Justice Samuel Alito has a new book out. The book itself is literally nothing new, either in its authorship (four of his fellow justices are published authors and another two have book deals) or in substance (a collection of speeches he’s given). But in speaking with The Associated Press ahead of its launch, the second-oldest member of the Supreme Court made clear that he does not see himself as a member of President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
“It’s offensive,” Alito said, referring to suggestions that he’s MAGA’s man on the Supreme Court. “I honestly try to decide every single case on the merits, every single application on the merit. And that’s true whether the president is Donald Trump or Joe Biden or Barack Obama or anybody else.”
A Venn diagram between Alito’s decisions, MAGA’s interests and Trump’s methods may not be a perfect circle, but the overwhelming overlap cannot be denied.
It’s true that Alito is remarkably consistent in his decisions regardless of who sits in the White House. While he may not be an avowed adherent to Trump’s cult of personality, he is its strongest defender on the Supreme Court and has helped justify many of the president’s worst impulses. A Venn diagram between Alito’s decisions, MAGA’s interests and Trump’s methods may not be a perfect circle, but the overwhelming overlap cannot be denied.
At his core, Alito is a conservative, one who uses the cover of originalism to reach conclusions that just happen to almost always benefit Republican policies. Much like Trump, Alito has been more than happy to toss aside longstanding norms in this pursuit, rendering the court’s precedents optional.
Overturning Roe v. Wade may not have been at the top of the MAGA agenda, but it was deeply important to the conservative movement writ large. And in true Trumpian fashion, Alito’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization depended on a highly cherry-picked set of facts, leaning heavily on a version of American “history and tradition” that some historians found suspect at best.
Meanwhile, a running theme in Trump’s second term has been his adherence to the “unitary executive” theory, which abhors any firewalls between the president and Justice Department — or any other executive agencies’ actions. Many of Alito’s decisions reflect a preference for unchecked executive power — at least, that is, under a Republican president. Democratic presidents’ authority on matters like student loans or healthcare bring him back to his limited government roots.
The AP interview isn’t the first time he’s tried to place some daylight between himself and Trump. While not as tetchy as Chief Justice John Roberts has been when it comes to attacks on the court’s independence, Alito has at least gone through the motions. “I vote in every case the way I think the case should be decided,” Alito told The Wall Street Journal in August. “If that means a high correlation with what Trump wants, fine. If it means zero correlation with what Trump wants, fine as well.”
Alito, also in a roundabout way, defended his fellow justices who’ve been the subject of Trump’s ire. “I personally am not pleased with that,” he said. “Everybody in this country has the right to criticize what we do. The substance of their criticism can be quite harsh. If we deserve it, then that’s fine. But rhetoric is a different story.”
Trump, on the other hand, is a huge fan of Alito, who he called “one of the Greatest of All Time” this summer. When you look at Alito’s record on major cases during the court’s last term, it’s not hard to see why he and Clarence Thomas are the president’s favorite justices. In what should have been a 9-0 decision, Alito joined Thomas in dissenting to the majority’s defense of birthright citizenship. He and Thomas also joined Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent in the case overturning Trump’s tariff regime.
In fact, Trump looks more favorably at Alito and his record than the justices he himself appointed in his first term. Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett have all displeased the president at one point or another by ruling against him. “I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often,” Trump recently told Time magazine.
The most important overlap, though, is in Alito’s disdain for elections. He has authored many of the decisions limiting the Voting Rights Act’s scope. As last year’s Louisiana v. Callais showed, he has no problem with allowing as many racial gerrymanders as can be justified as purely partisan.
Alito is an enabler, booster and facilitator of this movement in ways that he may not be able to embrace from the bench, but which come through loud and clear in every opinion he writes.
Crucially, Alito would have gone against most of his colleagues and had the court hear a long-shot complaint from Texas seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results in states where Trump lost. He caveated that by noting he would have granted Texas’ motion to file a complaint, but not issue any kind of stay or hold, concluding, “I express no view on any other issue.”
That may have been true in writing, but not in practice. The New York Times reported in 2024 that an upside-down U.S. flag was seen flying outside Alito’s home in the days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The distress symbol had been adopted by many who believed Trump’s claims about mass voter fraud stealing the election from him. Alito deflected responsibility for this action, saying his wife was trying to antagonize an anti-Trump neighbor, but he refused to offer even a nonapology apology.
Alito may not get his marching orders from Trump, but his umbrage at being lumped in with MAGA can’t be taken seriously. He is an enabler, booster and facilitator of this movement in ways that he may not be able to embrace from the bench, but which come through loud and clear in every opinion he writes. If Alito were in the majority 100% of the time, the world his opinions would shape would be almost indistinguishable from the Trump administration’s vision.
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