By:
Dave Kingsley
Leonard Leo and the Marble Freedom Trust
As head of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo has had a major role in picking Catholic right-wing Supreme Court justices such as Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Leo is himself a fanatic, right-wing, Catholic who has no respect for the separation of church and state. This brand of Catholicism works well with the Christian Nationalist Movement[1] that cuts across most fanatical, fundamentalist, Protestant sects.
Although the Federalist Society is an organization for the promotion of legal conservatism and includes a variety of far-right believers in a sort of faux libertarianism and assorted other rightwing philosophies, Leo has locked in the Notre Dame law school theocrats as a powerhouse in the grooming and promotion of suitable candidates for future government legal positions and jurists.
Barre Seid, a Chicago industrialist, and ardent libertarian, has donated his entire company – Tripp Lite – to the Marble Freedom Trust, a 501(c)(4) political entity controlled by Leonard Leo. The Marble Freedom Trust sold the company to the Eaton Corporation for $1.6 billion. This intersection of radical, libertarian, industrialists and the assortment of theocratic movements does not bode well for those of us who are working to deindustrialize healthcare, and other government functions. The religious right shares many values of super-rich, self-proclaimed libertarians such as the Koch brothers. They believe that wealthy industrialists are godly insofar as they either share or are willing to tolerate the Christian Nationalist value system.
History has taught us that major religious institutions and industrialists are willing to accommodate regimes and politicians that serve their interests no matter how corrupt, anti-democratic, and debasing to the public interest. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United has already placed corporate political activities in a protective bubble. We can look for corporations threatened with movements for reform to look to the current lopsided court and politicians on the make to protect their interests.
Therefore, Marble Freedom Trust money will be directed toward politicians and court actions that place property over people, profit over health, capital over labor, and the super-rich over the broad mass of citizens. This will make changing a life-shorting, inhumane nursing home system far more difficult. Gouging the public for life-saving medications and denial of medical care to the uninsured will be difficult to end. Let’s face it, we cannot ignore politics in our quest for social justice.
[1] Christian Nationalism has been studied and reported on by journalist Katherine Stewart. In her book, The Power Worshippers, she discusses this movement’s belief that the U.S. is a Christian Nation, and that the U.S. should be ruled in accordance with what they consider “Christian values.” The values they endorse include are anti-gay, anti-democratic, pro-super wealthy, and freedom from government, except when they want to leverage government for imposing their radical beliefs on the rest of society.