Sitting around, pondering the Supreme Court

That’s what I’m doing now.

I’ve moved beyond anger at what’s going to happen if Kavanaugh or another rock-hard conservative is shoved onto the court by a president who will at some point — possibly quite soon — be indicted, and can not in any way be considered legitimate.

That isn’t really correct, either. Because Trump himself is not anything like a real president. He’s the tool of a variety of forces. He’s an ugly and dimwitted figurehead used by nefarious anti-democratic groups. So he didn’t nominate anyone. He was told whom he must nominate.

We all know that, right?

So, given we’re living in this insanity, I contemplate SCOTUS.

Today, in the New York Times, Michael Tomasky described the situation really well, I think. The Supreme Court is having a legitimacy crisis because its majority represents a minority of American voters.

His last two paragraphs:

And so Republicans are doing to the Supreme Court what they have already accomplished in Congress. There, through aggressive gerrymandering, they’ve muscled their way to a majority even as their candidates have sometimes received collectively fewer votes than Democrats. And now they’re doing it to the court, by breaking the rules (Merrick Garland) and advancing nominees who are confirmed by legislators representing minority support.

Mr. Kavanaugh’s alleged youthful behavior is a scandal, but this legitimacy crisis is one too, and with arguably greater consequences. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, may not care about them. But Chief Justice John Roberts, and for that matter Brett Kavanaugh, surely should.

So I’m now looking for the article or op ed which continues this argument beyond Tomasky’s. That is, what is going to happen the next time a clearly political SCOTUS decision re-writes the laws we in the majority accept as our country’s contemporary ethos and values?

There will be resistance, or even rebellion against an illegitimate Supreme Court.

I don’t know enough about law or government to see how this will happen. But I know it will.

 

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