When I entered the world of professional journalism more than four decades ago, I quickly discovered that certain colleagues felt so strongly about the mere appearance of political bias that they abstained from voting. They likened it to umpires calling balls and strikes. What if the men and women behind the plate had skin in the game for one team over the other? Or just the appearance of such?
This was how seriously they took their jobs. They were willing to surrender their ability to vote, one of our most precious rights, for the sake of what they viewed as an even more important role in a democracy.
My own views are not quite so extreme, but they have been consistent. I vote, but I do not lend any direct support to a candidate, not a campaign contribution, not a yard sign, not even a petition signature. And my wife has followed suit. Keep in mind that for the last 20 years or so, I’ve been an opinion writer. My role is to assert my point of view, not to be neutral. Yet even so, I don’t believe I should be actively campaigning for a candidate, a party or a cause.
I mention all this because I am flabbergasted that any member of the U.S. Supreme Court — or their significant other — could have even the slightest doubt about the importance of neutrality. Yet that seems to be the case with Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Outside his home in Alexandria, Virginia, an upside-down American flag, a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” protest, was flown for an undetermined period of time. It was even photographed flying on Jan. 17, 2021, the image shared with The New York Times by a neighbor. The act was clearly meant to show solidarity with the Jan. 6 rioters, although Justice Alito told the Times that it was “briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
That’s not much of an explanation. First, it seeks to casually justify an act of pettiness, a behavior ill-suited for a justice on the highest court in the land. But second, it suggests that either his wife was unclear about his day job (unlikely) or just didn’t care. Oh, and the family seems perfectly fine with claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Who thinks for even a nanosecond this is appropriate?