Monarchy without the gossip
It’s always worth being reminded of how illegitimate the whole situation is. Bush 2 lost the popular vote, Trump lost the popular vote, McConnell blocked Merrick Garland because he could and then rushed in Amy Coney Barrett because he could. A minority rules over us.
The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett did more than install a supermajority of conservatives in the court. The locus of power on the court shifted from the more mainstream conservatism of Justice Roberts to the more ideological and rigid extremes of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
As the Texas ruling underscored, this is a court far more conservative than the nation whose constitutional meanings it is meant to protect. And it is a court that owes its composition to the triumph of anti-democratic processes, in which a majority of its members were nominated by a president who lost the popular vote and/or were confirmed by a bloc of senators elected by a minority of voters.
And there’s nothing we can do about it.
Not entirely true. There’s something we won’t do about it, because somehow it’s seen as inviting abuse by the GOP the next time they’re in power. Because showing restraint has been working so well for us up til now.
But it would require Minchin and the other one to actually be willing to fight.
1: Kill the filibuster.
2: Pass legislation increasing the size of the Court by four justices.
3: Appoint all four over the whining from the GOP.
4: As a bonus, appoint justices who are both notably progressive and YOUNG, so they will be on the Court for a long time.
And double or even triple the size of the House of Representatives.
It’s worth noting as well that the GOP *will* probably kill the filibuster (at least more than it already has been killed), will pack the courts, and will do even more to make things less and less democratic. Anything somewhat unethical thing the Dems have considered doing, the Reds *will* do…
The eternal problem is this:
Both the right and the left (and here I mean “everyone to the right/left of what is considered the center of U.S. politics”) have two factions:
1) Those willing to play hardball, who believe that politics is the exercise of power, and anything you CAN do in pursuit of your policy goals, you SHOULD do; and
2) Those who believe that you should obey certain procedural and other “rules of the game” in pursuing your goals.
The difference is that the Type 2 Republicans ultimately line up with, or ineffectually oppose, the Type 1s, while the Type 2 Democrats will go to the fucking mat to oppose Type 1 Democrats.
Screechy, that’s the thing isn’t it. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Democratic Party are fucking terrible at politics. At least the hardball kind. I understand that there is an argument that in order to save the Republic you can’t engage in the dirty tricks that your opponent is using, but the way things are going in another four years it will be impossible for the Democratic Party to ever hold any significant national political power again – short of a revolution or a 20% swing in polls, which amounts to much the same thing.