Too Late to Blame Chief Justice John Roberts, After America’s Regard for the Law Has Failed

The Supreme Court is America’s arbiter of constitutional guidelines. The court has sometimes seen itself as a guide and other times followed the Constitution to the letter. Either position is valid. Written in different times of horseback travel, institutional slavery and part-time government, it would seem to be more guide than letter-perfect fact.

Today, however, the Court is a shambles, and Chief Justice John Roberts has made it so.

His representation before Congress, prior to his confirmation, was a clever play on words that hid his long held right-wing agenda born in the Reagan days. He said, at the time, “Judges and Justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.”

As Sade sang, “He’s a smooth operator.”

A verse in Sade’s song continues,

Face to face, each classic case
We shadow box and double cross
Yet need the chase
A license to love, insurance to hold
Melts all your memories and change into gold
His eyes are like angels, but his heart is cold

Our counterfeit hero went on to say, without so much as a blush,

“Mr. Chairman, when I worked in the Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme Court. I always found it very moving to stand before the Justices and say, “I speak for my country.” But it was after I left the Department and began arguing cases against the United States, that I fully appreciated the importance of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system. Here was the United States, the most powerful entity in the world, aligned against my client, and yet all I had to do was convince the Court that I was right on the law, and the Government was wrong, and all that power and might would recede in deference to the rule of law.

“That is a remarkable thing. It is what we mean when we say that we are a Government of laws and not of men. It is that rule of law that protects the rights and liberties of all Americans. It is the envy of the world, because without the rule of law, any rights are meaningless.”

But there is a ‘since then,’ and we need pay attention to the ‘since then.’

· Trump v. United States (July 1, 2024, 6–3). The Court held a former president has absolute criminal immunity for “core” constitutional acts and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts—leaving only “unofficial” acts prosecutable. This forces lower courts to carve up conduct and makes any criminal case against a president far harder and slower.

· Trump v. J.G.G. — Apr 7, 2025 (5–4) Vacated D.D.C. TROs that had blocked removals under Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation and said challenges must be brought in habeas in the district of confinement (Texas). The Court also required notice sufficient to let detainees file habeas before removal. Cleared the immediate block so ICE could resume removals (with notice), and forced litigation to Texas—procedurally favoring the government.

· Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. — Jun 23, 2025 (stay granted; 6–3) Let ICE/DHS restart third-country removals pending appeal (i.e., while the case continues), reversing a nationwide pause the district court had imposed.

· And more, much more, if you care to peruse the Roberts Court’s rulings.

The current 40% approval rating for the Roberts Court ties the lowest reading in Gallup's history.

And, the fact that we disapprove nationally is not nearly enough. The Supreme Court is the third leg upon which United States government stands. Over half of Americans disapprove. Congressional approval has been below 30% since June 2021, while Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 37%.

Abraham Lincoln famously said, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand.”

All three legs of the Constitution upon which America stands as a Democratic Republic are below approval ratings, the very definition of a nation ‘divided against itself.’

Which begs the question of what happens if the current president refuses to leave office at the end of his term? He may claim ‘a national emergency,’ as he has claimed to support each of his 191 illegal Executive Orders. Illegal, I say, because Executive Orders require a ‘national emergency’ and no such emergency has occurred.

You say it could never happen?

Such a disobediance has never yet been tested, particularly with a dysfunctional Congress and a compliant Supreme Court.

I hope we see no such test, but much of what this president has achieved was considered impossible until he blatantly pulled it off, and was supported in that impossibility by a compliant and badly divided court.

We will see.

We will hold out breath, and see.