Yes, I agree.
But it’s also the case that “the United States” is an idea. In fact, its an idea that really exists since 1865. That’s when we started talking about the United States as a singular noun. It was an idea forged in bloodshed. Twas ever thus. And will be again, most likely, when the pressure from not representing people in cities grows stronger than the political power of small states. Won’t be this decade. Might not be the next. But it is coming.
It’s a bit premature to call them fascist. It’s not like they support people who march in support of white supremacy while holding torches and chanting antisemitic slogans and attacking people.
I’ve proposed the minimum age for SCOTUS justices to be raised to 70 (or even higher), with the hope of making vacancies much more common, and thus SCOTUS confirmations relatively routine events.
I think that would need a Constitutional amendment, though. Without something like this (or maybe even with it), it’s hard to see how we’re not headed for major strife in the future. Once hard-partisans figure out that a single dead SCOTUS justice at the right time (and with the right administration in power) will massively help their political goals for a generation or more, unscrupulous fanatics in their midst may start making that happen.
You’re well behind the times. That was pretty much the plot of John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief, only the one murdered was a possible member of SCOTUS.
What a ridiculous extrapolation. :rolleyes:
Nominating justices that old will likely have the effect of a SCOTUS full of justices whose beliefs and thinking patterns reflect a generation or two behind the current generation. Not that 30 years olds make it into SCOTUS, but a 50-year old would be more like contemporary thinking than a 70 or 80 year old.
I think this is more of a rant than Election fodder, unfortunately. I’m moving it from Elections to the Pit. But before that, a few notes:
Don’t do this again. The construction of ‘you are either X or Y’ where X is an acceptable characterization and Y is an accusation of lying or a personal insult is not okay in this forum. If not for the below, this would receive a warning.
Clearly you are copying the same construction above. Next time, a post report would be a better option. Same comment here, this is not okay in this forum.
[/moderating]
Of course due to gerrymandering they aren’t able to. Local districts are even more Gerrymandered than congressional ones.
Basically the Republicans were lucky enough to have a watershed election during the first census year when big data made precision Gerrymandering possible. Now unless Dems can get some 60% of the vote in 2020, they are going to be shut out of congress until at least 2030.
No, they didn’t approve the next nominee, who was Douglas H. Ginsburg. The nominee after that was Anthony Kennedy, who was approved.
Uninformed, I expect?
I am sorry this thread got moved, it was my intention to engage in a serious political discussion. I would have thought that it was obvious that my use of terms like “fascist scum” were expressions of my personal opinion, not meant to misleadingly imply some generally agreed upon consensus, and since they weren’t directed at a specific Doper, I thought that was acceptable use in Elections. I will certainly keep this in mind when starting threads in the future. I prefer not to participate in Pit threads, so I would respectfully request that the thread be moved back.
Well, not “uninformed”. I did know that, and remembered when reminded. Sorry for not remembering the exact details of stuff that happened 31 years ago off the top of my head. Can I expect a reciprocal apology from you for nitpicking and completely ignoring the actual point of the post?
By this reasoning we might as well have a maximum age with mandatory retirement. I don’t see this as significant – there’s tons of individual variation in potential justices, regardless of age.
The last time a majority of democrats in the Senate voted for a Republican nominee to the Supreme Court was actually only 2 times ago, during the last Republican administration.
There were 45 democratic-caucusing members of the Senate in 2005 when John Roberts was up for confirmation. 23 of them voted “yes”, 22 “no” for a total vote of 78-22.
Cite.
In guessing a maximum age would be unconstitutional. Only terms would achieve your end imo.
I think a high minimum age would accomplish my aims – but that would probably require a Constitutional amendment. If every SCOTUS justice had to be 70, or 72, or 75, then the average tenure would be a lot shorter than it is now – perhaps less than 10 years. That would mean that, on average, you’d have a vacancy every year, which would mean every President nominates about 4 replacements per term. And thus an individual vacancy wouldn’t be nearly the enormous political deal it is now.
I think there would be a lot of perverse incentives created by a system in which a party that controls the Presidency and Senate for 5 years controls the Supreme Court. It would certainly reduce the counter-majoritarian role of the Court, and probably ultimately lead to the destruction of stare decisis as new majorities seek to undo the work of prior majorities more aggressively.
Is this a joke??
Reagan’s appointee, Anthony Kennedy, won unanimous confirmation from the United States Senate in February 1988. That’s “unanimous” with a “U.”
Reagan’s appointee, the hard-right Antonin Scalia, won unanimous confirmation from the United States Senate in September 1986. Again that’s “unanimous” with a “U.”
Yes, some nominees were rejected, e.g. Harriet Miers who had never served as a judge. Many Democrats opposed the unqualified sexual harasser Clarence Thomas, or the extreme right-winger Samuel Alito, but they did let these incompetents serve. What’s your point? That if Sean Hannity or Jared Kushner were nominated the Democrats have an obligation to acquiesce?
Alito is best noted for some of his dissents. He voted to strike down a law against owning submachine guns. He voted to restrict abortions. He voted against free speech at military funerals. He supported police who strip-searched a woman and her daughter without an applicable search warrant. Yet the Democrats permitted this contemptible right-wing oaf to sit on the highest court in the land.
astorian must be getting his facts from Fake News.
Ohhhhhh… Bork was an extremist. Okay, then. He was a rare exception. So, the Democrats voted overwhelmingly to confirm John Roberts and Sam Alito, right?
No wait, THEY were extremists too. Right?
See, that’s the problem. The Democrats decided decades ago that all conservatives are extremists.
So, 22 Democrats (nearly half) voted no on John Roberts.
By contrast, how many Republicans voted against RBG?
No, since we’re still in the Pit, I can point out, as two others already have, that the problem is that you are a fucking idiot who doesn’t know what he is talking about.