Biden worries ‘extreme’ supreme court can’t be relied on to uphold rule of law
Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
Yes but you fail to consider that some guys wrote on a paper like 250 years ago and we’ve decided that everything needs to be viewed through the lens of either “does this agree with an incredibly pedantic and stilted reading of this document” or “what would those historical dudes think about this” - whichever happens to be more politically expedient for you at the moment, but the second one tends to give you more flexibility.
To be fair, they did expect us to modify the constitution from generation to generation.
Ultimately the failure is ours.
It's amazing to me the way we've elevated the constitution to near biblical proportions. And just like the Bible where every church and pastor interprets it in their own way, so too do our 9 oracles in black robes interpret the will of our village elders from ages past.
"So shall it be written, so shall it be done", eh?
There are parallels in your example because it all comes down to governance of people, but I truly don't think that people look at the Constitution/Courts like they do at the Bible.
In terms of commandments and how one is expected to follow the rules, I would argue that some do. In terms of attaching spiritual beliefs to it, no, not so much.
But yes, your point is true - it boils down to governance and how people want to be governed.
One of the more interesting things I saw (on this topic) was a historian stating that George Washington (and his contemporaries) would have been able to relate the world of Julius Cesar more than they would our modern world.
I think about that A LOT whenever I hear some idiot spout nonsense about the "vision and ideals" of the founding fathers
I thought Washington was too busy sending faxes to samurai.
Was this during or after raping all his slaves he owned?
U forgot to toggle your hexbear account
I disagree. That was BC. It'd be like saying people born in the 1930s relate more to colonial times than today. There are some of them who are still alive. While a percentage want nothing to do with modern ways, I think the type to be involved in forming a nation would be lifelong learners akin to the old folks who have little trouble with today's modernities.
BC is somewhat of an arbitrary line. I'd say that modern society and our relationship to it are radically different from either our forefathers' or Caesar's due to the industrial and information revolutions. It's not the distance in linear time that's important, but the difference in social and cultural time.
Yup, I see. A bit like with the Bible and other holy books then. Even here in Europe, there are many who see the wording of those as the ultimate truth. No need to adjust anything, they say. It's all good. It's god's will or whatever - if it helps their agenda, that is. Jesus, that must be frustrating.
They also tend to ignore pretty much all the stuff Jesus actually taught.
You forgot about Supply-Side Jesus.
Yea, some things do not allign particularly well with certain agendas. So best to just leave them out.
"Judge the shit out of everyone, you're better than them."
-Jesus probably idfklol
That’s kind of what it’s devolved into, tbh. The confluence of Christian fundamentalism and politics is a scary fucking thing, because when you’re “doing god’s work”, you can justify literally anything to yourself and your fellow “good Christians”.
Europe at least has had the benefit of being able to work country-by-country, whereas the US is one massive tangled morass. Hell, even achieving the kind of restructuring and harmonious cooperation that you see in the EU had to come as a result of two of the most atrocious wars humanity has ever mustered in the span of less than half a century.
Kinda puts it a little more into perspective when you consider the absolute shit-show Europe had to turn into before it was ready to grow up.
Yes, absolutely right. However, it is very sad that the Europeans in particular do not seem to have learned much from their history. I am German and here, unfortunately, a blatantly fascist party is on the rise again. That political direction is unfortunately quite popular in many European countries as of late. It might be similar to what is happening in America: the standard of living is falling and so people seem to be longing for a strong leader who will supposedly improve their living situation. The fact that this strong leader has completely different interests is apparently of no concern to many. They simply vote for the party whose rhetoric appeals to them (foreigners are to blame and so on), and that promises a way back to the good old days. It is enough to make you cry.
Yeah. That's basically what's happening in the US. Combine that with our two political parties not giving a fuck about the voters belonging to the other party, and you've got two, deeply entrenched political parties which can basically do whatever they want because your only real choice is between red or blue.
Then you have the... god I hate this term ...privileged... people who vote and donate to team blue and insist on the blue team taking the high road at all costs; because even if the blue team loses you can still claim the moral high ground and that's all that matters in their eyes; they're too comfy and financially insulated to truly feel the affect that blue team losing would have because of feel-good morality.
This comes at the cost of civil rights, because it means team blue (the party currently concerned with civil rights) doesn't really have a reason to expand their voter base outside of the areas they're already entrenched. That's where their big donors are, and they might have to sacrifice their righteous morality in order to expand into the hard red areas.
You've also got team red voters who's views actually align more with team blue, but they vote team red because team red is the only one who actually pretends to listen and serve them; because team blue is too eager to take Ls if it means their precious morality and ethics are intact even though it risks allowing team red to destroy marginalized communities. Also, team red is destroying the quality of life of their voters while successfully convincing them that it's team blue's fault, because any attempt team blue makes at countering them is half-hearted at best.
My biggest fear is that we're heading towards a new civil war, and the history books aren't going to teach how team blue assisted in team red's bullshit by stubbornly insisting that they mustn't take any action that might be immoral or unethical while team red runs rampant.
Sorry to hear that, man. It's definitely a sad situation all around. The apathy of so many is hard to overcome, then there are those like you mentioned who cling to cults of personality or are just looking for a savior. Democracy is still hanging on, but it's in a rough spot.
For better or worse, it's next to impossible to successfully modify the Constitution without significant support. It has to be ratified by about 38 States (3/4 of the State legislatures or 3/4 of the conventions called in each State). That's after either 2/3 of both Houses of Congress (2/3 of the House of Representatives and 2/3 of the Senate) propose an amendment or 2/3 of the State legislatures request one via a convention.
In a way, it's a good thing since it keeps the Constitution from being able to be changed on a whim, and it mostly keeps it from being affected by the political tug-of-war that happens every few years in the US.
It's also a bad thing, though, as it makes it very difficult to adapt to certain situations that wouldn't have happened 200+ years ago.
"It's also a bad thing"
You realise you can change laws? Congress does it regularly. The Constitution primarily restricts the type of laws that can be passed. Congress has huge leeway otherwise.
Laws like the Voting Rights Act or the ones that established the EPA or the CFPB? The problem here is we've let a rogue court assume ultimate legislating ability and the only real remedies to that are impractical supermajorities or open conflict between the branches.
"Assume ultimate legislating ability"- Unless you are whining about Marbury v Madison, what on earth are you talking about? SCOTUS doesn't write laws, they rule on the permissibility of (a small fraction) of them.
"Impractical supermajorities"
Did you just discover what checks and balances are? One should want supermajorities because you don't want laws based on shaky public support. Do we really think the cycle of each president overturning the previous presidents policy is practical?
The person I was replying to was talking about the Constitution, not other laws.
I would argue though that if it's something that truly needs to be changed by the majority that it would get done.
The problem is the way our politics are today (those in office care more about gaining money to stay in office than their constituency, etc.), and the population being split almost down the middle and adhearing to that mindset ('my team is always right') over the common good, makes getting that type of majority almost impossible.
But again, that's still on us, not our forefathers.
Not anymore. They are just making shit up now. The check is congress impeaching them. That will not happen if enough people demand it.
It'll never happen as long as republicans control either half of congress. People have been sounding the alarm on their power grabs for decades and only now are some people starting to listen.
I expect the American experiment to fail in my lifetime.
I’m not sure that I see the American Collapse happening in my lifetime as a certainty, but I would agree that it’s a very strong possibility if we don’t get our shit together pretty fucking quick.
It's won't collapse. We'll become another authoritarian state.
It'll be isolationist so only Mexico should be worried.
Yeah if we go that route, I absolutely expect some Christian Nationalist administration to decide that it’s time to take over Mexico, which to be clear is an apocalyptically stupid idea.
I bet the MAGA base would love the idea of taking over Mexico.
The American boys in blue get to gun down the cartels, as well as the convoys of people who are obviously poor brown terrorists
We could save a lot of money on a really sweet wall if we use the southern part of Mexico as a choke point
Travel more of the world while never leaving the US
Think of the travel, resort, and real estate opportunities!
Why the fuck would they want Mexico? I think Canada probably has more to worry about, especially as water becomes more scarce
Some of the MAGA folks are already saying that we should bomb/invade Mexico to stop the drug cartels and immigrants. Of course, they hand-wave how horrible a war would be. They assume that Mexico would thank the US for such a great bombing and ask for more. Because MAGA.
For anyone who was downvoting the above comment: It’s absolutely a real thing that Republicans have been talking about for a while now.
This should concern you. Only a complete imbecile would think that conducting unilateral military action against Mexico is a good idea. We would rightly be cast in the same light as Russia vis a vis Ukraine. We would destroy any remaining semblance of geopolitical soft power we still have. We would be unambiguously turning away from even trying to be the “good guys”. We would be global pariahs, just like Russia is now, and we would deserve it.