One of the Supreme Court’s most powerful justices launched into a televised meltdown about “intellectuals.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas railed against progressivism, calling it an existential threat to the principles that founded the United States 250 years ago.
Thomas, speaking at the University of Texas at Austin Law School in remarks carried live on C-SPAN, said a spirit of “cynicism, rejection, hostility and animus” toward America has taken hold among Americans themselves. His appearance drew both applause and protests on campus.
Thomas, 77, the Court’s longest-serving conservative member, laid the blame at the feet of “intellectuals” and the nation’s colleges and universities, which he said have allowed founding values to “fall out of favor.” He did not reference specific political figures or contemporary events.
“Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government,” Thomas said. “[It] holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.”
Thomas also took aim at officials in Washington, he said, who lack commitment to “righteous cause, to traditional morality, to national defense, to free enterprise, to religious piety or to the original meaning of the Constitution.”
He was pointed out how such figures present themselves. “They recast themselves as Institutionalists, pragmatists or thoughtful moderates, all as a way of justifying their failures to themselves, their consciences, and their country,” he said.
He also said he believes many Americans no longer accept that “all men are created equal” and deserving of “unalienable rights” protected by limited government.
Appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991, Thomas has been a reliable vote in favor of positions backed by the Trump administration in major cases.
He closed his University of Texas rant with a call to action. “In my view, we must find in ourselves that same level of courage that the signers of the Declaration have so that we can do for our future what they did for theirs,” he said.
It comes after speculation about the futures of Thomas and his SCOTUS colleague, Samuel Alito, 76, was fueled by none other than Trump himself.
In an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the president, 79, suggested that Alito and Thomas might be too old for the gig.
While praising Alito as one of the “greatest justices of all time,” Trump added that “there’s a theory that if you reach a certain age,” Justices should retire from the bench to make way for a new appointee of a similar political persuasion.
“But it’s probably not easy to give up for people, you know, when they reach a certain age,” he added.
