I was right and one commentator agrees with my basic point about the Court using the Trump loss to hide this week’s train wreck.
Anyway, from the Mullin v. Doe majority, holding that the President’s statements about immigrants from Haiti and other non-white countries are not racist but a product of “heated language:”
Political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couched in terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago, and the statements cited by Miot respondents—especially those concerning Haiti and Haitian immigrants to this country—exemplify this development.
But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.
So we insist on civil discourse as a fundamental value. And those on the left who fail to engage in civil discourse (pro-Palestine protesters or those who say bad things about Charlie Kirk posthumously or those who object to a university allowing ICE agents on campus) must be sanctioned. But because our public discourse no longer is civil, the President can say whatever “heated” things he wishes to say in however “heated” a manner and we will ignore any racist meaning (and the legal implications that follow from it) as a product of today’s uncivil speech environment.
On a different: Kudos to Justice Kagan in dissent for quoting the President’s actual words (“shithole countries;” “eating the dogs”) to show their racist meaning, rather than characterizing and sanewashing (“strong objections;” “express great displeasure”) or offering euphemisms. Moreover, compare Alito’s use of Trump’s words with his extensive quoting from the books at issue in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the words did not affect the legal issues in the case.