America is heading off a cliff. 2024 will save or break our country. Because 2024 will determine control of the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary and whether we remain a Republic. Let me explain.
Our U.S. Constitution is a loan agreement. We The People loan the federal government specific, enumerated, and divided powers. In exchange, the federal government promises to secure our rights and liberties. The powers not specifically loaned to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution belong to the states. And to We The People. The 10th Amendment confirms this.
This was a radical concept at our revolutionary founding. In Britain, from which we escaped, the crown is the sovereign. Power flows from God, to the King, who grants privileges to his subjects through decrees like the Magna Carta. In America, we’re supposed to have the opposite system of government. We The People are the sovereign. Power flows from God, to us as sovereign citizens (not subjects), and we loan power to our federal government through the U.S. Constitution.
Our rights to speak, associate, worship, and protect ourselves do not come from the First and Second Amendments. That may come as a surprise to many. But these are natural rights. They come from God. The federal government lacks power to take away our God-given rights. Because We The People did not specifically loan our federal government this power in our Constitution.
The Bill of Rights, including the First and Second Amendments, was actually considered superfluous at our founding. The federal government does not have the right to censor our speech, for example, because we never loaned it that power in the Constitution. The First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights were added to win over ratification support from those skeptical of the federal government. In other words, they wanted to make darn sure the federal government knows and stays in its place.
And we should thank them every day, because politicians proved during COVID and BLM riots that they don’t even pretend to care anymore about our God-given rights to speak, associate, worship, and protect ourselves.
Our elected representatives in Congress are supposed to write the laws. The President is supposed to execute the laws. The Supreme Court and lower federal courts are supposed to interpret and apply the laws. The whole point of this carefully divided and balanced system of power—between the federal government and the states, and among the 3 co-equal branches of the federal government—is to protect us from the federal government.
Whether it’s the federal government’s failure, with the resulting anarchy like the BLM riots. Or the federal government’s overreach, with the resulting tyranny like the COVID lockdowns.
Our God-given right to keep and bear arms, as doubly-guaranteed by the Second Amendment, is our insurance policy. Unarmed Australians went to COVID camps. Good luck to the Covidians if they attempt that nonsense in the heart of Real America. Our Founders understood too well the dangers of a powerful central government, after escaping British religious persecution and other tyranny.
And for the first 150 years of our Republic, the Supreme Court and our federal judiciary also understood this danger. Nearly 90 years ago, this all changed. The Supreme Court correctly kept striking down FDR’s politically popular—but unconstitutional—New Deal programs, because the U.S. Constitution never authorized them.
So President Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court—to add 6 liberal justices to the 9, so he could get his politically desired outcomes. FDR’s direct assault on judicial independence worked. The Court changed its interpretation of the Constitution overnight. Flipping the Constitution on its head. The Court essentially held the federal government has unlimited power. Unless the power is specifically precluded—instead of permitted—by the U.S. Constitution. The Commerce Clause, the politically cowed Supreme Court held, gives the federal government near blanket power. “The switch in time that saved nine,” as they called it.
Disastrously, the Court turned the Constitution from a shield that protects us from the federal government into a sword the federal government uses to come after us. And once politicians—including those in robes—grab power from us, it is very difficult for us to grab it back. The federal government became the nanny state, constantly running too many aspects of our lives.
Adding insult to injury, the Supreme Court then concentrated this new federal power—which is supposed to be spread across 3 co-equal branches—with unelected, largely unaccountable Executive Branch bureaucrats. The Tony Faucis of the era. The Court gave this unconstitutional fourth branch of government—now called the administrative state—Congress’s power to write laws through rulemaking, the President’s power to execute the laws, and the federal judiciary’s power to interpret and apply the laws. And the Supreme Court even ordered the lower federal courts to stand down—to generally defer to the administrative state’s own interpretation of its own powers. This is called Chevron deference, a 40-year-old Supreme Court decision the current Court may overturn before July 2024.
The federal government has become the monster we all see today, where DC bureaucrats can unilaterally and unflinchingly destroy farmers, manufacturers, and other small businesses, largely unchecked by Congress or the federal courts.
We all lived through this nightmare during COVID, where Tony Fauci and CDC bureaucrats got drunk on power. They destroyed our economy. And even kids’ lives. Through mindless, lawless, science-free COVID lockdowns.
And this is why President Trump’s transformation of the federal judiciary is crucial. Courageous Trump-appointed federal judges have served as the tip of the spear against the federal government’s overreach. For example, Judge Kathryn Mizelle of Florida unflinchingly took the wrath of the Covidians when she ruled the CDC doesn’t have the unilateral power to force us to wear useless face masks on planes and trains.
Judge Mizelle’s judicial decision was a game-changer in the legal and political battles to reclaim our rights from federal-government overreach. More than a year after the Democrats’ cries that Judge Mizelle’s order would cause mass-deaths, the American people are finally waking up and learning we cannot entrust our lives, livelihoods, and general wellbeing with the federal government. Especially not unelected, largely unaccountable bureaucrats in the administrative state. Our Founders understood this too well.
The appointment of constitutionalist federal judges is almost always a winning political issue for conservatives. Indeed, political novice Donald J. Trump won an upset victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016 over a Supreme Court fight–the vacant Scalia seat. And in 2018, 4 Senate Democrats got sent into early retirement because of their lunatic antics during the Supreme Court fight over Justice Kavanaugh. I was very happy to play my part. If Democrats want another Supreme Court fight in 2024, we should all welcome it. With open arms.
Trump promised to appoint justices in the mold of the late, great Justice Scalia.
And Trump more than delivered. Trump appointed justices who understand their modest, but critical, role, is to interpret the law as written (called textualism) and understood by the public at the time of its enactment (called originalism). Those judicial philosophies of textualism and originalism ensure we are governed by the law—and not the political whims of lifetime-appointed, pay-protected federal judges. The federal judiciary is supposed to be the least dangerous, not most powerful, branch.
And Trump’s biggest and most consequential accomplishment of his first term was his transformation of the Supreme Court and the critically important 13 courts of appeals across America. Trump appointed my former boss Justice Gorsuch to replace Justice Scalia. I then served as a top aide to then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley from my home-state of Iowa to help Trump replace Justice Kennedy with the more conservative Justice Kavanaugh. And Trump finally transformed the Supreme Court to the first constitutionalist majority in 90 years, by replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
In total, Trump appointed 234 Article III judges. With 3 Supreme Court appointments, Trump transformed the 5-4 left-of-center Court to the 5-4 Clarence Thomas Court. He also appointed 54 federal circuit judges to the 13 critically important federal courts of appeals across the country. These are the last stops for more than 99% of federal appeals, as the Supreme Court takes less than 100 cases per year for oral argument.
Trump flipped the Second, Third, and Eleventh Circuits to majority Republican-appointed. By the end of Trump’s first term, Republican-appointed judges controlled a majority (7) of the 13 circuits. Trump appointed the second-most federal appellate judges and total Article III judges in American history. And the only reason Trump wasn’t #1 was because Congress created 152 new federal judgeships for President Carter to fill.
And it wasn’t just the quantity of Trump’s judges. Trump appointed young, smart, constitutionalist judges, with the backgrounds and backbones to do their most important job: Serving as our last line of defense. And protecting the American people from government overreach, breakdown, and mob rule. Like Judge Kathryn Mizelle showed by striking down the CDC’s mindless, lawless, science-free mask mandate.
Today’s transformed Supreme Court and lower federal courts are in the way of politicians’ constant power grabs. Democrats know the Court will significantly curtail federal overreach this term. So these Democrats are now seeking to delegitimize the Supreme Court as a whole. Because Democrats lost control of the Court after nearly 90 years, thanks to Trump, they’re trying everything they can to either pack the Court or damage it beyond repair.
This is why I started the Article III Project, or A3P, 4 years ago after I helped Trump win the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh fights. I saw then how relentless—and evil—too many of today’s Democrats have become. This is no longer our parents’ or grandparents’ Democrat Party. Too many of today’s Democrats aren’t liberals who love America. And just disagree with conservatives on the best way to get there. Too many of today’s Democrats are leftists. They’re Marxists who hate America. They don’t believe in equality. They believe in equity. They don’t believe in free speech. They believe in censorship. They don’t believe in due process. They believe in #MeToo’s presumption of guilt. They have politicized and weaponized of justice systems.
We are fighting back every day at the Article III Project. And we at A3P do not tolerate any vicious slander of the Supreme Court justices, the broader federal judiciary, or the rule of law. Even as President Biden and congressional Democrats make those assaults on judicial independence their daily mission.
We saw it with the fight over the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and returning abortion regulations to the states. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, told Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch that they’ll feel the pain, all but threatening the lives of the justices. For over a year, the Biden White House and the Biden Justice Department have encouraged illegal obstruction-of-justice campaigns outside of the 6 conservative Supreme Court justices’ homes. This led to Supreme Court justices and their families being moved to safe houses. The Biden Justice Department even ordered the U.S. Marshals generally not to arrest anyone illegally protesting outside of the justices’ homes. Those in the know believe this led to the 1 am assassination attempt against Justice Kavanaugh, his wife Ashley, and their two teenage daughters. Because the U.S. Marshals were discouraged from tailing the would-be assassin. Deranged leftists even published the address of where Justice Barrett’s kids go to school.
The individual who leaked the draft Dobbs decision long before it was due to be handed down has still not been brought to justice. Just within the last month, Justice Alito said he knows who leaked his decision that led to the Kavanaugh assassination attempt. It is far past time to put this person in handcuffs and make an example of her, because the trust that exists within those walls of the Supreme Court had been destroyed. And destroying the Court was almost certainly the leaker’s intent.
These reckless attempts to intimidate justices don’t fly at the Article III Project. We’ve engaged every stakeholder and ensured they’re mobilized to defend the Supreme Court justice, the families, and the broader federal judiciary. The cries of illegitimacy from activists are simply leftists who couldn’t accept Trump’s victory in 2016. They’re the true “election deniers” attacking democracy.
We also demand that these radical activists who threaten the lives of justices must face their justice. There are existing laws on the books that can be thrown at these lunatics, yet Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland gives them amnesty. That must change. Starting with the House voting to impeach him. Make the process the punishment.
We’ve seen many more smears of the conservative justices in recent months, and even these past couple weeks, with the attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas, a longtime target of the left. Ever since he escaped the Democrats’ plantation 40 years ago, they haven’t been able to tolerate a black man who thinks for himself. Justice Thomas also happens to be one of the greatest success stories in American history, going from poverty to the highest Court in the land. The sham hearing the Senate Judiciary Democrats put together earlier last week to discuss judicial ethics was nothing short of a circus.
The importance of winning back not only the Presidency but also the Senate cannot be overstated. We’ve now seen over the last several years what the modern Democrat Party is capable of. Thanks to tireless efforts from conservative activists, we have a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that protects the rest of us from leftwing tyranny. But the conservative majority is fleeting, depending on election results.
The 2024 elections are crucial to the survival of the Supreme Court and, thus, our republic.
A reelected President Biden and a Senate Democrat majority very well could replace Justices Thomas and Alito with leftwing judicial activists. The 5-4 Clarence Thomas Court could quickly become the 5-4 Ketanji Brown Jackson Court. Or worse.
If COVID and BLM riots taught us anything, we know Democrats have no problem immediately and unflinchingly taking away our God-given rights to speak, associate, worship, and protect ourselves.
And Democrats have politicized and weaponized federal, state, and local justice systems to indict a former president—who happens to be the leading opposing presidential candidate—for the first time in American history. They have indicted his top aides. They have indicted his key supporters. They are now running an organized political campaign to attack, smear, delegitimize, and destroy Supreme Court justices.
Just imagine what they can do to the rest of us.
If Democrats keep the White House and Senate in 2024, they will fully undo Trump’s historic transformation of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts. If we lose the Court, we lose our country. Elections matter; judges matter. You hear this every election. But this time, it’s very true.