Justice Kennedy’s family and the Trumps are the new-normal bedfellows.
They belong, as David Little writes in the Washington Post, to:
“an elite increasingly cloistered not just from the poor but also from America as a whole. America’s super-rich and super-powerful are losing touch with the middle class and the professional class, with black and brown communities, with immigrants seeking refuge, and with citizens using public services. Their bubbled reality is not merely reflected in Kennedy’s decision to retire but also in his decisions on the court. A common theme of this term’s major 5-to-4 rulings is the belief that those in power — whether it’s a president seeking to ban Muslims in Trump v. Hawaii, a corporation looking to dilute the political power of its workers in AFSCME v. Janus, or a fake health clinic hoping to deceive vulnerable women in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra — should be free to wield their power however they choose.”