Upside-down flag an alarming display of partisanship
The revelation last week of the upside-down American flag flown for several days after the 2020 election in the front yard of the home of ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in protest of the outcome was an alarming display of partisanship by a supposedly neutral jurist. Flying the colors upside down symbolically signified his concurrence with the “Stop the Steal” fiction that the election was rigged against the defeated President Trump and that President Biden’s victory was illegitimate.
In typical Trumpian fashion, the justice blamed someone else, his wife, who apparently did the deed and, following flag protocol, took it down every night and hoisted it up the pole again each morning, all without his knowledge or awareness.
Busy woman, she; oblivious jurist he.
But it didn’t take revelation of flying the colors upside-down for Justice Alito to show his true colors. At the Supreme Court hearing a few weeks ago on the ex-president’s claim of “absolute immunity” to commit crimes while in office, the jurist expressed his view that presidents need an impenetrable shield from prosecution in order to have a “stable functioning democracy” by removing concerns about being subject to criminal sanctions by a retaliatory successor.That led him to the conclusion that immunity is in order to assure that a president follows the law and leaves office if defeated in an election without fear that he might be prosecuted by a successor for some alleged criminality committed while in office.
Ordinarily, knowing that one is subject to the law would make one more likely to abide by it than removing any legal consequences for violating it.But not for Justice Alito, who flagged his view that a president will obey the law if he knows he doesn’t have to comply with it. This absurd analysis runs counter to the premise of deterrence that “law and order” conservatives like the justice advocate.
Under his upside-down reasoning, a vehicle operator is more likely to drive within the speed limit if the driver cannot be ticketed for exceeding it; or, a prospective bank robber will refrain from committing a hold-up if he has immunity for committing the heist.The Alito analysis tracks Richard Nixon’s post-pardon statement that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”As tennis player John McEnroe was wont to scream at officials on disputed calls against him: “You cannot be serious.”Marshall H. Tanick of Naples is a constitutional law attorney.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Upside-down flag an alarming display of partisanship
