Clarence Thomas Finally Speaks, And It's About 'Lord of the Rings'
The Supreme Court, being the most supreme of the courts in America, is still hearing cases that are of national importance. They just can't meet in person because most of them are super old and, therefore, at high risk for the novel coronavirus. So for the first time in history, they're having oral arguments and such via teleconference.
This is actually kind of a huge deal. They've resisted cameras and media in the courtroom for the sake of decorum for forever. Furthermore, we're now living in a world A) with less live entertainment and B) hyper-focused on the political ramifications of, well, everything, so these hearings should definitely be on everyone's listening lists.
We would, however, like to draw your attention to this particular audio snippet.
This is particularly weird because if the Supreme Court were a boy band, Thomas would be "the quiet one" that only a very niche group of fans would have creepy posters of. Thomas finally opens his mouth during a Supreme Court oral argument, and it's to use Frodo Baggins as a way to illustrate the potential for faithless electors to deviate from their promises to support the winner of the popular vote. That's just such an off-the-wall thing to say out loud, it's like the ghost of Christopher Lee possessed him for a full sixty seconds. Though to be fair, it's also quite possible that Clarence Thomas has secretly been an Ent this entire time.
The responding lawyer started immediately kind of stumbling and had to clarify for a Supreme Court Justice that Frodo Baggins could not, in fact, receive a vote from a faithless elector because he is not a person ("hobbit" must have been implied). You can almost tell how startled everyone else in the conference was, because the Frodo line came up multiple times, including in closing arguments.
It'll be interesting to see how Thomas' vote plays out, because this case over faithless electors could, in theory, make President Trump start having thoughts about "loyalties" and get all paranoid about an elector who might not vote for him. And Thomas' wife, Ginni, has been all about ensuring anyone who isn't loyal to Trump gets gone or just not hired in the first place. The last thing we need is a President who already acts like Gollum to start chucking "disloyal" people into whatever his version of Mount Doom is.
