How SCOTUS Killed Democracy: Seven Supreme Court Decisions That Brought Fascism to America
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision on June 27, 2025 created in Donald Trump an American fascist dictator.
The decision in the case Trump v. CASA, Inc. did not seem momentous. It declared only that Federal District judges could no longer issue “universal” injunctions to foreclose nationwide harm; they could now grant relief only to a plaintiff in a specific lawsuit. But the decision was far from trivial: Trump v. CASA, Inc. was the coup de grace, capping six earlier and toxic SCOTUS decisions which, scattered over two centuries, collectively enabled fascism.
In deciding Trump v. CASA Inc., the six conservative justices of the Roberts Court agreed with the Republican Party’s inane claim: the injunctions of Federal District judges across the country were impeding President Trump’s ability to govern. Steven Miller: “Our objective, one way or another, is to make clear that the district courts of this country do not have the authority to direct the functions of the executive branch.” Pam Bondi: “Active liberal… judges have used these injunctions to block virtually all of President Trump’s policies.”
The argument is laughingly specious, plausible but dead wrong in describing what is actually transpiring. It is no more than misleading spin, resting on two audacious assumptions: (1) the “functions of the executive branch” never violate the law and “President Trump’s policies” certainly have not. (2) The “active liberal judges” who think otherwise are knee-jerk partisans with not a shred of professional integrity.
Injunctions in lawsuits are issued to block the defendant’s illegal action from continuing to harm the plaintiff, when the judge determines the lawsuit is warranted and the harm is serious. Federal District judges deal with issues nationwide in scope—their purview is every bit as wide as the Supreme Court’s—and if they believe the harm from the defendant’s action poses a threat to the nation at large, the injunction is applied “universally” across the country. We have followed this protocol since it was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789.
Federal District judges do not engage in blocking actions they know to be legal. The injunction in the case at hand and some 40 others against Trump were issued by judges who thought his actions were not, and were harmful nationwide.
Did they make judgment calls? Yes, Federal District judges don’t do anything else. Do they ever make bad ones? Certainly, but they err on the side of caution. If they’ve misjudged, and the enjoined action turns out to be legal, its interruption does no serious social harm. If they’ve judged correctly, and the action is in fact illegal, its interruption prevents serious social harm.
Here, then, is what Mr. Miller, Ms. Bondi, et al., are truly seeking: No Federal District judge should be empowered to protect the nation’s wellbeing from President Trump’s illegal actions.
And that’s what the Supreme Court’s decision has now codified.
Trump v. CASA is truly cataclysmic. After 236 years of upholding the rule of law, the Supreme Court has now offered Trump an off ramp. He can violate any law he pleases and not be enjoined from jeopardizing the American people.
A president who can break laws at will is a dictator. The political system creating and accommodating this condition is fascism. Donald Trump is a dictator heading a fascist regime.
Fascism is defined in scholarly literature as far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist governance, characterized by a dictatorial leader, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, frequently a fusion with corporate power, and often a cult of personality.
Here we are.
The Supreme Court’s first toxic decision occurred in 1803, in the case of Marbury v. Madison. With no Constitutional authority to do so Chief Justice John Marshall’s Court overturned a law passed by an elected Congress and signed by an elected President. How democratic was that? SCOTUS has exercised the power of judicial review ever since, throwing out both federal and state laws.
The next devastating decision was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 83 years later. In this case the Court upgraded the status of U.S. corporations from artificial persons created by state charters, to that of legal persons, with Constitutionally protected rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, petition for redress of grievances, and freedom from unlawful search and seizure. Corporate personhood is prima facie preposterous—in fact its granting was technically illegal—but today it is “settled law.”
The misfortunes of judicial review and corporate personhood joined forces in two more SCOTUS decisions, in 1974 and 1976. Buckley v. Valeo found unconstitutional the Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, and declared spending money in political campaigns is an exercise of free speech. Two years later, in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a state law prohibiting corporations from spending money in political campaigns. The Court concluded, citing Buckley, spending money in political campaigns is free speech and corporations have that right, protected by the Constitution.
But money doesn’t utter sounds or leave marks, and corporations don’t walk, eat, breathe, make love, or succumb to disease. Money is speech and corporations are people? How can that be? These two absurd concepts set the nation on the path to fascism.
Both Buckley and Bellotti, however, retained some minor restrictions on corporate spending: “some conditions apply.” But spend the corporations could, and savagely they did. Over the rest of the 20th century American corporations exercised their rights of free speech to dominate campaign finance, and their rights of petition to dominate Congressional and Executive Branch lobbying. When the constant stream of corporate money became more influential in Washington than citizens’ episodic votes, democracy was displaced. Corporations succeeded in tilting the crafting of public policy to favor corporate interests over the American people’s well being. (The nation’s physical infrastructure decayed, for example, while the defense corporations prospered.) Corporate oligarchy was the intermediate step between government by the people and fascism.
The minor restrictions on corporate spending were lifted by the next toxic decision, Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. The Court declared corporate political spending could not be Constitutionally constrained. “Some conditions [no longer] apply.”
The grip of corporate oligarchy tightened, expressed vividly in the first Trump Administration’s slashing of corporate taxes. But at the end of those four years the transition to fascism appeared in dramatic fashion, when Trump refused to leave office, and his cult of personality stormed the Capitol.
Trump was subsequently indicted in two federal cases involving his presidency, for a total of 48 felonies. He denied everything and fought back, claiming his prosecution would handicap future presidents’ freedom of choice, especially in national security issues, if they feared prosecution when out of office. He took his case to SCOTUS.
The Roberts Court showed its propensity for accepting inane arguments. In Trump v. United States, July 1, 2024, the Court declared immunity from prosecution for former presidents, if their violations of law were incidental to “official acts.”
No one is above the law, the Roberts Court proclaimed, except presidents.
Then a year later Trump v. CASA Inc. was the straw that broke democracy’s back.
SCOTUS v. DEMOCRACY brought us fascism and fashioned a dictator. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority continues as Trump’s compliant servant. Pam Bondi is his defense attorney. The sycophantic Republican Congress passed a law massively enriching the corporate and the wealthy at the direct expense of everyone else. No democracy on earth would do that, ever.
And no country is a democracy if commanded by a single unaccountable man.
Trump can violate, has violated, is violating, will violate any law he chooses and face no universal injunctive interdiction. If he is sued for violating federal statutes and Pam Bondi fails with demonstrated vigor to dismiss the charges, his prosecution is postponed by DOJ policy until he is out of office. And once out of office Trump is immune.
Once out of office? Maybe—probably—not. If Trump can ignore the 14th Amendment in voiding birthright citizenship, he can ignore the 22nd and run for a third term. Or he might declare martial law and suspend elections altogether.
What will stop him? He’s 79. Maybe death. Anything else?
Angry, well informed, organized, and committed people are already protesting in the streets. That could stop him, but only if the movement grows larger.
Toppling Trump is by no means out of reach. Scholars Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan tell why in their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Based on their rigorous research into historic conflicts, they offer a “rule of thumb.” An autocratic regime is in mortal peril when 3.5% of the people register civil resistance.
Doing the math we need a bit more than 12 million Americans to do this, and we may be about half-way home. An estimated 4-7 million individuals have joined in thousands of protests multiple times since Trump was inaugurated.
So, people, we have to get that many more into the streets. Full stop.
(This article is drawn from a book the author is completing, The Triumph of Corporate Oligarchy: How It Defeated Democracy, Savaged a Thriving Nation, Normalized Fraudulent War, and Brought Forth Donald Trump)
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