Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Hermit]

It's ugly that's for sure.

 

In theory, in ten years, some of the most conservative and gray headed Americans will have passed on. I think one question is what will be the politics of the next generation?

[unclevlad]

Yeah...it's worth noting that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are under 55, so you're looking at a good 25 years on the Court easily.  Worse, the next to retire will probably be Ginsburg;  she's 85, and been treated for colon and pancreatic cancers.  And Breyer is 80.  

 

Plus, we've seen that the Republicans are entirely willing to flip the bird at governance, in favor of ideology...leaving the Court seat vacant rather than even starting a confirmation process.

[Iuz the Evil]

17 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

Our contemporary society, as we know it, is built upon about 20-25 legal precedents and 20-25 landmark pieces of legislation.  Most or all of them are put in question by a hard right shift on the Supreme Court.  A vacancy on the right is unlikely to open up in the next decade(Clarence Thomas is 70 and the life expectancy for an African-American male that age is around 14-15 years).  So there are about 5 options for Democrats going forward:

1. Retake the WH and secure replacements for Ginsburg and Breyer, and wait for a vacancy to open up on the right

2. Hold a committee inquiry into Kavanaugh and see if there's a basis for impeachment

3. Pack the court, expanding it by 1-2 seats

4. Pass a law circumscribing the SCOTUS ability to review certain areas of law(e.g., regulation, the Commerce Clause)

5. Pull an Andrew Jackson and ignore decisions they don't like

 

1 is super passive.  2 is unlikely to be successful(you need 67 votes in the Senate to remove an official).  3 carries a near certainty of escalation and response in kind.  4 and 5 are dangerous precedents to set.  

That said, I think Dems should definitely do 1 and take a hard look at 2 and 3.  Republicans are on an escalatory cycle anyway, and I doubt there's anything Democrats could do to get the GOP to stop voluntarily.  

I generally agree, but think 1 & 2 are definitely on the table at this moment. Even a couple years out, if you get 67 votes 3 becomes almost a requisite action by the Democratic leadership. And 4-5 are terrifying, but maybe necessary. Time for hard choices.

[unclevlad]

We have to almost assume Trump's not going to get a 2nd term, altho that doesn't amount to a Dem in the WH.  There still exists a chance that Trump won't be the nominee, for one reason or another.

 

Will retaking the WH matter w/o the Senate?  That said, if the Dems can manage a better candidate, coattail effect *should* come into play enough to get the Senate.

 

Impeaching Trump is still possible, IMO;  impeaching Kavanaugh?  Not a snowball's chance.

 

Add seats to the Court?  Arguably the worst idea I've ever heard.  First, it slams to door on actually governing, as it's such a blatant, partisan move.  It'd 100% lock us into Partisan Wars, IMO.  Beyond that, there's a HIGH risk it'd backfire.

 

No way you can pass a "law" to circumscribe the SC.  Not possible.  First, it'd have to be a constitutional amendment, and that....NOT a chance.  Second, again, start considering the consequences.  Something like this passing?  I'd feel some pain if I moved....but I'd be moving.  DISASTROUS idea.  The only reason this isn't worse than the notion before is, it's got zero chance of happening.

 

Trying to do #5 is overt, outright tyranny.

 

The hope is, the undercurrents that do exist in the younger generations...diversity tolerance, anti-gun violence, anti-bullying...translate moving forward.  For a variety of reasons, tho...I doubt it.  There are undercurrents, obvious and inobvious, that suggest there's not much chance of that.

[archer]

5 hours ago, GM Joe said:

There are enough votes on the Supreme Court now to overturn anything Democrats do at the State or Federal level, regardless of how elections turn out. That balance of power on the Court is unlikely to change for a generation.

 

It's game over.

 

 

There usually has to be some kind of suit before the Court looks at it. And while the Court can choose to look at any suit at all, they almost never look at any which haven't worked their way through the lower courts.

 

Just "having the votes" doesn't mean that the justices, on either side, are willing to completely ignore how the Court works on a day-to-day basis in order to impose their own will on the country. Even in the most activist Court eras, we haven't seen Justices doing that.

 

And the Justices currently on the Court in recent years haven't been trying to drag in wild and crazy things repeatedly for the Court to look at even though both sides thought they had a decent shot at convincing Kennedy over to their side.

 

You'll probably see a lot of nasty tweets from Trump telling the Court that they ought to do something about such-and-such (like making it illegal for the media to criticize a president, something he's brought up repeatedly). But I don't see the Court actually caving to the president to do all the crap which floats through his imagination.

[archer]

5 hours ago, Hermit said:

It's ugly that's for sure.

 

In theory, in ten years, some of the most conservative and gray headed Americans will have passed on. I think one question is what will be the politics of the next generation?

 

The main problem I have with Trump and him bringing the Alt Right into the mainstream of American politics is that we had finally put a stake through the heart of ethnic fascism as a valid political movement in the late 1940's when the KKK lost its political power.

 

Even if you agreed with Trump on various political issues, or just absolutely detested the Democrats, was winning the 2016 presidential election worth bringing ethnic fascism back to be a major player in American politics for the next ten decades?

 

====

A short backgrounder for those not familiar with American politics:

 

Richard Spencer, a self-described white nationalist, coined the term "Alt Right" to describe his ethno-nationalism political philosophy which he hoped would become an Alternative to the existing american political Right (aka Alt Right).

 

Steve Bannon became chief executive of Trump's presidential campaign and later became Trump's Chief Strategist after Trump was elected. But during the 2016 before he accepted a post in the Trump campaign, Bannon used the rather large news site where he was an editor to raise the profile of Alt Right thought and to explain why it was a legitimate political philosophy rather than fringe kookiness.

 

While that was going on, Richard Spencer's website, which he used to explain his political philosophy, was posting various articles, such as the one which I liked to use as an example, which explained not only why the author was anti-Semitic (his words) but why everyone should be anti-Semitic.

 

Late in the campaign, Hillary described those Alt Right people who were being legitimized by the Trump campaign, a "basket of deplorables". That was not only accurate but a more catchy description than what I was using at the time.

 

So in short, now we have public ethnic fascism back as a major force in US politics for the first time in a number of decades. And I don't see that genie going back into the bottle any time soon unless Trump goes down in a very humiliating manner.

====

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

Add seats to the Court?  Arguably the worst idea I've ever heard.  First, it slams to door on actually governing, as it's such a blatant, partisan move.  It'd 100% lock us into Partisan Wars, IMO. 

 

You may not have noticed, but the Partisan Wars have been raging since at least 2008 if not sooner.  As for backfiring... winning's winning.  Let's see if Kavanaugh backfires on the GOP at all.  Frankly I doubt it.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

There usually has to be some kind of suit before the Court looks at it. And while the Court can choose to look at any suit at all, they almost never look at any which haven't worked their way through the lower courts.

 

 

 

But we can anticipate an impetus to get those cases going so they can reach the SC quickly.  And in some areas, such as deferring to Presidential authority, it goes quickly to them IIRC in any case.

[archer]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

.

 

No way you can pass a "law" to circumscribe the SC.  Not possible.  First, it'd have to be a constitutional amendment, and that....NOT a chance.  Second, again, start considering the consequences.  Something like this passing?  I'd feel some pain if I moved....but I'd be moving.  DISASTROUS idea.  The only reason this isn't worse than the notion before is, it's got zero chance of happening.

 

 

 

You are not correct about that:

 

Quote

 

From the US Constitution Article III Section 2


In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

 

 

It might be politically disastrous. But Congress could pass a law to remove anything at all from the Supreme Court's jurisdiction except for the few cases specifically mentioned in other parts of Article III.

 

It could for example, remove marriage issues from the court's jurisdiction or guns or virtually any of the various things which are political issues these days.

[Zeropoint]

So, it seems that voting is no longer enough, because the government refuses to respond to the will of the people. What's the next step?

[Old Man]

The kind of talk that isn’t allowed in this forum. 

[Doc Shadow]

If the Sons of Liberty had to rely on this forum to communicate we'd being speaking Engl...   Umm, never mind.  ?

[Joe Walsh]

15 hours ago, archer said:

You'll probably see a lot of nasty tweets from Trump telling the Court that they ought to do something about such-and-such (like making it illegal for the media to criticize a president, something he's brought up repeatedly). But I don't see the Court actually caving to the president to do all the crap which floats through his imagination.

 

 

Oh, I don't expect that kind of thing either. But I do expect that suits will continue to be brought against every effort at gun control, every aspect of abortion, every aspect of gay rights, every bit of business regulation, Obamacare, and so on. And I expect the decisions on those cases to be far to the right of where they would have been under Reihnquist's court, let alone the liberal courts of the 60s and 70s. And I expect that if liberals do regain control over the other branches of government at any point in the next two decades, any legislation they pass that in any way negatively affects big business or the wealthy (same thing, really) will be challenged in court, and that this court will find against it.

 

[DShomshak]

In its coverage of the Kavanaugh fight, the Sep. 22, 2018 issue of The Economist included a brief history lesson on the Activist Court. In the first few decades of the 20C, the SCOTUS was very conservative, or at least very pro-business. Struck down minimum wage laws, hostile to unions. Changed fairly sharply after FDR attempted his court-packing scheme: FDR failed, but the Court started giving its stamp of acceptance to laws it formerly struck down, and reversing other precedents; the biggest perhaps being overturning of Jim Crow laws. Then the Court swung decisively left in the 1960s and 70s, with Rov. Wade as the high point of "liberal activism." A century later, it's swung back hard right, with what effects we can only guess.

 

(The article also mentions that the "Originalist" claim is, not to put too fine a point on it, an utter fraud.)

 

As the article and people here have mentioned, any attempt to curb the court's right-wing activism -- or retake control, accepting that it is as partisan as Congress -- carry rather horrible risks and consequences. So, what now? The article's author didn't know, and neither do I. At this point, the only curb I've heard is Chief Justice Roberts' institutionalism: I am told that his joining in some pro-Obamacare decisions indicates he doesn't want to put the Court in the middle of fights between branches of government or other cans of worms.

 

Dean Shomshak

[csyphrett]

Local postal service protesting the privatizing of the mail. I told the few I talked to vote against the Republicans next week.  As Jack Reacher always says, Get your retaliation in first.

CES  

[Hermit]

21 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

The hope is, the undercurrents that do exist in the younger generations...diversity tolerance, anti-gun violence, anti-bullying...translate moving forward.  For a variety of reasons, tho...I doubt it.  There are undercurrents, obvious and inobvious, that suggest there's not much chance of that.

 

I for one, welcome our new Millennial Overlords...

given the current alternative anyway

[Cygnia]

The Trump Administration Is Targeting Anti-Trump Facebook Users

[Starlord]

[unclevlad]

And this with the most anti-environment, pro-development, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead moron dictating our policies....

 

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html

 

 

[Joe Walsh]

3 hours ago, DShomshak said:

 At this point, the only curb I've heard is Chief Justice Roberts' institutionalism:

 

I read an opinion piece on that, too. My reaction was that hope it's right, but I fear it's just more wishful thinking.

 

 

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Local postal service protesting the privatizing of the mail. I told the few I talked to vote against the Republicans next week.  As Jack Reacher always says, Get your retaliation in first.

CES  

 

Which local postal service is this, if you don't mind my asking?

[st barbara]

3 hours ago, Cygnia said:

The Trump Administration Is Targeting Anti-Trump Facebook Users

That is disturbing. As an Australian I am surprised that something like that could happen in the United States; but then I guess a lot of Americans are just as surprised.

[Old Man]

21 minutes ago, st barbara said:

That is disturbing. As an Australian I am surprised that something like that could happen in the United States; but then I guess a lot of Americans are just as surprised.

 

Oh, I'm not surprised anymore.  Sadly.

[Lord Liaden]

What I find ironic is that many of Trump's supporters ardently advocate getting government out of ordinary citizen's lives.

[unclevlad]

34 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

What I find ironic is that many of Trump's supporters ardently advocate getting government out of ordinary citizen's lives.

 

Oh, but these aren't ordinary citizens.  They're clearly subversive factions intent on destroying American values.

 

st barbara, NO ONE is ever surprised here when Trump attacks anyone who in any way is opposed to him.  His sycophants consider it only what such traitors deserve;  his abettors wish he'd shut his damn mouth but refuse to sanction him in any way, and his opponents just hope there's something left when his era is over.   

 

If he thought he could get away with it, the jackboots would be out on the streets, never doubt that.