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 childs adult life the nations 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 Jeffersons 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 Kennedys announcement (and with Kennedys assistance), the high court had shifted rightward. Just this summer, the court has weakened reproductive rights, upheld Trumps 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 Obamas 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 Trumps nomination of Neil Gorsuch, who has become a reliable ultraconservative vote. Of course, McConnell quickly reversed himself after Kennedys announcement, revealing that the Senate will vote on a nominee in the fall. Never mind that its 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. Kennedys 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 Trumps 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 werent energized by Clintons campaign.
They helped put Trump in office, and they will reap what they have sown. So, unfortunately, will the rest of us.
antidemocratic? that’s a bit rich, given the continued refusal of the Dems, MSM to accept the results of the 2016 election.
” petty, crude, divisive, corrupt and antidemocratic”
talking about bammy?
This is really fun now. Watching leftists lose their minds. They have created a false image of Trump, aided by the media, and they actually made themselves believe in their image. Then they focused all their hate at the image.
Too bad the reality is much different. But they are incapable of seeing reality.
Seconded!
It may seem large now, but it pales in comparison to what we can expect in 2020. Trump will win again, by a MAGAtude of 12.6 on the Richter scale.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaa
Butthurt Hillary voters, every damn day.
>>That strongly suggests that for the rest of my life and through a considerable part of my childs adult life the nations highest court will be a bastion of ultra-right doctrine, hostile to progressive causes of all sorts.
In other words, judicial activism and unconstitutional rulings may become a thing of the past. Boo hoo.
Change laws through the legislative process, not self-made gods in black dresses.
Oh? Hmm. Cheered me right up!
Nothing left, but the hole she fell through.
Cynthia is unhappy... that makes me happy.
What did HRC do? Here is a great article in Pollutico that basically says they took everyone for granted. Heck, under a plan devised by Brazile money was diverted from Michigan to drum up urban turnout out of fear that Trump would win the popular vote while losing the electoral vote, and got dumped into Chicago and New Orleans, far from anywhere that would have made a difference in the election.
This HRC Campaign arrogance is manifest in Ms.Tucker's screed. What the Campaign said effectively to traditional Dem voters was "I don't need to see you or hear about your concerns. Now do what is expected of you and just vote for Her, dammit." Ms Tucker is basicslly saying "if you'd all just done your job and vote for HER, despite no true no care or concern, i.e., Hillary didn't go to a UAW hall in Michigan at all, then I wouldn't have to blame you for this mess."
They never learn.
The miidterms are turning into a reprise of the struggle for control that took place between the Clinton/Obama grifting organization and goofy hippie hypocrite Bernie Sanders and his Grateful Brain-Dead camp following. The Partisan Media Shills continue to pump out the DNC talking points of the week, and the unsurprising existence of Journolist 2 was revealed in recent days. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
Well then Cynthia Tucker. You blame us for voting for Pres. Trump, and not Hillary. Okay:
1. You want some cheese with all that whine.
2. You complain when Hillary self-imploded calling the majority of Americans Deplorable and wonder why she lost.
3. You complained about not voting for a woman who treated God-Fearing, Hard-Working Law-Abiding American Citizens and LEGAL Immigrants like garbage and instead wanted everything given to Criminals (Especially herself and her robotic sheep), Illegal Aliens and also Islamic Muslim Terrorists.
4. You cry that Hillary wasn’t elected, even though she was a disgraced disbarred lawyer that was removed from the Whitewater Case because she was a LIAR BY FELLOW DEMOCRATS.
This is just some of the reasons. So if I was one of those AMERICAN that didn’t vote for a lying, deceiving, Anti-American POS. then I’M DAMN PROUD OF IT!!!!!
Is this the same commie Cynthia Tucker who used to editorialize in the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation???
-—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 Jeffersons famed wall of separation between church and state.——
Yep, and that’s just for openers.
There is no reproductive rught. That is a lawerly make up from pure nothingness.
I hope so. Id hate to think theres two of them.
Take away Reproductive Rights? Is the Supreme Court going to decide that you cant reproduce?
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No, no, no. “Reproductive Rights” means kill your babies so THEY can’t grow up and reproduce - eventually causing humanity to become extinct, and saving our glorious Mother Earth for cockroaches and slithering, sexless liberals.
:-)
If you didn’t vote for Hillary then the credit for all this belongs to you.
I dont trust Roberts.
For good reason. He betrayed the Constitution and us.
—
And went out of his way to do it.
“Hey! Good idea! The Government can force you to do anything it wants and then demand money from you if you don’t and call it a ‘tax’, hahahahhaha!”
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