Illiberalism
Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.
If you really want to capture your democracy, you always start with the most important guardrail, and this is judicial review. The ruling majority understood that if you have an independent court in place, the constitutional capture will never work because the constitutional court would always stand in the way.[1]
Even before [Binyamin] Netanyahu acted [to suspend the push for judicial
reformsubordination], the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, and the opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid had welcomed an opportunity for a real dialogue; in fact, Herzog had presented his own formula for judicial reform earlier in the month. Yet both Herzog and Lapid committed to enshrine protections for equality and individual liberty in law—which, arguably, some of Netanyahu’s theocratic allies could never accept. Dialogue, in that case, only delays the inevitable collision. Indeed, it is no longer clear that reappointing [Yoav] Gallant, or even merely suspending the judicial assault, will calm down the streets. (Dialogue with a threat of the package’s reintroduction hanging over the talks would be, [Ehud] Barak had said, “between the wolf and the lamb, about what to eat for dinner.”)[2]
The more I learn about this judicial subordination package, the more it appears to me to mirror the polarization in the U.S. And as in the U.S., the course of the country depends upon limits to the crazy, limits we saw in the U.S. midterm elections last year, limits we really have yet to see in Israel.
Steve Hendrix, “Netanyahu’s political touch eludes him as Israel spirals into chaos,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-judicial-reform-netanyahu-protests/
Steve Hendrix and Shira Rubin, “Netanyahu fires defense minister who called for halt to judicial overhaul,” Washington Post, March 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/26/israel-netanyahu-gallant-defense-minister/
Patrick Kingsley, “Israel Boils as Netanyahu Ousts Minister Who Bucked Court Overhaul,” New York Times, March 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/world/middleeast/judiciary-overhaul-benjamin-netanyahu-israel-parliament.html
Bernard Avishai, “Has Benjamin Netanyahu’s Assault on Israeli Democracy Been Stopped?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/has-benjamin-netanyahus-assault-on-israeli-democracy-been-stopped
Dov Lieber, Aaron Boxerman, and Shayndi Raice, “Israel’s Netanyahu Suspends Judicial Overhaul After Mass Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/strike-called-flights-grounded-in-israel-over-netanyahus-judicial-overhaul-plan-e8c95930
Maayan Lubell, “Netanyahu agrees to delay Israel’s judicial overhaul until next parliament session,” Reuters, March 27, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-president-urges-halt-judicial-overhaul-after-protests-2023-03-27/
Ben Sales, “Protests and strike rock Israel as future of Netanyahu’s judicial reforms falls into doubt,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 27, 2023, https://www.jta.org/2023/03/27/israel/protests-and-strike-rock-israel-as-future-of-netanyahus-judicial-reforms-falls-into-doubt
Ishaan Tharoor, “Israel’s democratic crisis is about more than just Netanyahu,” Washington Post, March 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/27/israel-democratic-crisis-ideological-divide-netanyahu/
Tracy Wilkinson and Laura King, “Israel’s protests, Netanyahu and the crisis his government unleashed,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-03-27/can-israels-netanyahu-escape-crisis-his-government-unleashed
Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland,” Washington Post, March 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/28/netanyahu-israel-hungary-poland-orban-illiberal-nationalist/
Jacob Magid, “Biden: Israel ‘cannot continue down this road’; no Netanyahu invite in ‘near term,’” Times of Israel, March 29, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-israel-cannot-continue-down-this-road-no-netanyahu-invite-in-near-term/
Gilead
Donald Trump
Stormy Daniels
Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
Eriq Gardner writes principally about a civil matter, “the case of writer E. Jean Carroll, who is suing Trump for defamation over an alleged rape in the mid-1990s,” being heard, apparently, in the same courthouse as the Stormy Daniels matter. Gardner is intrigued that the judge has ordered that the jury be kept anonymous, to protect them from threats and violence that Donald Trump might instigate. Gardner thinks Trump and his team might be unable or unwilling to contain themselves, which could land Trump in jail.[3]
It’s not nearly as exciting a story as the headline makes it sound[4]—perhaps that would be prison odds rather than jail odds. Still, it illustrates the complications of Trump’s legal situation:
The conditions for Trump’s continued freedom would presumably include following all court orders—even in cases happening “next door.” And this ruling in favor of an anonymous jury might not be Kaplan’s last decision aimed at protecting the sanctity of the coming trial. How might all this play out? Your imagination is as good as mine.[5]
I’m calling bullshit here. Because you know and I know that Gardner is dead on about Trump and his lawyers likely failing to “follow[] all court orders.” Gardner never, not even once, whispers the word “contempt,”[6] but you know and I know that’s gotta be on our bingo cards.
Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/
Bess Levin, “Report: Melania Trump Is Still Pissed About Stormy Daniels, Has No Sympathy About Trump Facing Prison Time,” Vanity Fair, March 27, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/melania-trump-donald-trump-stormy-daniels-indictment
Right-wing militias
Police White supremacist gangs
Fig. 1. Photograph by Lorie Shaull, April 1, 2021, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Brian Howey, “After police killings, families are kept in the dark and grilled for information,” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-28/police-shootings-california-families-grilled-information
- [1]Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, quoted in Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland,” Washington Post, March 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/28/netanyahu-israel-hungary-poland-orban-illiberal-nationalist/↩
- [2]Bernard Avishai, “Has Benjamin Netanyahu’s Assault on Israeli Democracy Been Stopped?” New Yorker, March 27, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/has-benjamin-netanyahus-assault-on-israeli-democracy-been-stopped↩
- [3]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/↩
- [4]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/↩
- [5]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/↩
- [6]Eriq Gardner, “Trump’s Jail Odds & Biden’s Diary Fallout,” Puck, March 27, 2023, https://puck.news/trumps-jail-odds-bidens-diary-fallout/↩