It’s the Supreme Court, stupid!

Today’s New York Times Sunday Review section has a strong essay by a guy named Daniel K. Williams, a history professor at a university in Georgia, who describes why the evangelical white population, a/k/a “values voters,” are supporting Donald Trump.

Which reminds me that every four years during a presidential race a bunch of us are thinking, “OMG, the Supreme Court! The Supreme Court!” You know, like, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!”

Except more serious.

Lots of ways to evaluate presidential candidates but as we’ve seen over the past couple of heart-sinking decades, there really is only one. The Supreme Court.

Professor Williams points out Roe v. Wade as the center of right-wing hysteria about the Court. As a pro choice woman–there should not be any no-choice women–I naturally lean in the direction of Roe.

But still, living and screaming through the past couple of SCOTUS decades, I see so much more than Roe hanging by its fingernails or buried entirely by the Scalia court. Campaign financing. The Voting Rights Act. Civil rights. Gun control. Class action lawsuits. Regulation of massively rich and powerful industries for the common good. Separation of church and state, especially “religious” companies inflicting their faith on employees.

In general, it’s the concept of government as our ethical consensus, our bulwark against entities whose entire amoral dynamic is profit-making.

I’m sure I’ve left out a bunch of bad things the Scalia court has done and a whole bunch of great things a new nine can do to support an individual’s right to equality, justice and freedom to do whatever he likes, so long as he does not impinge upon anyone else’s freedom to do whatever she likes.

But Roe is a good start to remind you to think about the Supreme Court when you vote. Because that’s what evangelicals are thinking about. As Professor Williams writes:

[Evangelical leaders] no longer view control of the Supreme Court only as a way to overturn Roe v. Wade; they now see it as essential to preserving their own freedom to act on their religious convictions.

My bolding to emphasize that the Christian right wing wants its “own freedom” to take away our own freedom via their own kind of Supreme Court.

Here’s Professor Williams’ essay:

How the Christian right came to support the most openly profane Republican presidential nominee in a generation.

Source: Why Values Voters Value Donald Trump – The New York Times

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