In the fall of 2018, I had a conversation I won’t ever forget. It revealed to me that most conservatives are not prepared for the tactics of the left. They are not prepared for how low liberals will go to try and recapture the Supreme Court.

At the time Brett Kavanaugh, an old friend of mine, had just been sworn in to the Supreme Court, and I had lunch with someone who had known both of us when we were younger. “Well,” she said. “You must be glad that’s over.” I said yes, of course, but with one major caveat: “You do realize that the left will never give up on this,” I told her. “You understand that what they did to me and Brett they will continue to try and do, even to sitting justices on the Court.”

My friend laughed out loud. As I write about in my book The Devil’s Triangle, and as most people remember, a sinister cabal of opposition researchers, the media, and socialist politicians worked together to try and destroy me and Brett Kavanugh. They went through our high school yearbook and broadcast oppo research from criminals and degenerates. The Democrats tried to subpoena me over and over again.

Hunting Down Justices

My friend was laughing at what she considered an absurd idea — that the left would do to the SCOTUS justices what they had tried with us. I mean, United States senators were asking us about our high school slang for passing gas and examining our underground newspaper. The idea that they would do the same to, say, Justice Roberts or Justice Thomas was laughable.

I wasn’t laughing. Since 2018, I have tried to warn people that the left would point the same artillery against the justices themselves. But most told me to “stop picking the scab,” and move on. Comments on some of my articles sarcastically mocked me for constantly referring to 2018. I felt like a football player who had been given the opposing team’s playbook and could not get my teammates to listen to me. They aren’t done, I said. I was told to give it a rest.

I … Told You So

It’s 2023 now, and leftists are indeed using the exact same tactics they used against Kavanaugh and me to assail the Supreme Court itself. I’ve hammered home again and again how they were going to deploy it. Many of the same conservatives who kept telling me to move on are now expressing shock about what’s happening. Welcome to the party, guys.

As was the case with us, the left’s plan has just four steps for crushing constitutionalist justices and hijacking the Court:

• Do opposition research. Dig up some apparent dirt on the justices, even if it is not convincing or relevant.
• Feed it to the media, who will shout it through a bullhorn.
• Call for subpoenas — even of the Chief Justice himself, if he won’t play ball. Haul them up and humiliate them in the (Democrat-run) Senate.
• Impeach the conservative justice, or pack the court with new, compliant members.

Yes, they are really trying this. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just gave a speech demanding that Congress subpoena Justice John Roberts.

Covering Justices With Aggression

The left’s playbook was revealed at a live symposium recently held in Washington, D.C. Dhalia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern of Slate, Elie Mystal of the Nation, and Jay Willis of the leftist Balls and Strikes website, all said that their coverage of the Supreme Court over the years had been terrible and needs to change. Calling it “a wake-up call” and the result of “the sinking feeling that we’ve been doing it all wrong,” the speakers argued that they have been too deferential to the Supreme Court and its traditions.

Instead of passively “translating” for readers the text of SCOTUS rulings, reporters now need to cover the court with the aggression that is usually used when reporters cover Rep. Lauren Boebert or Donald Trump. Or when they try and destroy ordinary Americans who don’t toe the line on the gay and trans agenda.

Journos need to trace cases long before they make it to the High Court. They also need to do a lot of horrible stories about people who are “victims” of the court’s decisions — particularly women “harmed” by the overturning of Roe v Wade. Also, when it comes to Christians, the new journalistic model calls not for empathy and insightful coverage, but all-out hate.

The Avenatti playbook, still in use. Is he smiling over in prison? (Avenatti appeared on MSNBC with Lithwick during the Kavanaugh hearings as a guest.)

At the symposium, Dahlia Lithwick concluded: “We cover the institution like it’s made of magic and ponies. We need to adjust to so we can do our job or speaking truth to power, and the justices can do their job of learning how to listen.” Not to the American founders or even its people, but to its elites … like Lithwick.

Personally Hunting and Harassing

The journalists also made it clear that coverage now means personally harassing and threatening the justices, just as I was hunted and harassed. That Nation’s Elie Mystal was blunt about it. “Samuel Alito took away abortion and most reporters wouldn’t know him if he was standing behind them in the Publix [store]. What is that? The simple lack of coverage of what these people do. The fact that reporters were not lined up three back at their houses between the Dobbs leak and the ruling is a travesty.” Mystal also called for reporters to go to the house of Clarence Thomas.

Earlier this year, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) “invited” Chief Justice Roberts to testify before congress. The chief justice declined. He did so with eloquence, sending a letter explaining the separation of powers. My response to the Democrat demons in 2018 was also a hard no, although I lack the justice’s polish.

I told those Stasi apparatchiks to go pound sand.

Mark Judge is a writer and filmmaker in Washington, D.C. His new book is The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi.