Politics

Justice Roberts, Carl Schmitt, and The Total State

“…the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.”

— William Golding

For contemporary thinkers who considered Hitler a propagandist, such as Victor Klemperer and Hannah Arendt, the issue was not when he arrived at certain inner convictions but rather what the expression of Hitlerian propaganda did to public life.

— Professor Timothy Snyder

“The key to understanding why many Germans supported him [Hitler] lies in the Nazis’ rejection of a rational, factual world.”

— Benjamin Carter Hett

propaganda “must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” — Hitler

Hitler and the Nazis had found the simple slogan they repeated again and again to discredit reporters: “Lügenpresse.” Today the extreme right…has revived this term, which in English is “fake news.”

— Professor Timothy Snyder

The decision by the US Supreme Court granting immunity to US presidents for official acts was to be expected.

The decision institutionalises criminality: US presidents can now murder opponents, mount coups, engage in treason, support genocide as part of their official duties. Of course, this just confirms what US presidents have been doing for decades.

“The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organises a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” wrote Sotomayor on behalf of the three dissenting justices.

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”