Behold Democracy’s Last Stand

The first and possibly last criminal trial of a former US president.

The Supreme Court will surely reject Donald Trump’s absurd claim of total immunity for any crimes he committed while president, right???

That’s what all the experts have been telling us for months. Even after the Court made the brow-raising decision to hear the case at all — rather than letting stand a definitive lower court ruling that slapped down this Hail Mary argument, which it could easily have done — and even after it took as long as possible to take up the case and schedule oral arguments, aiding Trump immeasurably with that delay, we were still told over and over that the justices — even the shamelessly partisan right wing ones — would ultimately do the right thing.

They had to, right? They’re not stupid people, unfamiliar with the Constitution. They have lifetime appointments and are not beholden to Donald Trump, even though he put three of them in their jobs. They might be believers in a revanchist right wing ideology, but they couldn’t possibly be that shamelessly partisan…..right???

The better question is why we continue to be so naive. The NFL may have changed the kickoff rule, but Lucy is still pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, and like Chuck, we seem to fall for it every time.