whatever constitutional rights citizens have, so long as they outsource the violations. It is broken because lower courts cannot possibly base their own decisions on what the Supreme Court hands down because the Supreme Court hands down conflicting orders and rulings on a regular basis—rulings that appear to be based solely on who's doing the asking and who will benefit from the results.
But it's the conservative justices doing the breaking who are the real victims here, of course. There's no more fundamental rule of modern conservatism than that one.
“I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them,” moans Thomas. Not because of an attempted coup, or new Republican laws that provide Republican-controlled legislatures new means to ignore elections that do not have Republican winners, or the nation’s seemingly complete inability to hold political figures accountable for outright corruption—or even violence. Not the incessant promotion of absolutely fraudulent hoaxes pushed by a political party for the explicit purpose of misleading the American public about anything and everything. No, this is the thing that has him upset.
It’s bullshit. The Times won’t say so, but you don’t have to abide the news that Clarence Thomas is moping about lost comity with the Republican architect of new torture policies while feigning similar gullibility. It’s complete bullshit, and you’re allowed to say so.