riversidecostg

Dateline: July 1, 2024

Riverside, CA – Not since Nixon’s infamous claim that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal” has there been such an affront to the fundamental principle that birthed America: the chief executive is accountable to the people, not just to himself.

At the time, Nixon’s claim was given its proper response – mostly total derision. Who could possibly say with a straight face that the president could act with impunity?

Apparently, the United States Supreme Court.

The decision attempts to distinguish between “official” and “unofficial” acts. In her powerful dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that “The official-versus-unofficial act distinction seems both arbitrary and irrational, for it suggests that only the unofficial criminal acts of a President are worthy of prosecution. Quite to the contrary, it is when the President commits crimes using his unparalleled official powers that the risks of abuse and autocracy will be most dire.” Basically, she points out that these justices have been constructed by the court’s majority out of whole cloth. So much for not having activist justices on the bench.

In a twist of irony, all of this is happening just before July 4 – the day on which America celebrates its freedom from imperial rule. We thumbed our noses at one despotic king, only to now face the very real possibility of putting another one in office.

“We have only one job”, says Joy Silver, Riverside County Party Chair, “and that is to win”. Now more than ever, Democrats and others who believe in democracy must unify to get our Democratic candidates elected up and down the ballot, and that means voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Only with a full takeover of the House and the Senate then making sure our Democratic President the power to nominate the next supreme court justices, can we ever hope to avoid America’s descent into fascism under a Dictator. We must vote – while we still can.