SCOTUS has, by a 6-3 vote (in a sense 5-4, because Roberts would only have upheld Dobbs), overturned Roe v Wade. This a day after the Court declared a century-old New York gun law unconstitutional. The reasoning in both these cases is, if not novel, then very dangerous. The idea seems to be that if x does not have deep historical roots, then x can’t possibly be constitutionally protected. This leads the conservative majority to an orgy of historical cherry picking. The real claim is that we as a country are necessarily slaves of the past as construed by conservatives. This is not Law as Justice; this is Law as Implacable Destiny.

It never fails to amaze me that the more powerful a person is, the more difficult it is to prosecute them for a crime. Suddenly the law doesn’t mean what we thought it clearly meant. We become timid and lost in the weeds of mens rea and other legal minutiae while rich criminals and con men walk away with the store. Certainly you or I would not be treated with such studied deference! Charge Trump with a crime? Well, let’s be careful now. Did he really commit a crime? Maybe it would be bad for the country to charge him. Suddenly we’re playing not to lose.