Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling was anti-Constitutional. Remove those justices

The peak of the summer, when we celebrate Juneteenth and Independence Day, is a time for our thoughts to turn to what our country means, what it has been, and what it can be

Those meditations were burdened this year, particularly, for me, by the Supreme Court’s decision (Trump v. United States) giving former President Donald Trump substantial immunity from prosecution for his monstrous attempt to overthrow Constitutional government in America.

The absurdity of this decision is plain. It invents a doctrine that the president is above the law, when, in truth, a basic purpose of the Constitution is to restrain government officers from potential abuses of power.

The decision is not so much un-Constitutional as it is anti-Constitutional. And the danger of it is palpable.

The Supreme Court's Trump ruling has echoes of the past

When the decision came down I went back to consult an old speech that Abraham Lincoln gave in June of 1857, not long after the terrible Dred Scott ruling was handed down.

(Editor's note: In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court determined that Scott, a formerly enslaved Black man, was not a citizen of the United States and that enslaved people were did not possess liberty even in the country’s free territories. )

Lincoln held no office then, but he was a great and sober constitutionalist, and he was at the forefront of articulating the proper democratic response to attacks on American freedom, like the one in Dred Scott. He said:

"But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it, has often over-ruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to over-rule this ….

"If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation, and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part, based on assumed historical facts which are not really true…it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, to not acquiesce in it as a precedent.

"But when, as it is true we find it wanting in all these claims to the public confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it is not even disrespectful, to treat it as not having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the country."

Face the current political landscape with determination and engagement

So it was then, and so it is again. All five criteria of legitimacy that were lacking in Dred Scott are also lacking in this new immunity case. Which is why, in both cases, it is timely to affirm that the people are the final interpreters of the Constitution, and there are lawful actions we can take to set things aright.

That is important to remember because, aside from attempting to re-impose monarchy on this continent, this decision attempts ? and I say attempts ? something else, too.

It attempts to demoralize and bewilder us, the decided majority of Americans who believe in free government, who want to have public questions decided by fair elections and the Constitution, and who want to continue to strive toward equality for all people.

Mass demoralization and the tuning out of politics is the necessary precondition for the success of the authoritarian MAGA project. Do not give it to them.

Here's how you can push back against anti-Constitutional actions

Contact your federal representatives to ask them to support the removal of the justices who have inverted the meaning of the Constitution. Document and publicize their answers. If they support this decision, do not support their reelections.

Campaigns for their congressional seats are happening right now. Above all and always: vote. Vote for candidates who believe in free government and are willing to sacrifice their comfort to vindicate it. Volunteer for their campaigns. Contact voters, including friends and family, to make sure they vote that way, too.

Don’t be demoralized by the very reasonable worry you feel, but channel it into effective action. This is the struggle of our time. You know where I will be.

We are, as always, in this together.

Metro Council Member Clay Capp represents District 6, in East Nashville. 

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Presidential immunity: Supreme Court overstepped constitutional bounds