Supreme Court attacks are a fool’s game for GOP — even when rulings don’t go Trump’s way

The Supreme Court rules against President Donald Trump sometimes — and that’s OK.

But some of the very Republicans who fought for decades to bring the court back in line with constitutional values and the rule of law seem to have forgotten what that long battle was all about.

In recent years, the Supremes have weathered a storm of smears and threats from left-wingers aghast at the idea that the judiciary might not accede completely to their wishes.

Recall the catastrophic Democratic threats to pack the court that, had they been realized, would have done irreparable damage to the country’s political compact.

Somehow that was the least of progressives’ offenses.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that they would “reap the whirlwind” if they didn’t substitute his political preferences for their legal judgments.

“Mostly peaceful” protesters gathered outside justices’ homes to intimidate them and their families.

A would-be assassin showed up at Kavanaugh’s home —and revealed after his arrest that he’d plotted additional attacks on conservative justices to let then-President Joe Biden replace them with liberals.

It was the logical conclusion of Schumer’s call for revenge and the left’s threat to forcibly remake the court itself.

The Democrats’ years-long effort to delegitimize an essential American institution makes a mockery of their self-professed commitment to decency and democracy.

Yet now some on the right have adopted those very talking points.

Just look at the widespread outcry last week after a 7-2 majority paused the immediate deportation of some of those targeted by Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act against alleged gang members.

Stephen Miller, the powerful deputy White House chief of staff, raged on social media, accusing the court of “sabotaging democracy” and accommodating “foreign terrorists.”

Mike Davis of the influential Article III Project suggested that Trump should suspend the writ of habeas corpus and “house the terrorists near the Chevy Chase Country Club, with daytime release” —  a thinly veiled threat the president reposted.

Radio talker Jesse Kelly called on Trump to “ignore the Supreme Court. Arrest anyone who tries to enforce this,” and even “dissolve the Supreme Court entirely if they push.”

And the president himself expressed fury at the court — a third of it composed of his appointees, who all decided against him in this case.

“The worst murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and even those who are mentally insane, who came into our Country illegally, are not allowed to be forced out without going through a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process,” he raged.

The outburst followed an online smear campaign against Trump-appointed Amy Coney Barrett for being the swing vote in a few cases that didn’t go his way earlier this year.

Some self-professed Trump allies even blasted him for making the “evil” Barrett a “DEI” hire.

Exactly none of the outrage or invective is warranted.

The court, like every other part of the federal government, is not beyond reproach — but in its current form, most of its members are faithfully attempting to do their job of accurately interpreting the law and applying it to the fact patterns of particular cases.

It’s extremely misleading to adopt the framing of partisans and the press, who regularly speak as if it’s the court’s role to make policy determinations.

On the contrary, its decisions must hinge not on members’ policy preferences, but on boring yet important procedural issues.

In the Alien Enemies Act case, for example, the court found that the Trump administration had not provided necessary due process to some of those detained and scheduled to be deported.

Under the law as written, as legal luminaries like Ed Whelan and John Yoo have observed, those targeted under the Alien Enemies Act must have the right to challenge their designation as enemies — actually giving them more due process than other illegal immigrants.

So no, this court isn’t pulling out every stop it can to keep illegals in the country — witness its Monday ruling lifting a deportation stay on 350,000 temporarily admitted Venezuelans.

It’s merely interpreting the letter of the law and applying it to the facts of this case, without fear or favor.

Just as it did when it incited Democrats’ fury by overturning Roe v. Wade, protecting Second Amendment rights, invalidating Biden’s illegal student-loan debt transfer, and taking a wrecking ball to the runaway federal bureaucracy.

Over the last 30 years, the GOP has helped shape the court into a bulwark against extra-constitutional action from power-hungry progressives.

It would be a massive mistake to join with Democrats in undermining Americans’ trust in the judiciary now — particularly on the basis of shortsighted misinterpretations that look like the mirror image of the left’s tired, shameful campaign to blow it up.

Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite.