President Donald Trump is simmering after the Supreme Court rejected his claim that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution does not confer citizenship upon anyone born in the United States — and now the conservative movement is splitting in two over the matter.
“When you hate immigrants so much that you want government run sterilization,” 2024 Libertarian Party presidential nominee Chase Oliver posted on X on Tuesday. “These kind of weirdos want to completely undo the country because a long standing precedent and interpretation of the 14th Amendment was once again confirmed by the highest Court in the nation.”
He concluded, “They don’t want a Republic, they want fascism.”
Oliver was replying to a post by Sean Davis, the CEO and co-founder of the right-wing media outlet The Federalist, which advocated illegal defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision. First, Davis called out the two Republican judges (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett) who joined the three Democratic judges in ruling against Trump’s position. Then he advocated a series of measures to defy the will of America’s most powerful bench.
“Nullification,” Davis wrote. “States issue birth certificates, and they can just stop issuing them to non-citizens. Roberts/Barrett can deal with the fallout and litigate each birth individually.”
He also suggested, “Pack the court. If Robert wants to be a politician who writes laws instead of a judge, then he can fight with 10 more unelected legislators in robes.”
Additionally, Davis recommended that Trump “deny entry to all pregnant foreigners,” “deny entry to all female foreigners,” “require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry,”and “dissolution of the Union. A nation which can’t even restrict who gets to be a citizen isn’t a nation.”
Davis also sarcastically said that Republicans could “amend the Constitution. This is pointless, because once a judge decides he can rewrite the Constitution at will (as Roberts and Barrett did today), the actual text is meaningless. But this is what most GOP politicians gravitate towards because they are useless.”
He concluded, “If you think all these options are not great, understand that that is what happens when unelected judges decide that they are in charge of the country and get to write its laws.”
In contrast to Davis, liberal commentator and former Secretary of Labor for President Bill Clinton Robert Reich expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the 14th Amendment was only a 5-to-4 ruling.
“In another era, this would have been a no-brainer,” Reich wrote. “No constitutional lawyer I know thought the Court would decide otherwise. The lower federal courts had consistently and unanimously ruled against Trump.”
He added, “Had Trump won, it would have probably caused panic among recent immigrants and their families. Although Trump has insisted his policy would apply only to future births, it was far from clear that the logic of any win for Trump wouldn’t apply retrospectively if a future president (JD Vance? perish the thought) wanted to go there. What I find troubling is that the decision was 5 to 4 rather than unanimous or nearly so, as it should have been.”
Trump has openly considered defying the Supreme Court’s decision, as well as the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, perhaps in part because — as Georgetown University School of Law Professor Steve Vladeck recently pointed out — his loss with this decision deals a body blow to his agenda on immigration policy.