As we saw recently, the Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court seem willing to entertain the notion that presidents may be immune from following the laws they are sworn to uphold. Fixated on the fear of frivolous prosecutions of future presidents, these justices — three of whom owe their seats to the man whose return to potentially unchecked power they’re abetting — seem loath to consider the actions and impacts of the case before them. The majority of voters, in contrast, demonstrate no trouble understanding that a ruler who can choose whether the law applies to him is a dictator, not a president.
In a March Marist poll, 75% of U.S. adults disagreed that “a president should be immune from crimes committed as president.” This represents a 10 percentage point increase from a January poll by the same source, with slightly different wording about Donald Trump, specifically, having immunity. To be sure, some of this uptick is attributable to the exclusion of Trump’s name from the more recent question but nonetheless, Americans by large measure reject the core idea the Supreme Court is now entertaining.
In polling by the Research Collaborative with Data for Progress, an organization for which I serve as a senior adviser, most voters don’t merely see the immunity claims for what they are but also readily identify what these right-wing justices intend by entertaining them. Entirely prior to the hearings, 56% of likely voters, including 62% of third party and undecided ones, agree that in taking up the immunity hearing, the MAGA justices are “giving (Trump) a better chance to win and pardon himself for his crimes.” A statistically identical 54%, including 61% of these independent voters, affirm that in agreeing to consider immunity, these justices are hoping to delay Trump’s trial until after the election.
A forced choice question — wherein respondents had to select between the assertion that the MAGA justices are deliberately delaying the 2020 election insurrection trial to impede a verdict prior to this year’s election and the counterclaim that the court is doing its job fairly and impartially — yielded a 51% to 49% split among respondents overall. But among Democratic voters this was 75 % to 25% and uncommitted ones broke 10 percentage points in favor of seeing the right-wing justices aiding and abetting Trump in agreeing to hold this hearing. Even a quarter of Republican voters credit this explanation, a figure that alone bodes to be game-changing in an election that will come down to 1% to 2% in six key states.
When presented with various arguments decrying the delay, voters were decidedly for a speedy verdict and against the notion that the Supreme Court should not rush. After hearing, “Americans need to know the jury’s verdict before we cast our own verdict in this election,” 61% of voters, including 60% of uncommitted voters, agreed that the court must deliver a decision quickly. While the opposition argument that “the Supreme Court must take the time required and not rush toward a decision just to meet an arbitrary deadline,” did move voters away from support for speed, still 54% overall and 53% of the third party and undecided voters remain in agreement with the need for haste. A more strident assertion that “the charges and trials against Trump are a partisan witch hunt,” similarly failed to tip the majority into rejecting the need for a speedy hearing.
With the Dobbs decision in 2022, the Republican justices on the Supreme Court sent us hurtling 50 years backwards, rendering women subjects to the dictates of the state. And voters responded, reclaiming our fundamental freedom to decide what happens to our bodies by ballot initiative and special election.
Now, in flirting with the notion that a president merits infinite powers, these justices seem intent to set the time machine roughly 250 years in the past, reinstating a monarchy this country was founded to repudiate. Early indications say that the majority of voters are not buying it. We want our freedoms and our futures to remain in our own hands.
Anat Shenker-Osorio, host of the “Words to Win By” podcast, is a messaging researcher and campaign adviser.
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