Dick Durbin Wishes He Could Say Yes To Alito Hearing But He Can't

Thank you for noticin' him!

An upside-down flag — a symbol of the election-denying “Stop the Steal” movement — flew outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s Virginia home barely two weeks after the January 6 Capitol attack. He blamed both his wife and their neighbors who apparently provoked her with their liberal, anti-coup views. Wednesday, The New York Times reported that another overtly political flag appeared just last summer at the Alitos’ vacation home in New Jersey. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag also represents support for Donald Trump — without irony — and the push to remake America into a Christian supremacist state.

It would seem like the Senate should investigate Alito’s insurrection-friendly flag displays. The Senate supposedly provides oversight for the Supreme Court, and Democrats currently control the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate Judiciary chair is Dick Durbin, who’s the political offspring of Droopy Dog and Eeyore.

According to NBC News’ Sahil Kapur, Durbin has neither the inclination nor the will to hold Alito accountable.“No, we haven’t got anything planned. I think he’s explained his situation. The American public understand what he did,” he said, adding fecklessly, “but I don’t think there’s much to be gained with a hearing at this point. I think he should recuse himself from cases involving Trump and his administration.”

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Impartial Jurist Samuel Alito Wishes Awful Liberal Neighbors Hadn’t Provoked His 'Stop-The-Steal' Flag-Flying Wife

It’s pathetic to see Democrats meekly suggest that a Supreme Court justice who openly expresses anti-democratic sentiments should simply recuse himself from cases directly related to overthrowing the government. Everything else is presumably fair game. It’s like asking the justice with a Cobra flag outside their house to just recuse themselves from cases where Destro and the Baroness are named parties.

Of course, Alito will ignore Durbin’s weak-kneed requests. He clearly has no shame. He’s accepted luxury gifts from billionaire with cases before the Supreme Court. He quite possibly leaked the Dobbs draft opinion so that the anti-Roe votes would remain locked in place. Alito is probably just as responsible, if not more so, for overturning Roe than Donald Trump, and Trump we can actually keep out of office. Alito should explain himself publicly and under oath, not just to friendly right-wing media outlets.

Durbin claims the only option if Alito refuses to do the bare minimum is “impeachment, and we’re not at that point at all.”

Apparently, Alito would have to start showing up for work literally draped in a Trump flag instead of his traditional robe. MAGA controls the House, so obviously impeachment is impossible. Removal is also a fantasy because a two-thirds Senate vote is required. The Supreme Court is currently a judicial arm of the Republican Party, so you shouldn’t expect Republicans to help hold them accountable for MAGA judges’ corruption.

This is when Democratic partisans start to lecture us about how government works. Telling people who disagree with you to “take a civics class” is not a great communication strategy, but they stand by it. Maybe it’ll work for them some day.

Last year, Democratic political commentator Kaivan Shroff wrote in the Boston Globe that young people expect to see Democrats holding corrupt Supreme Court justices accountable, and he thinks it’s a mistake to let Alito off the hook now. Someone on Threads responded to him with a “you kids today!/take a civics class” fusion rant: “Everyone who voted 3rd party or didn’t vote or said HRC and trump were the same owns this catastrophic mess. Heading towards the same mess in 2024. Also take a civics class or Google how you get rid of a Supreme Court justice. Jeez.”

Kaivan Shroff Walks Us Through Nikki Haley's New Hampshire MAGA Flop

Here’s why you shouldn’t resort to stereotypes: Yes, Shroff is young, but he worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and has actively promoted Biden’s policies. Besides, Alito was confirmed in 2006. The youngest person who voted in 2004 is now 38. The youngest person who might’ve wasted their vote on Ralph Nader in 2000 is 42. Today’s youth have probably already blamed their parents for the crappy world they’re set to inherit. They’d prefer that politicians provide actual solutions.

Alito isn’t god

Samuel Alito is only all-powerful if Democrats refuse to treat him as if he’s in any way accountable to the public he serves. I agree with

Noah Berlatsky

that a hearing is itself a serious consequence for Alito, and I reject the argument that hearings are only “performative.”

It’s shocking how many people assume that Alito wouldn’t show up to a Senate hearing. That’s preemptive surrender to authoritarianism. Instead, Democrats should use every power at their command to pull back the curtain and expose Alito for what he is. Even if he ghosts on the hearings, he would have further demonstrated his contempt for the American people. This can help build support to neutralize the MAGA majority’s power. It’s far more likely that Democrats will have the ability to expand the Court before they can replace at least two conservative justices with liberals.

House Republicans impeached Director or Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and Senate Republicans have slapped him around in hearings. Politically, this helped keep the contrived border “crisis” in the news. Immigration remains a top issue for voters and a major weak point for President Joe Biden, even though Democrats have embraced conservative-friendly immigration legislation.

BONUS: How Do We Unrig The Supreme Court With Meagan Hatcher-Mays

Republicans have their dream Supreme Court. Democrats should make an unaccountable, radical Court a political nightmare for them. Although Mitch McConnell demanded that Democrats “leave the Supreme Court alone,” other Senate Republicans dared to criticize King Alito.

Mitt Romney told reporters, “It’s very unfortunate and we ought to take a look at it,” which seemed to place him on the side of an investigation. Sure, he’s on his way out the door, but Republican Whip John Thune, who’s angling for McConnell’s job, told CNN that flying the upside-down insurrection flag was a “bad decision.”

“I don’t know how you explain that,” he said.

Lindsey Graham agreed that the flag was a mistake. He told CNN’s Manu Raju that it “creates a bad image … It created a situation that we’re all talking about.”

Graham has the moral foundation of quicksand so when he says the flag is a mistake, he means that it’s generated a negative news cycle just months before the election. Democrats should press this advantage, keep the story in the news and put Alito on the defensive. Far too often, Democrats criticize the media for minimizing or outright ignoring Republican scandals while obsessing over the most minor Democratic gaffe. However, Republicans actively help drive bad press for Democrats. For instance, Democrats will say that Alito should recuse himself from Trump-related cases, but they leave it there. They aren’t making it a political liability for, say, Larry Hogan, who’s trying to pull a Susan Collins con job on voters in the Maryland Senate race.

Democrats need leaders who are prepared to govern with the same urgency as the party’s fundraising emails. Durbin has served in the Senate since 1997, and unfortunately he’s still acting as if it’s the late 1990s. Although Alito is trying to send America back to the far-from-gay 1890s, it is actually 2024. If democracy is truly on the line, our elected leaders should act like it. Let’s see Alito sweat.

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