{"id":8147,"date":"2022-06-19T16:39:09","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T16:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8147"},"modified":"2022-06-19T16:39:09","modified_gmt":"2022-06-19T16:39:09","slug":"samuel-alito-one-angry-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8147","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Alito: One Angry Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Alito is not just a conservative. He\u2019s not a consistent \u201coriginalist\u201d in the vein of Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas, only a \u201cpractical\u201d one<\/a>. The key to understanding Alito is not judicial philosophy or ardent conservatism: it\u2019s his anger \u2014 an anger that resonates with the sentiments of many voters, especially white and male ones, who feel displaced by recent social and cultural changes. If you want to understand what to expect from the post-Roberts Court<\/a>, paying attention to that anger pays dividends.”
…
“Alito\u2019s anger consistently sounds in a register of cultural decline, bemoaning the growing prominence of women and minorities in American life. Writing the majority opinion<\/a> in Hobby Lobby<\/em>, which endorsed a company\u2019s right to deny employees contraception coverage, Alito waxed lyrically about the \u201cmen and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs.\u201d The women denied medical care that facilitates participation in the labor market, in contrast, weren\u2019t a concern. Examining a Washington state regulation of pharmacists, Alito was quick to detect \u201chostility\u201d<\/a> to conservative religious beliefs. And in an opinion repudiating New Haven\u2019s effort to promote more Black firefighters, Alito alone trawled the history<\/a> of the case to complain about the role played by a Black pastor who was an ally of the city\u2019s mayor and had \u201cthreatened a race riot.\u201d Black involvement in municipal politics, for Alito, appears as a sinister threat to public order.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In stark contrast, when the charge of discrimination is made on behalf of racial or religious minorities, Alito expresses no such solicitude<\/a>. He does not search for evidence of bias. Instead, he takes an impossibly narrow view<\/a> of job-related discrimination that demands women somehow instinctively know they are being paid less than male counterparts. Despite his claim to a \u201cjust the facts ma\u2019am\u201d approach, Alito has a distinctively constricted take on what the \u201cfacts\u201d are. To read his opinions is to inhabit a world in which it is white Christian men who are the principal targets of invidious discrimination, and where a traditional way of life marked by firm and clear gender rules is under attack.When it comes to the criminal justice system, Alito is a reliable vote for the most punitive version of the state. In 2016, when the Supreme Court invalidated Florida\u2019s death-penalty scheme<\/a> on Sixth Amendment grounds, only Alito dissented. When the court, a year earlier, found a federal sentencing rule for armed offenders unconstitutionally vague<\/a>, only Alito voted for the prosecution. It\u2019s difficult to think of cases where Alito has voted for a criminal defendant, or any other litigant that elicits liberal sympathies.”  
…
“In November 2020, Alito gave a keynote speech<\/a> to the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society. Much criticized at the time<\/a> for its partisan tone \u201cbefitting a Trump rally,\u201d in the words of one critic, those remarks are useful because they prefigure where a court on which Alito is a dominant voice might go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that speech, Alito criticized pandemic restrictions by bemoaning the rise of \u201cscientific\u201d policymaking. He complained about the \u201cprotracted campaign\u201d and \u201ceconomic boycotts\u201d of Catholic groups and others with \u201cunpopular religious beliefs\u201d (self-identified Christians make up some\u00a063 percent of the American populace<\/a>). And he\u00a0(falsely) warned of \u201cmorning after pills that destroy an embryo after fertilization.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0If that speech is any guide \u2014 and there is no reason to think it won\u2019t be \u2014 the future of the Supreme Court will be increasingly one of religious censor: keeping women in their lane, standing up for Christian rights, and making sure that uppity \u201cscientists\u201d in the federal government don\u2019t get their wicked way.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2022\/05\/18\/samuel-alito-angry-man-00033207<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Alito is not just a conservative. He\u2019s not a consistent \u201coriginalist\u201d in the vein of Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas, only a \u201cpractical\u201d one. The key to understanding Alito is not judicial philosophy or ardent conservatism: it\u2019s his anger \u2014 an anger that resonates with the sentiments of many voters, especially white and male ones, who feel displaced by recent social and cultural changes. If you want to understand what to expect from the post-Roberts Court, paying attention to that anger pays dividends.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Alito\u2019s anger consistently sounds in a register of cultural decline, bemoaning the growing prominence of women and minorities in American life. Writing the majority opinion in Hobby Lobby, which endorsed a company\u2019s right to deny employees contraception coverage, Alito waxed lyrically about the \u201cmen and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs.\u201d The women denied medical care that facilitates participation in the labor market, in contrast, weren\u2019t a concern. Examining a Washington state regulation of pharmacists, Alito was quick to detect \u201chostility\u201d to conservative religious beliefs. And in an opinion repudiating New Haven\u2019s effort to promote more Black firefighters, Alito alone trawled the history of the case to complain about the role played by a Black pastor who was an ally of the city\u2019s mayor and had \u201cthreatened a race riot.\u201d Black involvement in municipal politics, for Alito, appears as a sinister threat to public order.<\/p>\n

In stark contrast, when the charge of discrimination is made on behalf of racial or religious minorities, Alito expresses no such solicitude. He does not search for evidence of bias. Instead, he takes an impossibly narrow view of job-related discrimination that demands women somehow instinctively know they are being paid less than male counterparts. Despite his claim to a \u201cjust the facts ma\u2019am\u201d approach, Alito has a distinctively constricted take on what the \u201cfacts\u201d are. To read his opinions is to inhabit a world in which it is white Christian men who are the principal targets of invidious discrimination, and where a traditional way of life marked by firm and clear gender rules is under attack.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the criminal justice system, Alito is a reliable vote for the most punitive version of the state. In 2016, when the Supreme Court invalidated Florida\u2019s death-penalty scheme on Sixth Amendment grounds, only Alito dissented. When the court, a year earlier, found a federal sentencing rule for armed offenders unconstitutionally vague, only Alito voted for the prosecution. It\u2019s difficult to think of cases where Alito has voted for a criminal defendant, or any other litigant that elicits liberal sympathies.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“In November 2020, Alito gave a keynote speech to the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society. Much criticized at the time for its partisan tone \u201cbefitting a Trump rally,\u201d in the words of one critic, those remarks are useful because they prefigure where a court on which Alito is a dominant voice might go.
\nIn that speech, Alito criticized pandemic restrictions by bemoaning the rise of \u201cscientific\u201d policymaking. He complained about the \u201cprotracted campaign\u201d and \u201ceconomic boycotts\u201d of Catholic groups and others with \u201cunpopular religious beliefs\u201d (self-identified Christians make up some 63 percent of the American populace). And he (falsely) warned of \u201cmorning after pills that destroy an embryo after fertilization.\u201d If that speech is any guide \u2014 and there is no reason to think it won\u2019t be \u2014 the future of the Supreme Court will be increasingly one of religious censor: keeping women in their lane, standing up for Christian rights, and making sure that uppity \u201cscientists\u201d in the federal government don\u2019t get their wicked way.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[790,1655,772,1213,200,1654,528],"class_list":["post-8147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-courts","tag-emotion","tag-ideology","tag-judiciary","tag-law","tag-samuel-alito","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8148,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8147\/revisions\/8148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}