The Democratic Party has become anti-Court. Planting stories, trying to embarrass the justices and reporting inaccurately about private behaviour have all been fair game. Pictured: US Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Photo Credit: US Supreme Court.
Anyone falling for the liberal outrage about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s flag-flying wife or Justice Clarence Thomas’ paid-for trips either believes the political propaganda of the media elite or is committed to intellectual stupidity. Alito and Thomas need defenders like a loosed lion in a crowd of anti-gun protestors. Still, the record should be set straight about the anti-democratic efforts the Left uses to discredit a branch of government they have not been able to get control of since they started losing presidential elections in the late 1960s.
Gradually over the past number of decades, Republican presidents, with some help from the Senate, have been able to outfox their opponents to secure a strong 6-3 advantage in judicial philosophy. In response, the Democratic Party has become anti-Court. Planting stories, trying to embarrass the justices and reporting inaccurately about private behaviour have all been fair game. The most recent push has come from the usual suspects, but journalism’s brazen and hypocritical malpractice has reached new depths of cynicism and higher levels of bold dissembling.
In recent weeks, the New York Times, in particular, but many other media sources, have delighted in reporting a story about Justice Alito’s wife flying an upside-down flag and another flag that dates back to the American Revolution. These small gestures in the leftist world mean Alito has to recuse himself from J6 cases and perhaps should be forced to resign. The inflation of the whole matter would be laughable if not for the fact that this seems to be an all-out assault on getting the court marginalized as a legitimate player in American civics – at least until Democrats can grab back control of what they deem to be a rotting institution. Let’s review the facts.
For a second time, a progressive activist, Lauren Windsor impersonated a conservative supporter at a Supreme Court dinner or reception and went undercover to record her conversations with the Justice and his wife. Lying to him about how she held him in great respect, she feigned sympathy about his family facing turmoil and then baited him into commenting on standing up to the Left and asserting godly values. Alito agreed, of course, and then made the mistake of insinuating the nation could use some more godliness.
With that simple nod to traditional religious practice, somehow the mainstream press believed they had a scoop. As Charles Cooke said on National Review’s podcast of June 11th, “…when we on the right complain about the outsize influence of progressivism in the media and elsewhere, leading to an imbalance in coverage and a skewed conception of what is important…this is exactly what we are talking about.” Alito is a committed Catholic and would like to see more people committed to acknowledging God in their private practices and public behaviour. No surprise. Justices since the dawn of the Republic have infused their rulings with references to religion. Alito did not indicate he would base his rulings on his personal belief system, not unlike many Senators, members of Congress, or employees of the Biden Administration who also invoke a desire for people to attend church, pray for neighbours, or uphold values in religious communities that serve others.
Instead of seeing Windsor’s attempt as having failed, CNN, the Rolling Stone, and most of the dominant press decided to put a microscope on Alito and his wife, Martha. Somehow Alito transgressed the secular world of politics and justice. The silliness of being forced to point this out reveals how craven the progressive movement has become. When Mrs. Alito decided to fly a flag that upset the newly patriotic Left (the same people who think nothing of putting Old Glory on fire if they don’t like a judicial ruling) the outraged forces of the Democratic Party and its acolytes shifted into high gear. Their indignation overstepped their information as usual.
Flying a flag upside down is a sign of distress. Alito’s obnoxious neighbours had pushed her to the point of exasperation. Using an ugly c-word in any lexicon (and I don’t mean conservative), the neighbours had pushed the bounds of decency and Martha Alito acted on her instincts. Funny how an independent woman acting as a liberated individual gains no admiration from a supposedly woman-supporting movement because she does something at the behest of a conservative idea. Later, when Martha Alito flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag liberals again became incensed only to learn that the flag also had flown outside the San Francisco City Council Building for the past sixty years. The Left have never been ones to let the truth get in the way of political expediency. When it comes to conservative judges like Alito, the man who wrote the decisive opinion in the Dobbs case (sending abortion law-making back to the states), then all Hell must be unleashed. Abortion has become not only a right but like climate change, a litmus test of the modern ethic. Alito dared to stand on the Constitution instead of the shifting sand of public opinion and has invited this twisted assault.
The same could be said of Thomas who last year endured attacks aimed to discredit him. Some of these charges have resurfaced recently. The Left seems very angry about Thomas and his generous friend Harlan Crow. Crow likes Thomas and his friendship. He pays for Thomas to accompany him on trips or pays for his accommodation on certain vacations. In America, this is not unusual. I have had a friend pay for my airplane tickets for my wife and me to visit him and his family. He has an abundance I do not have. Crow likes to share his blessings with Thomas and undoubtedly other friends. Only in America does a willingness to redistribute wealth come up against criticism because you don’t share it with the right people or in the right way.
Sometimes people should be told to mind their business (or worse). Thomas is too polite for that, but he must be thinking about it. This whole enterprise on the Left to embarrass conservative Court members, dredge up false charges, create crises where there are none, and discredit the members for practicing in private what they state they believe in public reveals how obtuse many in the Democratic Party have become. They feel threatened and their efforts to take down Trump through unseemly legal proceedings having backfired has not hampered their efforts to do the same to Conservative justices. If they don’t stop, soon there will be a Republican in the White House, GOP control of Congress, and maybe another one or two Conservative justices to try and humiliate. With liberal enemies like this, the Conservative movement may have its best days ahead.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
