Politics, Supreme Court

Why Donald Trump Must Nominate Ted Cruz To The Supreme Court

Trump's smartest move...

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Photo by Scott Olson/Getty

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty

Why the hell would Donald Trump offer one of the most powerful positions in American government to a man he mercilessly ridiculed in the primaries? Someone he called “Lyin’ Ted”? Trump literally accused Cruz’s dad of murdering a president! Like, that’s a thing that happened in 21st century America, and it ended up being a successful gambit. Well, it’s not as crazy an idea as you might think.

In the wake of Donald Trump becoming the fifth person elected president while getting fewer votes — just another reminder of the explicitly anti-democratic impulses of the Founders — attention rightly turns toward the Supreme Court and its current vacancy. Sure Trump released a SCOTUS shortlist cribbed from the Heritage Foundation with a handful of conservative jurists that he couldn’t pick out of a lineup, but Trump isn’t bound by any of these prior statements. What about his lifetime in the public spotlight suggests that he’ll let his past commitments bind his future?

But while we’re on the subject of lessons we can learn from Trump’s past — he’s a vindictive S.O.B. His loyal associate Omarosa has already revealed that Trump keeps an “enemies list” of GOP establishment figures who wronged him.

And after they take down the last ballroom streamers on January 21, Trump is going to settle all Corleone family business.

And here’s where that Supreme Court position becomes so important. Ted Cruz isn’t going anywhere now. He’ll be in the Senate forever, especially if the demographic shifts in Texas are disrupted by new Homeland Security Secretary Joe Arpaio’s thugs keeping everyone with more than a light tan cowering in their homes. And Cruz has zero incentive to be anything but a constant thorn in Trump’s side and a potential primary challenger in four years.

Unless, of course, you offer a legal nerd a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He literally couldn’t say no. It’s just about the only job worth trading a slim dream of the presidency for. His Senate colleagues would fall all over themselves to be rid of him, the right-wing kooks would adore his retrograde jurisprudence, and the Donald-in-Chief would have eliminated his primary internal threat.

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Plus, the Supreme Court doesn’t care if you’re really a Canadian.

It’s not even historically unprecedented. Salmon P. Chase notoriously used his position within the Lincoln administration to build political support to topple Lincoln for the 1864 GOP nomination. He held Lincoln hostage on more than a few occasions by threatening to resign from the cabinet and thus sever Radical Republican support for Lincoln’s agenda.

Lincoln secured the renomination, but still needed to stifle his pest of an internal critic without alienating the hard-core ideologues in the House who looked to Chase for their marching orders — does this sound familiar? — and when Chief Justice Taney “earned the gratitude of his country by dying at last,” Lincoln nominated Chase and the rest is history. No more political rival.

Oh my. Did we just compare Trump to Lincoln? Even in this narrowly tailored way that feels icky. Time to take a shower.

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Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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