Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The GOP capitulation to authoritarianism puts the country at risk

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

Greg Sargent/The New Republic:

Awful New Info About Trump and “Reich” Video Shows Deep MAGA Sickness

Yes, the campaign took down the “Unified Reich” video. Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are aggressively seeding the discourse with fascistic language that’s much, much worse.

The Trump campaign’s initial story about this video may or may not prove true. But as we debate those specifics, let’s not lose sight of a larger point. Trump and his highest-profile allies have plainly embarked on a broader related project—one that seeks to acclimatize the American electorate to fascistic language and far-reaching authoritarian policy “solutions.” They are slowly edging the discourse deeper into that fraught territory, as if painstakingly testing how far they can take this without provoking too much public discomfort over it.

This is the New York Times story that broke the news about the second flag from Justice Samuel Alito:

Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home

The justice’s beach house displayed an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol carried on Jan. 6 and associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government

Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google Street View image from late August also shows the flag.

The photographs, each taken independently, are from four different dates. It is not clear whether the flag was displayed continuously during those months or how long it was flown overall...

The disclosure about the new flag is troubling, several ethics experts said in interviews, because it ties Justice Alito more closely to symbols associated with the attempted election subversion on Jan. 6, and because it was displayed as the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the court.

Chris Geidner/Law Dork:

Sam Alito is a problem

Chief Justice John Roberts must take responsibility for his court. If he does not, what follows will be his legacy — and we’ll have to deal with the fallout.

It’s been clear for some time that Justice Sam Alito was the Fox News (or an even further right-wing channel) justice on the U.S. Supreme Court bench.

The past two weeks have helped to cement that into the public consciousness for those who don’t hear him at oral arguments or read his opinions — particularly his concurrences and dissents.

He doesn’t have a legal philosophy beyond counting to five, and he doesn’t write opinions for the ages. He writes for now and, almost always, for Republicans.

He actually is, to turn the phrase on its head, a politician in robes.

His household also apparently is, for lack of a better phrase, really into flags.

Tim Dickinson/Rolling Stone:

A Christian Nationalist Battle Flag Flew at Justice Alito’s Vacation Home

A New York Times investigation finds the "Appeal to Heaven" banner — a Revolutionary War flag appropriated by religious insurgents on Jan. 6 — flew at the Supreme Court justice's beach house last year

That flag was originally flown during the American Revolution. It carries a quote from the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, who argued that when a just people are faced with injustice in the political realm, and have exhausted all avenues for redress, that they can move to violence — and God will judge the righteousness of their action. “Where there lies no appeal on Earth,” the philosopher wrote, “they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven.”

This flag was laregly a relic of history until it was revived by a far-right religious leader named Dutch Sheets, who has transformed the flag into a banner for Christian nationalists. The pine tree on the flag was originally a symbol of protest for British exploitation of the colonies; the monarchy exported the tallest and truest pine trees from New England for the masts on British navy ships. But in Sheets’ appropriation, the tree now is said to symbolize God’s covenant with Abraham — and with America as a supposedly divinely chartered nation.

That’s the same flag Speaker Mike Johnson flies outside his office.

Harry Litman/Los Angeles Times:

Trump’s hush money trial will go to the jury soon. What’s the most likely verdict?

The prosecution’s essential achievement was to provide a compelling, credible narrative that points toward only one plausible conclusion: that Trump is guilty as charged.

The defense, by contrast, took a scattershot approach focused on undermining the credibility of any and all of the prosecution’s witnesses, particularly Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer. But what Trump’s lawyers didn’t do is provide a counternarrative, a story compelling enough to leave jurors with a reasonable doubt as to which explanation of the facts is true.

Providing such a competing story isn’t the defense’s legal obligation, of course. The judge will instruct the jurors that if they have any reasonable doubt about the prosecution’s case, they should vote to acquit.

But my experience as a trial lawyer suggests a difference between freestanding doubt about one or more witnesses and a broader doubt about the rationale behind the charges — an alternative plotline that jurors might find believable. That’s the kind of defense being presented on behalf of Sen. Robert Menendez, for example, who is arguing that his wife is the guilty party.

Radley Balko/”The Watch” on Substack:

Trump's deportation army

The former president's vow to deport 15 million people is the cruelest, most illiberal, most openly authoritarian campaign promise in modern U.S. history. Oh, and it would also destroy the economy.

The Atlantic, New York Times and Washington Post have all looked at what Trump and the MAGA coalition have planned for immigration policy should he be elected again. Those stories all got some attention at the time, but not nearly enough to reflect the insanity of what he’s proposing. Perhaps it’s the sort of bluster Trump often spurts out in the moment, but never bothers to implement.

We ought to take it more seriously. Trump has made 15 million deportations a central part of his 2024 campaign. And he’s stepped up the dehumanizing of immigrants he’ll need to get a significant portion of the country on board.

Even if Trump gets distracted, it’s likely he’ll put Stephen Miller in charge of the plan. Miller is the only non-relative senior staffer who served the entirety of the first Trump term. And Miller won’t be distracted. Ridding the country of non-white immigrants has been a core part of his identity for his entire life.