Today, we're diving into a controversy swirling around the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Again. Recently, Rolling Stone obtained a recording that reveals Alito's candid thoughts
on political polarization, the role of the Supreme Court, and his views on
America's moral compass. Alito's comments shed light on his firm stance within the Court's
conservative faction, a star contrast to Chief Justice John roberts more measured responses at
the same event. Will explore what these revelations mean for the judiciary impartiality and
the broader implications for American democracy. Stay tuned as we unpack this judicial drama
and its potential impact on the future on the Supreme Court. The story is
from The Rolling Stone by Tessa Stewart and Tom Dickson on June tenth, twenty
twenty four, Sindy, I'm coming to you. How does a little describe
the possibility of compromise between opposing political sides? Uh? He said that the
the views cannot be complement complimentary. He said that it's just there is a
rift that cannot be repaired. And I think that's true. I mean conservatism,
especially the conservatism we see in the US, it's so far removed from
reality that it cannot be crossed by by any any political movement. So yeah,
on on that note, I think he's he's right, but it's on
the wrong side of history, and he's trying to uh to keep on the
books ideas and and laws that are just not relevant anymore. And and that
that stems from a way deeper issue that the US has. And I speak
as a French person who who well, I'm not going I saw them,
but I know that we had our constitution rewritten. I don't I think it's
twelve or thirteen times the idea that you can rule a country with two hundred
and more set of laws. It's just stupid. And so you have this
very old set of rules and then you have this body that's supposed to interpret
it regarding our current society, and that just doesn't work. You guys,
need to rewrite your constitution. There's no way around it. Well, I
think that one of the things that we discussed on previous nonprofit episodes was and
we also bring it up constantly, and I think that's one of the reasons
why we here, Why we are here is talk about separation of church and
state, even though that those specific words are not written in the Constitution,
Thomas Jefferson did write that the establishment clause was specifically about building a wall to
separate church and state. And as our the United States have evolved, especially
since we are more of a macrocosm of multiple cultures, religion, and government.
So I think that one of the things that we have to keep in
mind is that the Supreme Court and of themselves, are supposed to be impartial.
They're supposed to rule based on secular principles, not principles based on their
belief systems. At least, it's not supposed to be the thing that kind
of rules them. And one of the things that we have seen, specifically
from Alito over and over again, is that that is not the case.
It seems like that he has a very hard time being able to separate his
religious beliefs from the way that he's supposed to interpret secular law. But even
though that we have a what six's three majority of conservatism on the Court,
it seems like that Chief Justice Roberts had a very different stance, as
I talked about in the beginning of the show. So we know that Windsor,
who was an activist that pretended to be a conservative, right wing religious
Catholic activists came to both Roberts and also to Alito and asked him pretty much
similar questions about you know, how they rule certain things and also the importance
of keeping religious beliefs in the way that you kind of look at law.
And Alito was like, yeah, I agree with you, that should be
definitely the thing. But Chief Justice was a bit different. Jimmy tell us
about you know what your thoughts were. That was such in stark contrast of
Alito when it came to when Justice Roberts was asked about the same question,
was asked the same questions. Well, Justice Roberts being somebody that maintains pretty
much an ideology that I don't endorse or subscribe to, was very refreshing in
his response. I have to say, because that's exactly the kind of thing
that we're looking for from a Supreme Court justice that is supposed to be impartial
and objective and does not have any preconceived biases, at least on display.
And that's not what we got from Justice Alito. So you take the two
responses from both of these Supreme Court justices and one was talking about Alito first
saying that there's nothing that we can do to fix this country. We have
to legislate based on religion, and we have to legislate based on the current
status quo of conservative politics. On the other hand, Chief Justice Roberts feels
completely the opposite and feels as if it's his job, or every Supreme Court
justice's job, to be impartial and to be objective and to take things as
they come. You shouldn't have a ruling already in mind about a case that
has not come across your desk yet. And that's the kind of response that
Chief Justice Roberts alluded to by saying that we have to be impartial. Justice
Alito did not. And Justice Alito, what is alarming about his response is
that it is in complete contrast to what the Constitution stands for. And Cindy,
I understand the point of view that says, well, you got to
rewrite your constitution because your constitution was written by a bunch of slave owners two
hundred and forty, two hundred and fifty years ago. Valid. However,
who's going to step up and rewrite the constance when we've got such a stark
divide in this country. Neither side wants to lose any ground to the other
because that divide is so big. So there's one perspective to kind of take
into consideration. In addition, I just think that the Supreme Court justices are
supposed to be able to base their decisions on their expertise, and they're not
able to do that. It completely goes against the Constitution when you have a
perspective like Alito's. Well, going back to that, if we're talking about
perspective, let's kind of explore the historical contexts. So you got two justices
that are seemingly very conservative, and they seem to kind of be on the
same side when it comes to certain issues that come across their desks. However,
you have one that is clearly believed written Vinn and you have another one
who is, as you said, refreshingly driven by I believe the spirit of
the establishment clause be objective when it comes to how they rule, and it
should be without any type of bias or preconceived notions. So now that we
have both of these type of people on the court, and of course that
we can say with some of the other ones that are there, possibly more
on Alito's side, How is that going to show up historically? Does Roberts
provide the counter the idea that the nation is unusually polarized? Or is it
that we are just not ready to actually just like move forward and be able
to be objective in the way that we are actually looking at laws. Jimmy,
I want you to kind of respond to that, and then Cindia,
I would like for you to counter. Yeah, Well, Sidney's point that
Alito is on the wrong side of history is absolutely right. I think that
the two perspectives between these these two Supreme Court justice show the growth or the
well the growth in the schism between right and left in this country. Roberts
represents kind of an older value, one that's several decades older. Alito is
relatively newer and represents the growth that has taken place in that schism. And
when history looks back and it judges the United States, and it judges the
people that supported the MAGA movement, it will look at the legal and authoritative
figures in our government that we're willing to compromise the spirit intent of our Constitution
and really the spirit and intent of our country. Right, the fabric that's
going to hold us together. They were willing to compromise the country for their
own personal gain, their own personal perspectives and allegiances. And that is where
Alito is going to fall. Where Roberts, although he might look like the
rest of his tribe, was willing to work with the other tribes. And
I think that that is the difference. What about you, Cindy, what
are your thoughts? Yeah, I agree there will be a difference by in
the end, I think the problem remains. The reason why I said that
the Constitution needs to be rewritten is because in its concurrent condition, the institutions
are programmed to work with good faith people and trump Ism just destroy that.
That's why he's been very effective, and it's been very very hard to stop
him because he's not doing anything in good faith. Well, I wanted to
interject, not necessarily, you know, just putting in Trumpism, because number
one, we do not endorse any type of candidate that happens to be running
in November, and we are not trying to actually sway anybody on how you
know, they should vote. But I think that it's important. And even
though like I don't disagree with you per se as far as like you know,
the way that we pass. We should be looking at the way that
the Constitution is now and how it's being engaged, because it was actually saying
that, hey, we're actually thinking that you're going to do the right thing,
but we are seeing that because there's other interest that's involved, that's not
necessarily the case. And this is something I would say was definitely before twenty
sixteen, twenty fifteen, et cetera, et cetera. So you know,
I think that keeping that in mind, how else would you see the historical
context would be when we definitely have like such polarizing our viewpoints just on the
Supreme Court alone. Yeah, my point and where I was going to was
that even Trumpeism is not the issue in itself. The issue is that there
is a very small majority of chrystal fascists as we call them, who is
trying to impose their religious view on everyone else. And this movement as is
just taking tropisms as just a locomotives and and yeah, and it's just a
way to impose their view on everyone else. And so when history will judge
that, they will realize that how could so few people impose their views on
so many people? And why did anyone stop them? Because people claim that
the US is a democracy, and I don't think it is. But in
a democracy normally, uh, the majority is supposed to rule. And so
the question will be how how is it possible for such a minority to go
so high into imposing their views on everyone? And that will because there will
be there will have been people in strong positions like the Supreme Court, like
some senators, like some representatives, like some and and that's how you go
from where we are now to where the US can potentially be, which is
much much, much worse. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I
know that. My personal worry is that we do have a minority of people
that happen to be in power being influenced by another minority that's not necessarily good
for the social contract of the country. And I definitely know because we talked
about it so much about the influence of Christian nationalism or crystal fascism that happens
to be running so rampant in our government entities, as far as even like
a in a institution like the Supreme Court that's supposed to be impartial. That's
the main reason why this particular body of people are not elected. They are
appointed, and they are supposed to be appointed and confirmed by another branch of
the government, which is the legislation when specifically the Senate, in order for
them to be separate from any type of political institution, and they can be
completely influenced by the spirit and the interpretation of what the Constitution is saying or
trying to say. And there have been times in our history where the Supreme
Court got it right, and unfortunately, there are times even as of late,
where the Supreme Court has got it wrong. So, Jimmy, I
want to ask you about windsor specifically this young person that happened to attend the
event that is supposed to be for Supreme Court justices to kind of you know,
schmooze and stuff like that. You know, I personally of the opinion
that events like this shouldn't even be a thing. I don't necessarily think that,
you know, public people should be able to get at the Supreme Court
in of itself, because again, we want them to be impartial as much
as possible. But what do you think her action or activism helped to reveal
and do you think that it would be something that will possibly be a good
thing as far as like how we progress and go forward knowing that these are
the thoughts of the people that happen to rule on the highest court in the
land. Well, I don't know if it's going to have as much of
an impact as we hope or as it should, because people are consistently proving
themselves, especially people on the right in this country, that they really don't
care about the good old boy system that happens with this party in particular.
But you know, not only with this party. I mean, we should
not be making celebrities or royalty out of our elected officials, but unfortunately we
just do. And there is an element of being being part of the group
that takes place all across the government. I have no problem with the fact
that she went in there and disingenuously extracted his true opinion out of him,
because he is a public figure and you should know better when you are talking
to somebody, everything is fair game, even if you think it's off the
record. There is no off the record. You are a Supreme Court justice.
And yeah, they shouldn't be people that can be accessible to donors,
to lobbyists, to other people with great influence, because the whole point of
having a Supreme Court justice elected for life or excuse me, appointed for life,
not elected, is to stave off that exact influence, and instead,
you know, they are just exposed to it regularly. I'm glad that she
exposed the idea that this person, through his opinions, renders the constitutional the
constitution, excuse me, dysfunctional. Rather, it cannot function effectively with him
interpreting it because he lacks the ability to interpret it objectively. That is a
big problem, and so I'm happy she did it. He shouldn't be surprised.
There was no reasonable expectation of privacy. And it's not like, you
know, she went into his bathroom and held a microphone while he was while
he was getting out of the shower, you know what I mean. This
was a public event. I just think that he's stupid. He should recuse
himself from the Supreme Court, and he should step down immediately. But that's
not going to happen. Yeah, I know. Remember we already have like
issues specifically with Alito being called to recuse himself from certain judgments, certain cases
like January sixth, like the immunity case that's going to be coming up,
and he's just not doing it. And it's quite unfortunate that that's not the
case, because, as you said, he has proven himself not to be
impartial. But you know, Cindy, I want to come to you because,
like, you know, something that Roberts said to Winsor was pretty interesting.
He said that the idea of the Supreme Court should be to put the
country on a more moral path. How do you think that Robert's response to
that idea should be put and also how should be interpreted? Should that be
the role of the Supreme Court or No? Well, Chief Forbad Says said
said no if I remember correctly, and a little just said yes. So
yeah, you know the ACA, we have several shows and we regularly see
people claiming that we get our morals from God. So it's not surprising that
someone who's trying to impose his religious views believes that his morals come from God
and that because of that he has to impose them. So it's not surprising.
It's terrifying that it exists at this level of responsibility and power. But
the the the entire processes is cured now, like he was heard in front
of the Senate before he was appointed. Amiconi Barrett. She was. She
was hurt also and uh she was asked, do you think that Robertus Wade
is UH is legal and and and should be the law? She said yes,
and everyone knew she was lying and she was confirmed. Same thing goes
with with the others. So I really don't see how you can change that
uh in in the kurrent current situation and implorization of the US. But it
has to start there. Uh lies have to have a consequence. Yeah,
I agree. And ultimately a commitment to the judiciary past and partiality and at
the integrity is necessary, absolutely necessary to preserve the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
With out those things, the Supreme Court is probably going to be looked
at, or actually looked at as just a de facto institution. And we
really should be pushing more so a way to actually safeguard democratic values upon the
nation on which it was founded on