Donald Trump's judge-bashing crosses a line
Scott Lemieux
Thursday 2 June 2016 14.04 EDT
When US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel unsealed a hoard of highly unflattering documents this week about Trump University, Donald Trump responded the way one would expect: with bullying and race-baiting.
“They ought to look into Judge Curiel,” Trump declared, “because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace.” Trump also asserted that the Indiana-born Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great”. Trump also called for Curiel to recuse himself … on the grounds that he made decisions Trump disagreed with ...
His threatening comments are the latest example of the authoritarian tendencies that have been central to his rise. They’re also an example of what the libertarian-leaning law professor Orin Kerr has called “the politics of delegitimization”. Because Curiel disagrees with Trump, he is therefore inherently corrupt and unfit for office. Democracy is premised, in part, on the promise that the losing factions of an election remain members of the political community. Having a president who believes that legitimate opposition is a logical impossibility is highly dangerous.
And Trump’s attacks on Curiel show that Trump’s particular “politics of delegitimization” have a strongly white supremacist component ...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/02/donald-trump-bully-race-bait-judge-gonzalo-curiel-trump-university
