Chief Justice Roberts and the Hollowing of the Supreme Court

Chief Justice John Roberts once famously declared that judges are like umpires: they don’t make the rules, they simply call balls and strikes. That image—modest, neutral, apolitical—was comforting at the time of his 2005 confirmation. Two decades later, it is laughable. That umpire now sits in a skybox with billionaires, nursing bourbon from a crystal tumbler while Clarence Thomas fills the dugout with unreported gifts and luxury vacations.

This is no longer a Court. It is a cartel in robes.

Roberts did not preside over the decline of the Court; he engineered it. He didn’t restrain the wrecking crew—he greenlit the demolition permit. His jurisprudence is a blueprint for minority rule, his leadership a soft-spoken betrayal of the republic. Under his stewardship, the Supreme Court has become the enforcement arm of an American oligarchy, cloaked in the language of precedent and patriotism, while gutting both.

This is not merely a story of a conservative Court. It is the chronicle of a hollow institution, rotting from the top.

Roberts has delivered a jurisprudence of protection for the powerful and punishment for the vulnerable. He has presided over a cascade of 5–4 and 6–3 decisions that consistently favor corporate capital, white grievance politics, Christian nationalism, and GOP entrenchment. This is not coincidence. It is design.

• Citizens United was not about free speech. It was about turning dollars into megaphones for the donor class. Roberts and his allies did not call balls and strikes—they rewrote the strike zone so only billionaires could pitch. The ruling didn't just deregulate campaign finance—it detonated it. In its wake, dark money flooded the political system. Super PACs became the mouthpieces of oligarchs. Shadowy nonprofits now shape legislation from behind closed doors. Local races are overwhelmed by national cash. And the average citizen? Silenced. Drowned out. Reduced to a spectator in a democracy for sale. The Roberts Court didn't just distort the First Amendment—it auctioned it off to the highest bidder. This decision enshrined a two-tier political system: one for donors with Gulfstreams, another for voters with bus fare.

• Shelby County was not about outdated formulas. It was a declaration of surrender in the war for racial justice. It was the Court kneecapping the Voting Rights Act and handing its bloodstained remains to state legislators eager to gerrymander, purge, and suppress. The immediate consequences were swift and brutal: voter ID laws surgically designed to disenfranchise, polling places shuttered in Black and Latino neighborhoods, and new maps drawn with scalpel-like precision to dilute the vote. Roberts didn't just throw away the umbrella in a rainstorm—he lit it on fire and called it sunshine.

• Dobbs was not judicial humility. It was a theocratic assault dressed up as constitutional originalism. Roberts tried to split the difference, and no one listened. His half-measure dissent was the whimper of a man who built the machine and lost control of the throttle. The ruling shattered a half-century precedent and stripped bodily autonomy from millions of women. It empowered red-state legislatures to criminalize healthcare, incentivize bounty hunters, and revive laws drafted in the 1800s. Women bled, clinics closed, and the Court’s credibility collapsed.

Each decision was a scalpel taken to the body politic. But no ruling more nakedly reveals the Roberts Court’s descent into authoritarian enablement than its decision to grant former President Donald Trump broad immunity for his so-called “official acts.”

In this breathtaking ruling, the Court declared that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed under the banner of presidential duty—no matter how corrupt, violent, or democracy-destroying those acts might be. The ruling shattered the founding principle that no one is above the law. It turned the presidency into a throne and the occupant into a king. It sent a chilling message to all future presidents: if you cloak your criminality in the language of governance, you are untouchable.

The Roberts Court did not just give Trump a lifeline—it gave aspiring autocrats a roadmap. This decision was not about law. It was about impunity. It invites lawlessness from the Oval Office, it immunizes coups in plain sight, and it dares the republic to do something about it.

And yet, Roberts will likely pretend, as always, that this was a narrow ruling. That he merely followed the Constitution. That he didn’t just place the match in the hands of tyranny and whisper, “Go ahead.” Each precedent overturned, a bone broken and reset to fit a new anatomy of power. Roberts' pleas for restraint are like a mob boss begging for civility while his crew lights the fuse.

And while the rulings gutted rights, the rot spread behind the scenes. Ethics? There are none. Integrity? A punchline.

Clarence Thomas sold access for vacations. Alito took billionaire fishing trips. Gorsuch failed to disclose property deals. Roberts refused to testify, refused to impose a code of conduct, and offered the American people nothing but a smug shrug and a "trust us."

Trust them?

This Court wouldn't pass a background check at a Fortune 500. These justices could not ethically serve as dogcatchers in a functioning democracy—yet they interpret its highest law. They do so without transparency, without humility, and without consequence. In any other field, they would be indicted. In this one, they get tenure.

Even Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 78, described the judiciary as the "least dangerous" branch. But Hamilton could not have imagined this—a black-robed star chamber issuing edicts from a perch of lifelong impunity while wielding the Constitution like a cudgel.

This is not law. This is dominion.

And still, Roberts has the gall to speak of legitimacy. He lectures students about the rule of law while presiding over a Court that spits on it. He warns of the danger of politicizing the judiciary while protecting justices who vacation on the yachts of political megadonors. He insists there are no "Obama judges or Trump judges," as his own Court delivers decisions that read like RNC press releases.

This is not judicial modesty. It is judicial gaslighting.

The shadow docket—where this Court quietly delivers major rulings without hearings or explanations—is Roberts' innovation. It is the midnight knife that guts democracy in silence. It is not justice. It is authoritarian expedience.

The American people are not fooled. Polls show historic lows in trust. And why should they believe? The Court has told them, again and again: your vote, your rights, your body, your voice—all are subject to the whims of six unelected ideologues insulated by robes, lifetime tenure, and lavish perks.

So let us speak plainly.

This Court is broken. Its legitimacy is gone. Its rulings are suspect. Its ethics are nonexistent. And its Chief Justice—for all his charm and Harvard polish—is not the last line of defense, but the smiling face of collapse.

There is a path forward, but it will require courage:

• Term limits to end lifetime power.

• A binding ethics code to drag these justices into the same sunlight as every lower court.

• Court expansion to rebalance what was stolen through bad-faith confirmations and institutional sabotage.

None of these are radical. What is radical is allowing a captured Court to dictate the boundaries of freedom in a nation that still calls itself a democracy.

Roberts promised restraint. He delivered revolution. The quiet kind, in footnotes and late-night orders. But revolution nonetheless. If his legacy is to be anything other than ruin, the people must act.

Because justice is not found in precedent alone. It is found in trust. And John Roberts has burned it to the ground.