Alito’s flag shows the US supreme court is neither honorable nor functional any more

These people can’t help themselves. Last week, the New York Times revealed that during the days after the violent attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, when the US supreme court was still considering whether to take up cases challenging Joe Biden’s election victory, the home of the supreme court justice Samuel Alito, in suburban Virginia, flew a pro-coup flag. The Times printed photos of the American flag flying upside-down on a pole in Alito’s front yard; by January 2021, the upside-down flag had become a well-known symbol of the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement, champions of Donald Trump who supported his legal and violent attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.

At the time, pro-Trump social media groups were encouraging supporters to fly their flags this way; upside-down flags had been carried by some of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, just a few days before the symbol appeared outside Alito’s house. In the election case that was then before the court, Alito voted to hear Republican challenges to the election results. But he didn’t get enough of his colleagues to vote his way. Not that time.

The flying of the pro-Trump, pro-coup flag is in clear violation of the ethics rules that apply to federal judges. After several high-profile controversies at the court – including investigations into gifts given to Alito and his fellow conservative justice Clarence Thomas by deep-pocketed Republican donors – a controversy arose over why, precisely, those ethics rules have never extended to the supreme court justices.

Under enormous political pressure, the court agreed to assign itself a version of those ethics rules last year, aiming, it said, to dispel any public concerns and recommit the court to maintaining