Pete Daou is something of a Twitter legend. A fanatical Democrat, his devastation at the ELECTION TO THE US PRESIDENCY OF DONALD J. TRUMP was and is almost physically palpable while his slavish devotion to Hillary "We'll Be Nice To Those Republican Sons Of Bitches When We're Back In Power And NOT BEFORE" Clinton is sometimes embarrassingly creepy but is almost always good for a hearty chuckle or five.
Anyway, Pete recently had this to say about the American electorate.
Anyone who wonders how messed up things are, look no further than Texas, where more American voters appear inclined to choose
It's "messed up" that Texas voters might prefer Ted Cruz to any Democrat, for God's sake. And it's "utterly mind-boggling" that a Democrat should be forced to actually make a case to be accepted or rejected by the idiots we're legally forced to give the franchise to.
Yeah, run on that platform, Pete.
But Democrats uncomfortable with calling US voters stupid have a fallback position of sorts. Rejecting Democrat ideas can only mean that the system is broken. Any political system that permits any deviation from Democrat orthodoxy obviously needs radical change.
When he was arguing for the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary “will always be the least dangerous branch to the political rights of the Constitution,” in part because he believed the federal courts would stand above the political fray and act as a bulwark against tyranny from all directions.
But it’s hard to defend the Supreme Court on these grounds today.
As my colleague Matthew Yglesias noted last week, the Court is now a blunt political instrument, used repeatedly to undermine outcomes of democratic governance — often on behalf of corporate interests. And the recent disaster that was the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation has further delegitimized the Court in the public’s mind.
So it’s perfectly reasonable to ask if we should abolish the Supreme Court, or at the very least strip the Court of its ability to overturn laws that it rules unconstitutional. If the Court is no longer a neutral arbiter of the law, if it’s gradually shape-shifting into a partisan weapon, then maybe it’s time to rethink its role in our constitutional system.
Back here, I joked that the left's other current talking point, the fact that under the laws of this country, legally-elected US presidents who didn't win the popular vote can legally select Supreme Court candidates and get those candidates legally approved means that the Court is "illegitimate" and a solution might be found in a reduction in the number of American states.
You know what's terrifying? When your "jokes" turn out to be entirely plausible. I fully expect some leftist to seriously propose this idea very soon.
1 comment:
What's stunning is that the Vox writer can't see that "undermining outcomes of democratic governance" is exactly what the Supreme Court did with Roe v. Wade. Left to themselves, most states would probably have substantially modified abortion laws within ten years or so of the ruling. Left to themselves, if Roe were overturned now, practically no states today would outlaw it entirely.
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