Jamelle Bouie: Clarence Thomas Is Projecting

Apr 20, 2026

Clarence Thomas gave a speech at the University of Texas Law School blaming progressives for undermining the Declaration of Independence — arguing that the left believes rights come from government rather than God, and that this amounts to a wholesale rejection of America's founding principles.

It's a familiar argument, essentially a Glenn Beck-era canard about Woodrow Wilson dressed up in judicial language, and it doesn't hold up to any serious scrutiny.

What is especially funny is that the views Thomas is attributing to the left — that rights are granted and revocable by those in power, that equality is negotiable, that the state can act on people arbitrarily — describe his own allies far more accurately than they describe anyone on left of center in American politics.