Posted on 07/01/2018 12:22:06 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It matters less, now, if President Donald J. Trump serves only one term. It matters less if he is impeached. It matters less if Robert Mueller indicts him for colluding with a foreign power. With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the U.S. Supreme Court, Trump is a hairbreadth away from sealing his legacy as one of the most influential (if petty, crude, divisive, corrupt and antidemocratic) presidents in American history.
It is hard to overestimate the magnitude of this development. Trump has promised to appoint another hardcore conservative, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his minions will roll right over Senate Democrats to confirm him (or her). That jurist will likely be in his or her 40s or 50s and serve for decades.
That strongly suggests that for the rest of my life — and through a considerable part of my child’s adult life — the nation’s highest court will be a bastion of ultra-right doctrine, hostile to progressive causes of all sorts. That court will likely kill off reproductive rights, starve unions, look askance at affirmative action, eviscerate voting rights and abuse criminal defendants. It will coddle violent police officers, kowtow to corporations and re-write the First Amendment, bulldozing Thomas Jefferson’s famed “wall of separation between church and state.”
This is a huge victory for the forces of retrenchment. Conservatives are much better than liberals at playing the long game, and rich political players on the right have been plotting to remake the court in their own image for decades now. Even before Kennedy’s announcement (and with Kennedy’s assistance), the high court had shifted rightward. Just this summer, the court has weakened reproductive rights, upheld Trump’s hateful, anti-Muslim travel ban and hammered public sector unions. It aided and abetted homophobes with a ruling that sided with a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
McConnell gambled on that shift — and won — when he stymied President Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland. Spitting on the U.S. Constitution, McConnell defied precedent, mocked tradition and trammeled bi-partisanship, insisting that no high court nominee should be confirmed in an election year. Senate Republicans later embraced Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch, who has become a reliable ultraconservative vote. Of course, McConnell quickly reversed himself after Kennedy’s announcement, revealing that the Senate will vote on a nominee in the fall. Never mind that it’s an election year. Conservatives see their long-held goal of a far-right court just a step or two away, and hypocrisy is their handmaiden.
For much of my life, the Supreme Court served as a defense for oppressed minorities — a bulwark that pushed political and civic institutions to fully respect our rights as citizens. Through several decades, the highest court issued rulings that desegregated public schools, upheld voting rights, sanctioned desegregation of public accommodations and respected affirmative action. It broadened protections for criminal defendants. As feminism took center stage, the court upheld reproductive rights.
And even as the court turned rightward after the appointment of Justice Clarence Thomas, it still found occasion to grant succor to the oppressed. Kennedy’s libertarian streak helped to sustain that impulse. He upheld Roe v. Wade. He championed gay rights. He voted against the death penalty for juvenile offenders. But Trump’s list of potential nominees likely includes no Kennedys.
While the Trump-McConnell machine is taking all the credit for their victory, they had help from the left — from the #NeverHillary crowd. Progressive activists such as actress Susan Sarandon insisted that the Democratic nominee would be no better than Trump. Green Party nominee Jill Stein drained votes away from Clinton. Young progressive voters stayed away from the polls in the 2016 presidential election because they weren’t “energized” by Clinton’s campaign.
They helped put Trump in office, and they will reap what they have sown. So, unfortunately, will the rest of us.
The more the liberal socialists bitch, the more you know hes doing generally good stuff.
“That strongly suggests that for the rest of my life — and through a considerable part of my child’s adult life — the nation’s highest court will be a bastion of ultra-right doctrine, hostile to progressive causes of all sorts. That court will likely kill off reproductive rights, starve unions, look askance at affirmative action, eviscerate voting rights and abuse criminal defendants. It will coddle violent police officers, kowtow to corporations and re-write the First Amendment, bulldozing Thomas Jefferson’s famed “wall of separation between church and state.””
Yes!!! All of that, and more b!tch! And I really do like the sound of “hostile to Progressive causes of all sorts!” Say ta ta to the “Living” Constitution!
Thank you, thank you very much.
“That court will likely kill off reproductive rights, starve unions, look askance at affirmative action, eviscerate voting rights and abuse criminal defendants.”
Wow! When you put it that way, Cynthia, the more excited I am at the prospects of getting my country back!
That is, “God just held a reversing mirror up to us and his name is Donald Trump.”
Trump is more like (Psalm 2) karma than like Jesus. Mike Pence may be the more Christlike figure and his day is yet to come.
Americans can only hope !
From the area we moved away from both my wife and went to college there.
this is crap from a liberal rag. This person has no clue what working for a living is all about out in the real world.
I have a message for these socialists, take your socialism and forcefully shove it where it will never get a sunburn. I served long and shed blood for my freedoms and constitutional rights and have earned with my own hands and work every damn thing I have.
What this nation does not need or want is your socialism so shove it and do not act like you speak for the majority because you do not. You speak for the non working leaches of socialism.
Get a job, a real job, and go on a quest to find reality because you are far from it with this BS.
Don’t you just love the sound of that?
Oh, what a great column!
HOw I love to hear them whine! it is music to my ears!
affirmative action is giving things to people that they have not earned and that is total BS.
Hunger is the best motivation there is. If you can not feed your kids the state should while you starve or get your ass to work.
Thanks to trump there are a lot of jobs out there now for those who have made good decisions. for those who have made bad decisions that is your problem.
Be careful of gloating. You don’t know what temptation may come your way that will find you unequal to its call.
She left out that the SC will rule that we can own atomic bombs.
Well, should it?
Even this columnist thinks it wasn’t Hillary’s fault. Speaking as someone who worked 30+ years with classified government information, it greatly saddens me she’ll *never* be put to justice for his mishandling of sensitive information. Even if that mishandling cost the lives of Americans.
Guilty as charged.
And I feel just deplorable about it.
:)
Bagster
Cynthia Tucker is still around? She was a Clinton groupie and was angry and horrible enough when her side was winning.
This guy is living in some fantasy world, and everything needs to go a certain way, with the right ‘Jesus-figure’ as President, to reach some level of satisfaction. He needs to take six months off....travel around the heartland, and grasp that things just aren’t the way he thinks.
Winning! More, please.
JoMa
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