Justice Scalia—The Most Ironic Reference Trump Has Ever Made

When Donald Trump was preparing to make his extremely ridiculous statement about Hillary Clinton and the 2nd Amendment, he followed it up with a reference to former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:

“Right now we’re tied. You see what’s going on. We’re tied, ’cause Scalia—this was not supposed to happen. Scalia was going to be around for ten more years at least. And this is what happens.”

Now of all the justices you are going to reference just after you say something that embroils you in a scandal about the interpretation of your words, Scalia is the single worst member of the Supreme Court he could have possibly mentioned. It’s actually embarassing.

Scalia made his name as the great developer and proponent of textualism and objectivism when it came to the interpretation of the Constitution. In essence, his theory was that the only way to come to a legal understanding of the document was to get out a dictionary from the late 1700’s by Samuel Johnson, identify the definition of each word and construct the sentence so it gives you what would be famously referred to as “a plain reading” of the text.

Scalia’s entire legal career was dedicated to the idea that the selection of words and their meanings as understood by the learned populace at that time is the single most important—if not the only—standard by which you can come to an interpretation of something.

Donald Trump: “Obama is literally the founder of ISIS”.

OK, let’s take his favorite and greatly mourned Justice Scalia’s approach and figure out what he would consider a plain reading of the text.

Merriam Webster:

Literally: in a literal sense or manner : actually

Literal: involving the ordinary or usual meaning of a word

: giving the meaning of each individual word

: completely true and accurate : not exaggerated

(I’ll give you your pick, but note how close to “plain reading” the definition of “literal” is…)

Founder: one that founds or establishes

Found: to establish (as an institution) often with provision for future maintenance

So what would Scalia have said about Trump’s comment about Obama?

“Obama is completely true and in an unexaggerated sense, the individual who established ISIS as an institution with the possible intention of continuing its existence.”

OK…

Trump supporters, GO!

And there they went. Well, as I’ve always said, bullshit exists on the lowest level of logic no matter how fancifully embroidered. And as Yoda said, “Annoyance at facts leads to bullshit, bullshit leads to demagoguery, and demagoguery leads to the most succulent, delicious teat of irony in all the world for us to suckle.”

Or something like that. I’d have to look up the words from a dictionary published a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.