The Supreme Court ended its latest term in devastating fashion, ruling that businesses can discriminate against gay Americans before striking down President Biden’s plan for relieve student debt relief for an estimated 43 million Americans. The rulings came a day after the conservative court deemed race-base affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional.
The court’s three liberal justices — Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — delivered scathing dissenting opinions, calling out their “let them eat cake” colleagues for taking a hatchet to the longstanding measures to protect and uplift marginalized Americans. The Obamas, Biden, and Democrats throughout Congress aired out their indignation, as well.
Republicans, however, were overjoyed — particularly those vying for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination. The clown car of right-wing White House strivers lauded the court for cracking down on LGBTQ rights, Americans crippled by student debt, and colleges looking to diversify their student bodies.
“This is a great day for America,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social after the affirmative action ruling. “People with extraordinary ability and everything else necessary for success, including future greatness for our Country, are finally being rewarded. This is the ruling everyone was waiting and hoping for and the result was amazing. It will also keep us competitive with the rest of the world. Our greatest minds must be cherished and that’s what this wonderful day has brought. We’re going back to all merit-based—and that’s the way it should be!”
Trump re-shared the message on Friday after the Supreme Court wrapped its session.
Mike Pence agreed with the man who allegedly said he deserved to be executed on Jan. 6. “There may have been a time when we needed to affirmatively take steps to correct longterm racial bias in institutions of higher education, but I can tell you as a father of three college graduates, those days are long over,” the former vice president said.
Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas who has been more willing than most to criticize Trump, praised the decision to kill race-based affirmative action. “The recent Supreme Court ruling strikes a blow against identity politics,” he wrote. “It’s time to move beyond race-based admissions. Colleges are supporting diversity by reducing legacy preferences and increasing financial aid.”
Legacy preferences are still very much a thing, though, as are certain families being able to afford test tutoring and a host of other crutches privileged student are able to wield in order to get themselves into prestigious universities.
Nikki Haley praised the Supreme Court’s decisions while speaking at the Mom’s for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday. “God bless the Supreme Court,” she said, lauding it for “correcting things on religious liberty and correcting things on student loans.’ She argued that the affirmative action decision was especially important “because the liberals continue to try to put minorities down.”
Sen. Tim Scott, Haley’s fellow South Carolinian, was excited that the Supreme Court blocked tens of millions of Americans from getting some debt relief. “Today’s Supreme Court ruling overturning President Biden’s illegal student loan scheme is a victory for common sense,” he tweeted. “You take out a loan, you pay it back. This decision frees taxpayers from shouldering debt they never signed up for.”
Scott also, like Mike Pence, refuted the idea that racial bias exists in America, telling Fox News that America needs to “stop selling the drug of victimhood and the narcotic of despair.”
“The radical Left needs to stop telling Americans the lie that we live in a racist, declining country,” he wrote along with a video of the appearance. “America is the land of opportunity, not oppression.”
The countless people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and low-income Americans who are going to suffer because of the Supreme Court’s actions this week might not agree.
Source link: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/2024-republican-candidates-praise-supreme-court-decisions-1234781938/
