"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you."Disney's Pinocchio
The Supreme Court made the GOP dreams come true. Now, the song lyrics that might sit atop this blog are John Lennon's:
"Hey, you've got to hide your love away."
The GOP has an embarrassment of riches and the Supreme Court is having a legitimacy crisis. The Court just made bold reversals of policy, and did it on sharply ideological grounds that matched the party of the president that appointed each Justice. Facts didn't change. The Justices did. It looks partisan. It looks like a "Republican Supreme Court." It isn't what Chief Justice Roberts wants, but it is what America has, and there is no hiding it.
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This sets up exactly the kind of situation that is familiar in the counter-trend of a mid-term election, where the public restrains the excesses of a powerful new president. The Supreme Court and Republicans just demonstrated that they, not the president, are the powerful actor that needs to be restrained. The president seems weak and harmless--indeed that is the complaint about him, the doddering old fool. The out-of-control disrupter and tyrant is the "Republican Supreme Court." This changes the direction of the traditional mid-term oscillation push-back by voters.
Jeffrey Laurenti noticed that the GOP's big win has them worried. Laurenti is a college classmate, a political scientist, and a former senior analyst with a boutique foreign policy think tank. He lives in New Jersey, where he has been active in Democratic politics. He served as an elector in the 2012 election and cast his vote for Barack Obama.
Guest Post by Jeffrey Laurenti
Trump's Supremes closed out their year with a climatic bang yesterday. It occurs to me, as it probably did to many other observers of politics, that this has been an extraordinary week. The Court has given big wins -- all strongly against the current of U.S. public opinion. They gave it to all three constituencies that are the mobilizing heart of the GOP Right: Pro-gun, anti-abortion, and (the constituency that pays for the others) big business, particularly fossil fuel industries.
Laurenti: Obama elector
I don't think I've ever seen a Supreme Court end of term where the most prized objectives of all the core constituencies of one political party have been so completely realized in the space of one week. This week's NPR poll suggests that the media attention to these stunningly unpopular decisions has altered voter perceptions, at least for this moment, of what this year's midterms are about. This puts Democrats suddenly ahead of Republicans by a statistically significant margin in the generic ballot-intentions question.
There's a reason GOP spokespeople have reacted to all of these decisions, along with the Trump follies being exposed by the January 6 Committee, by pointing away and crying "Inflation! Gas prices!" Those are worldwide phenomena that no party can control. They rather that than allow the campaign debate to focus on the things that they CAN decide and affect, such as guns, abortion, and climate. Those are issues on which the two parties point in clearly different directions, and the GOP has the losing hand.
Can such bracing clarity of choice last till November?
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6 comments:
The best is yet to come. At the close of its session, SCOTUS announced that when it resumed, it would take up the case of Moore v. Harper. That could upend election laws across the country with the potential endorsement of a fringe legal theory about how much power state legislatures have over the running of congressional and presidential elections.
Gee, I wonder how they’ll rule. By 2024, it might not be so difficult for state legislatures to pick electors that contradict the will of the voters. Eventually we could just dispense with the formality of elections and let the legislature take care of it. Think of all the money it would save on campaigning. I’m sure it would be redirected to a more useful purpose, like maybe arming teachers. What a great alternative to rational gun laws!
In 1832, SCOTUS made a decision which engaged famous genocidal racist President Andy Jackson, and he is reputed to have said "They have their decision, now let them enforce it".
I am posting a link to Lucian Truscott IV, whose response to SCOTUS suggests actions by the States which I personally hope Democratic Governors and Legislators have the courage to follow-up with. The far rightwing OF SCOTUS is apparently attempting a Coup d` Etat of their own, and want to return all powers to the States. Let the States take them at their word, and do so, then dare them to deny those States their Constitutional rights as defined in the 9th and 10th Amendments .
The link to Lucian Truscott IV .
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/the-supreme-court-famously-does-not?utm_source=email
PETER, I hope you can see your way to publishing this. Lucian Truscott is someone I look to for information and guidance as much as I do you.
Most of the political pundits currently think that inflation and the economy will remain the major issues for the upcoming election. The next month of polling will tell us how much effect these Supreme Court decisions will have. My bet is that any effect of these decisions will be transitory.
Another diversionary tactic I keep hearing the right wingers trying to sell is the Portland riots vs. the attack on our Congress and the attempted presidential coup, as if there is any real comparison. Local, civil unrest vs. the violent overthrow of the United States of America.
Do these people actually believe what they say? Are they that dense? Or is it more gaslighting of Americans?
I've been relistening to the latest Hearing, featuring Cassidy Hutchison, or as a retired Civil Rights Attorney friend calls her, Joan Dean. And the thought that keeps cropping up is "Just how stupid the conspirators are, or were," to believe they were going to be able to overthrow completely the Government of the United States, as shaky as that Union might seem right now.
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