John Roberts embodies MAGA cowardice
One would think, in order to rise to the level of a Supreme Court justice, it would behoove a person to be fond of a rigorous debate. Not so with John Roberts, who is no less than the Grand Poobah of the berobed arbiters of constitutionality. A devastating recent report from the New York Times has exposed how the chief justice led the way to the escalating abuse of the shadow docket, a Court power once reserved for emergencies but that is now the primary tool of the institution’s conservative justices to evade having to debate or even explain their decisions in a lengthy and reasoned ruling available for all to examine. While this revelation is just the latest in a series of scandals involving the Court, it ties into a larger pattern that has animated and defined the MAGA movement from its very beginning: a cowardly aversion to robustly debating ideas. The term “shadow docket” itself sounds like wonky legalese, but in practice it’s quite simple. The Court has the power, which has traditionally …
