MAGA turns against Amy Coney Barrett: “Trump made a mistake”

Supporters of former President Donald Trump are turning on Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett after she sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states.

In a 6-3 decision in Murthy v. MissouriBarrett wrote for the court that states lacked standing to sue over the way social media companies moderate content on their platforms. Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion and was joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

This led Trump supporters to take to social media to suggest that the former president had made a mistake by appointing Barrett to the nation’s highest court in 2020.

She was the third justice appointed by Trump, after Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and the move had been celebrated by conservatives for cementing the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority.

The decision “is a wake-up call for all Americans,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump ally, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Even with ‘conservative’ judges like Amy Coney Barrett, we can’t expect any help from the courts. If we want to return to a free Internet, we must be even stronger in Congress and make sure Biden is not in the White party. House in 2025.”

Anonymous @catturd2 on X, who has 2.5 million followers, posted: “Amy Commie Barrett strikes again.”

The account had celebrated Barrett’s appointment with a post that read: “Can’t wait to see Amy Coney Barrett sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas tonight.”

Other MAGA accounts also shared posts criticizing Barrett, with some claiming she is “engaged.”

“Trump made a mistake and missed it when he put her on the Supreme Court! Damn,” wrote an X user with the name “MAGA Nation.”

Another Trump supporter wrote that the former president had “trusted the wrong people.”

They added: “This is what worries me about him: he just doesn’t know how to fool people and hires the wrong people to help him. He thinks everyone is as honest and loyal as he is.”

Jeffrey Clark, a Trump ally and former Justice Department official, said the decision shows the court is not following Trump’s orders.

“We should be able to put aside forever the nonsensical position that the Supreme Court follows Trump’s orders,” he wrote in X. Not so. “But let’s watch as (the mainstream media) continues its relentless attacks on the Supreme Court and its independence.”

news week I reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment via email.

In Murthy vs. Missouri, the plaintiffs argued that federal officials relied on social media platforms to prevent conservative views from being seen. The Biden administration argued that it should be free to communicate with social media companies about hate speech, as well as issues of public health, election integrity and other areas where the promotion of misinformation must be combated.

The court’s opinion did not address the substance of the claims or the Biden administration’s response.

“We begin and end with the position,” Barrett wrote. “At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. Therefore, we lack jurisdiction to get to the bottom of the dispute.”

In his dissent, Alito wrote that the states had demonstrated their right to sue.

“For months, high-ranking government officials exerted relentless pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the court unjustifiably refuses to address this grave threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent,” he wrote.