{"id":5641,"date":"2026-09-01T08:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5641"},"modified":"2026-09-01T08:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:44:12","slug":"one-justice-rips-open-the-scary-weaponization-of-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5641","title":{"rendered":"One Justice rips open the \u2018scary\u2019 weaponization of the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

While it is theoretically an apolitical institution, over the course of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, the Supreme Court has made its politicization blatant. According to Slate<\/u>, the evolution of Justice Neil Gorsuch highlights the increasingly far-right nature of the nation\u2019s highest court. <\/p>\n

Read more Fire hose of \u2018bad news\u2019: Something major is breaking behind closed doors<\/a><\/p>\n

As Slate Executive Editor Susan Matthews explains, \u201cJustices have a vested interest in telling all of us, Oh, what we\u2019re doing is law. We\u2019re just reading the law. There\u2019s no politics. There\u2019s nothing to see here.\u201d But what she finds uniquely interesting about Gorsuch, however, is \u201cthe way he got onto the court itself is the best, most obvious demonstration that we are not \u2018just reading the law\u2019 here. Politics is informing every single thing that happens.\u201d Matthews is referring to how Gorsuch was seated in the early days of Trump only after the Republicans blocked the appointment of Obama-nominee Merrick Garland. \u201cI think Gorsuch was in fact the perfect person to take Merrick Garland\u2019s seat because he\u2019s someone who is going to stand up there, with an absolutely straight face, saying, There is nothing to see here,\u201d says Matthews. \u201cThey say that there\u2019s no politics here, but there\u2019s obviously politics here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, Gorsuch had many believing that even if his appointment was political, his decisions came from his own beliefs. But according to Matthews, \u201cThis term in particular shattered that illusion for me. With the trans sports cases and with the birthright citizenship case, it\u2019s hard to say that he hasn\u2019t lost his way and is following politics in a way that is so legible that there\u2019s no argument anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews raises a clear example of how Gorsuch\u2019s once-textualist view of the Constitution has been corrupted by MAGA politics. In the 2020 case Bostock v. Clayton County, which dealt with whether a person could be fired for being gay or trans, \u201cGorsuch established this reputation as kind of a renegade\u201d when he took a stance against discrimination. As Matthews explains, \u201cGorsuch, in a very textualist, \u2018Let\u2019s just read the words on the page\u2019 way, made this argument: If they\u2019re being discriminated against because it is a man who is in a relationship with a man, and if a person is being discriminated against because it is somebody whose gender identity does not align with their sex given at birth, that is very clearly discrimination.\u201d Said Matthews, \u201cHe ruled in favor of the trans and gay workers. It was a revolutionary ruling at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then in July, Gorsuch sided with his fellow conservative justices in an opinion that allows states to ban trans athletes from sports. As Slate contributor Mark Joseph Stern explains, on one hand, Gorsuch continues to assert that he upholds Bostock, but at the same time, he has decided to \u201cweirdly limit that reasoning to this one narrow context and come up with a different definition of discrimination.\u201d According to Matthews, \u201cI think that this perfectly aligns with the political message on the ground as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s golf course takeover runs into major new roadblock<\/a><\/p>\n

Then came the recent Supreme Court decision on birthright citizenship, which was ultimately upheld in a highly divided opinion. As Stern explains, \u201cI really felt that he was going to vote to strike down Donald Trump\u2019s executive order, which would have prohibited birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants who are born here, and also the children of temporary visitors who are born here. This was a really, really radical argument that the administration presented. It rejected well over 120 years of precedent and consistent practice by the federal government. And yet the administration lost only by a 5\u20134 vote on the constitutional question. Four justices would have upheld at least part of the order under the Constitution. And Gorsuch signed on to Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019 dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed like such a perfect case for him to come in and say, No, no, no, I\u2019m going to go against Trump here, and I\u2019m going to get all the accolades for doing so, and I\u2019m going to get this moment of being the defender of the Constitution,\u201d says Matthews. \u201cThat is what I was counting on\u2026 I just thought that the desire to be framed as the reasonable one would win out. It\u2019s scary it didn\u2019t and that instead he went in this direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Gorsuch is highly influenced and swayed by Thomas and by Justice Samuel Alito, by his senior conservative colleagues, when they really bear down and make these historical arguments that might sound plausible if you\u2019re reading them with absolutely no background knowledge and don\u2019t do a site check but that absolutely fall apart upon any meaningful scrutiny,\u201d concludes Stern. \u201cThis is Gorsuch the bad historian, in part, and I think he really did see a lot to like about the theory that Thomas cooked up\u2026 Quite often, white supremacists, nativists, people who didn\u2019t want the citizenship clause to mean what it said came up with this conspiracy theory about what it really meant, and Thomas adopted that. And I think Gorsuch liked that and was like, Sure, Clarence. Makes sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more MAGA ramping up plan to dodge key Supreme Court ruling: legal expert<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He traded the Constitution for partisan politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOne Justice rips open the \u2018scary\u2019 weaponization of the Supreme Court - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5641\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One Justice rips open the \u2018scary\u2019 weaponization of the Supreme Court - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"He traded the Constitution for partisan politics.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5641\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-01T08:44:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a4840e0eb2094ec31aed2107d53108b3\"},\"headline\":\"One Justice rips open the \u2018scary\u2019 weaponization of the Supreme Court\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-01T08:44:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641\"},\"wordCount\":914,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/0df9c883a0de03acb0f93e4b4256d0d4.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextaddressamerica.com\\\/?p=5641\",\"name\":\"One Justice rips open the \u2018scary\u2019 weaponization of the Supreme Court - 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