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.
Yes is is hard to underestimate the MAGAtude of this development!!
If they go this crazy over Kennedy...wait for Ginsburg! I can’t wait for the day Ginsburg leaves the court.
Or Justice Sotomayor.
Christmas comes early this year.
I want at least one Lefty replaced. I don’t trust Roberts.
...but she has to remember prepare and sit properly...meaning drop her knickers....
This should be no surprise nor news to attentive snowflakes since teump telegraphed his ussc intentions way back on the 2016 campaign trail (federlist society candidtes only). I figured when i first read it that it would not be well indersrood at the time and lead to surprises later (although not to the politically astute on both sides).
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS is supposed to be all about having kids, not having carte blank license to kill every conception. But as usual the LEFT turns everything to be opposite to its meaning.
She writes all this like it’s a bad thing.
To quote the now infamous words of Obama after his win, he gloated to the Republicans "if you want to change anything you have to Win an election. We won, get over it. Now get to the back of the bus and shut up!"
Well now it's our time!
The left has ignored the Constitution for decades. It is a core part of Progressive theory.
Originalist, textualist judges stand a chance of restoring much of the Republic.
So be it.
How about upholding the Constitution and adhering to the principles to which it represents? This bitch is typical of the left wingers, they don't respect the Constitution and wish it destroyed.
If every reader of the Chico ER voted for Hillary instead of Jill Stein or not showing up at the polls, that would have simply added 8,000 more votes in a state that Hillary carried by 3.3 million votes.
And when Trump is re-elected and nominates even more judges for SCOTUS, Chico ER will still scream about how people didn’t do enough, especially for illegals.
It would not surprise me if the margin that vote for the Democrat nominee will be much closer to 1 million votes in 2020.
The Won!
Since she is full of that stuff, there may be nothing left of her when she finishes. 😁
Sounds like she listens to Dan Bongino om the side - he was just talking several days ago about how the libs don’t know how to play “the long game”.
I thank the Lord every day for we do NOT have that woman as president. And, I also thank Him for the best president since Reagan.
Extremely proud of it, I might add. 😆
It makes me smile to envision the evil hack Tucker writing this while liberal tears run down her cheeks.
No kidding! As I was reading that screed, I was asking: “so where is the problem?”
I am one who primarily did vote for President Trump precisely because he was “NOT HILLARY”. At the time of the election, I was still no fan at all, of his.
Since that day, I have become a “YUGE” fan of our President! He has shown me that my original assessments of the man were completely off base and wrong. He has proven to me that he deserves my respect and my trust and he has that.
I look forward to seeing what more President Trump will accomplish for the American Citizens in the coming years.
God Bless President Trump!
God Bless America!
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