Gloomy prospects

World press: Full steam ahead towards US dictatorship

By his own admission, Donald Trump wants to be "dictator" for a day.

(Bild: Getty Images/SPENCER PLATT)

Donald Trump scored a significant victory before the highest US court on Monday: The Supreme Court ruled that a president enjoys virtually complete immunity from the law for his actions. The world press is astonished by a ruling that opens the floodgates to autocracy.

The US Supreme Court has granted Trump far-reaching immunity from prosecution, which reads like absolution in its vague reasoning.

With regard to their actions within their constitutional remit, this protection is absolute for former presidents, the Supreme Court judges ruled on Monday. However, a former head of state does not enjoy immunity for his actions in a private context. The judges left open what this means and where the boundaries lie.

This is the first time in the almost 250-year history of the USA that the Supreme Court has granted the President protection from lawsuits. The world press fears a relapse into dark times.

"Süddeutsche Zeitung":
Until now, the principle that no one is above the law has applied in the world's oldest democracy. With its ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court has at least partially overruled this. As long as the US president is acting on official business, he can now let off steam as he pleases in a law-free zone. No one will be able to drag him before a court for this.

Why is this important?

• The ruling is about Trump's role in the storming of the US Capitol.
• The consequences are serious. Above all, there is the fundamental question: is a US president immune from prosecution by virtue of his office?
• The answer: actually always. According to the US Supreme Court, absolute immunity applies to "official" acts.
• The problem is that the judges did not specify the exceptions or the terminology in their ruling.

Incidentally, he has announced that he wants to be a dictator for a day if he returns to the White House. As we all know, you can't believe everything he says, but who knows, maybe he'll like it so much that he'll want to extend the principle to the second and third days. In any case, Monday's court ruling does not put any new obstacles in his way.

"Der Spiegel":
The ruling is a low point in the history of the Supreme Court and American democracy as a whole. The ex-president has created his own "Seal Team Six" on the bench: six judges who stand by his side in decisive cases and help him to realize the radically conservative version of a night watchman state.

Two of the judges who voted in favor of Trump's immunity have lost any semblance of judicial neutrality. Clarence Thomas, who has been showered with expensive gifts by an arch-conservative billionaire for years, is married to an activist who was herself involved in a rally to attack the Capitol.

At the same time, an upside-down US flag flew in front of the house of his fellow judge Samuel Alito - a distinctive sign of the "Stop the Steal" movement, which has been propagating the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election for years. (...) This is why the election on November 5 will be a kind of endgame for democracy in the USA.

"La Repubblica:
If Americans don't want Donald Trump back in the White House, they will have to decide this at the ballot box on November 5. And they will have to consider this question very carefully.

(...) According to this logic (of the judge's ruling, note), once Donald is back in power, he could order the army to occupy Washington and the Justice Department to prosecute a political opponent. Any other action that would put an ordinary citizen in jail would not be stopped and prosecuted. This is a significant turning point that revives the argument, unsuccessfully made so far by Joe Biden, that the survival of American democracy is at stake in the presidential election.

"New York Times:
As of Monday, the principle that no one is above the law has been suspended. In the very week that the nation celebrates its founding, the court undermined the reason for the American Revolution by granting all presidents what one dissenting justice called a "law-free zone."

"The Guardian:
Richard Nixon's status as a criminal and a crook was once summed up by his ominous declaration, "If the president does it, it's not illegal." The court has now made this vulgar absurdity law.

White, young, right-wing extremist: Trump fans during a campaign appearance

(Bild: AFP/Jim WATSON, Krone KREATIV)

In an absurd way, as if to mock the American public and its historic quest for freedom, the court claims that this new state of affairs was ordered by the framers of the Constitution. In other words, the very people who broke with their country and waged a war to free themselves from this kind of uncontrollable executive power.