“Green light for dictatorship”: US Supreme Court offers Trump presidential immunity

On Monday 1 July, the Supreme Court offered total immunity to convicted felon and former US President Donald Trump from criminal prosecution linked to his time in office.

The final ruling came part of a series of Supreme Court rulings in the Trump v United States case.

The “absolute immunity” ruling was handed to Trump by the chief justice John Roberts. The Guardian explains that the ruling exempts Trump from criminal prosecution “for all acts that can be interpreted as part of the official course of his 'core' duties, and 'presumptive' immunity for all other official acts.” Current US President Joe Biden denounced the ruling.

The court cases came on the back of the 6 January 2021 insurrection, which saw Trump supporters storm the Capitol Building, which is where the US Congress meets to write laws, and where US Presidents are inaugurated.

Such a ruling sets a worrying precedent not only for Trump, but for future abuses of power from US Presidents.

Green light for dictatorship

Professor Inderjeet Parmar, Professor of International Politics at City, University of London, researches and teaches US foreign policy and global politics. He is the co-author of “Anglo-American Power in the Wake of Brexit and America First" (Routledge, 2023).

In reaction to the news, and offering a historical precedent for how Biden can fight the ruling, he said:

The Supreme Court ruling gives the green light for a dictatorship in the US. The ruling is a subversion of the constitution and democratic norms of accountability.

The Supreme Court has now provided a green light for presidents to do whatever they deem fit to ‘defend’ the republic against ‘enemies’, whether they are real or politically imagined.

Such presidential immunity is unprecedented and may be used to build an effective dictatorship in the United States.  

The appetite for democracy, constitutional norms, and checks and balances among US elites is dying. Democracy only just made it through on January 6, 2021.

This ruling means the US is unable to claim to be a beacon of democracy in the world, and an opponent of authoritarianism.

It further underlines the level of unreliability, instability and volatility of US politics. As the world’s lead state, it also sends signals that normalises authoritarianism worldwide.  

Trump has already vowed revenge on his political opponents and to act like a dictator if re-elected.  

This will be seen as cementing the power of Trump and his Republican party and will embolden him and his supporters.  

Biden could do more than simply disavow the ruling. He has the power to appoint more supreme court justices to balance out the Conservative bench. President Roosevelt used this tactic back in 1937, when the Supreme Court ruled against aspects of his New Deal programme.

The Supreme Court ruling in handing such great power to a president reverses the critique of an imperial presidency and paves the way to a potential dictatorship.

In the 1970s, there was a backlash against the idea of an ‘imperial presidency’ in the US, and a desire to curb the power of the White House, particularly after Watergate, Vietnam, and the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos that led to tens of thousands of deaths.

The Justice Sotomayor has said that ‘the President is now a king above the law.’  In 1977, President Nixon said about his abuse of power: “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal”. This was widely considered to demonstrate Richard Nixon’s criminal character. Now it has been declared by the highest court to be the new normal.

Richard Nixon was roundly criticised for saying “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” That the Supreme Court has now provided some legal basis for that claim is extraordinary.

Whatever your view on the merits of the case before the court, there is no denying that this represents a significant expansion of presidential power and a major setback for democratic accountability in the United States.

The ruling offers further evidence that democratic backsliding is not something that only happens in other parts of the world. America can no longer make a credible claim to be the “city on a hill” that provides a shining example of the virtues of democratic government.

More troubling still, this is not something that the American people can simply vote away. Even if Trump loses the election this November, this demonstrates how the decisions he already made as president will continue to have ripple effects long after he recedes from the political scene.