WASHINGTON — Protesters clashed outside of the Supreme Court Thursday following oral arguments over whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from prosecution.
Atop a portable grand piano, traveling classical pianist Matthew Atwood wore a traditional colonial-era outfit, complete with tricorne hat, in front of a graphic sign of international leaders he listed as “real authoritarians.”
“If you look at the word ‘demos’, ‘demos’ in the original sense means ‘mob,’” Atwood said. “The Ancient Greeks said, and this is a fact, that democracy was to be avoided at all costs because it always leads to mob rule.”
His assertions about the illegitimacy of democracy and dissent against abortion were intercepted by a woman with a stickered blow-horn, shouting opposing messages over his answers to questions asked by a crowd of onlookers.
“Biden needs to make a list and Trump should be first,” the woman, who declined to identify herself, chanted following a question about the possibility of the high court rejecting the appellate court’s ruling against criminal immunity for the former president.
An unidentified student engaged in the dispute with the woman, saying that inflation had increased during Biden’s presidency, but both Trump and Biden “have their goods and their bads.”
The woman replied, “As a female, you have don’t have any autonomy over your body, you’re a second-class citizen because of Trump. Thank Trump for that.”
Richard Zipper, a retired software engineer from Crofton, Maryland, who regularly protests outside of the Supreme Court, later joined an argument with Atwood.
Zipper said that accountability for politicians is critical because of declining public trust in the government due to corruption, citing Judge Clarence Thomas’s vacations with wealthy republican donor, Harlan Crow, as reported by ProPublica.
“I’m out here because I think the Supreme Court is not acting on behalf of the Constitution or the people of the United States,” Zipper said. “We have no checks and balances except on the voters.”