Alito was given the job of writing the majority opinion in two key First Amendment cases

In two key First Amendment cases, Justice Alito was given the majority opinion to write.

In both of them, his insistence on obliterating the old boundaries of the First Amendment caused other Justices to switch sides and Alito to act like a spoiled brat.

Alito pushed his views too far and caused both Barrett and Jackson to bail out.

Alito lost the majority on a case involving a mayor who was retaliated against by the mayor for her efforts to shake up the local government.

Alito also wrote a concurrence for a minority on another “Fifth Circuit misunderstands the First Amendment ” case.

He expressed sympathy for state efforts to restrict what he called “the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day’s day ”.

But, in both cases, he was unable to write a reasonable opinion, causing his colleagues on the bench to jump ship to more reasonable rulings. And, in response, he decided to just sulk like a teenager who didn’t get his way. In the end, that left us with a much better, more First Amendment supportive majority decision (in both cases). But it’s truly incredible how close we came to bad decisions in each, and how both of those flipped due to Alito ’s insistence on pushing his terrible, unsupported ideas about free speech..