Why are Democrats always expected to be the party of restraint?
Someone has to be.
And it’s not going to be the Republicans.
It’s what they are counting on, that the Democrats will continue to follow norms and traditions, while they spit on them and throw them away when they do not benefit them.
They fight dirty, and expect us to fight fair, as that is the only way they know that they can win. They certainly can’t win on principle or action, they can’t win on integrity or honesty. They absolutely lose when it comes to a desire or capability of governing.
All they have is dirty tricks and lies. Sadly, that may be enough. It certainly is enough for some to support them.
So is Trump planning to steal the election or isn’t he? From what I can see, he’s spouting his usual dishonest bombast in order to make excuses for the election if he loses. I’m sure he understands that if there’s a close vote, as in the 2000 Bush vs Gore vote, it could again go to the Supreme Court for a decision. And he’s alleging to that is his usual incomprehensible fashion. And leftists are seriously getting into a fret over that? So much so that they’re claiming Barrett is tainted by association with Trump because of this non-plan plan?
Sorry. It’s much easier to believe that Trump’s just blathering whatever he thinks will make him look good. Noisemakers on the left are reacting with their usual manufactured shock and horror, and then using it as an excuse for an utterly futile attempt to try and derail Barrett’s confirmation. And then manufacturing further excuses and aspersions to distract from their futility.
The inference is quite reasonable, and to write him off as an inconsequential bumbling oaf is the opposite of Machiavellian thinking. Mr. Trump repeatedly berates judges for ruling in ways he disagrees with, even before he was president. “so-called judge” (2017). “disloyal” (2012).
During the 2015 campaign he proudly declared that his “judicial appointments will do the right thing”.
(There were non-twitter sources, but they are more difficult to dig up.)
The reasonable inference is that Mr. Trump expects his judicial appointments to rule in his favor - which doesn’t necessarily indicate corruption. Presumably Mr. Trump thinks he should prevail in all litigation, on the merits. Therefore he expects his appointees to find in his favor. Surely you agree that this is a reasonable conclusion.
It is next shown that Mr. Trump wants nine justices on the Supreme Court because he thinks the 2020 election will be disputed there. The quotes are not taken out of context,
“I think it’s very important. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices. And I think the system is going to go very quickly. I’ll be submitting at 5 o’clock on Saturday, the name of the person I chose for this most important of all positions. And I think we should go very quickly. You see the Republicans are very united. As far as timing is concerned, we were elected. We have a lot of time. One justice was picked in 19 days — 19 days. We could do four at that rate or five. Now we have a lot of time. No, before the election, and then you have after the election too. But in terms of time, we go to Jan. 20. But I think it’s better if you go before the election because I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling — it’s a scam. The scam will be before the United States Supreme Court. And I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation. If you get that. I don’t know that you’d get that. I think it should be 8-0 or 9-0, but just in case it would be more political than it should be. I think it’s very important to have a ninth justice.”
You are right to point out that, as a President, it is his sort of his job to ensure such an important case as one disputing the election results doesn’t come out 4-4. That would be bad for the integrity of the court and the legitimacy of the election - imagine if Bush v Gore came out 4-4. It’s just bad all over.
But everybody agrees about that. The thing people are worried about is the President’s conflict of interest - he picks a Supreme Court Justice, and he predicts that Justice will decide whether the President continues to be President, and he expects that Justice to rule in his favor. These are all reasonable motives that further the President’s self-interest… but to a distrustful mind, it presents a clear conflict of interest and a significant possibility for a corrupt bargain:
“I appoint you, you rule that I get re-elected.”
Whether or not that bargain was actually entered into, or whether it could be enforced upon a Justice Barrett, I think the appearance of impropriety is too detrimental to justify her participation in a case that decides this election.
~Max
See, I just don’t get this at all. What about Barrett is repugnant besides the fact that you disagree with her political or personal views? She’s apparently respected and admired by her students, colleagues, and neighbours. There’s no real argument against her character, intellect, or qualifications. But because you disagree with her, she’s repugnant. That makes me question whether you’re actually assessing whether she’d be a capable Supreme Court justice, or just viewing her through a partisan lens. If it’s the latter, then why should anybody with different political views than you respect your opinions on politics?
There is lots of room to disagree with her judicial philosophy, and although think I agree with her philosophy (haven’t really checked it out), it is reasonable for someone who disagrees with textualism/originalism to find her repugnant on those grounds alone.
~Max
Funnily enough, I agree with this. If the Democrats believe that abortion is a fundamental right, and that a majority of the country agree that it’s a fundamental right, then pass a law that declares it to be legal. Voters will then decide at the next election if they agree with your law, or would rather change to a different set of lawmakers. Stop relying on decisions made by an activist judiciary that isn’t answerable to voters. Then see if Barrett and her cohorts will uphold the law, or prove themselves to be hypocrites by being counter-activists.
Refusing to recuse one’s self from an election related case, right after an election in which your nominator has insisted that your vote will be necessary for such cases, is pretty morally repugnant.
In the larger context of this election, things Trump says about the election are not just ranting and raving everyone can ignore.
The full context is this:
Trump says specific things about how actual election laws are irrelevant and that the entire political system should ignore them in favor of what he thinks the results of the election should be.
GOP political figures, appointees and operatives are deliberately undermining election law and trying to make it as hard as possible for the election to conclude without controversy.
Trump campaign operatives are lobbying Republican-led state governments to legislatively pledge their electors to Trump in the event that the popular vote in their state goes to Biden. This is legally controversial and would almost certainly result in a lawsuit. Likely the GOP strategy would be to try to make the electoral process as controversial as possible and have as many mail-in-voting issues as possible to use as reasoning that state governments have to pledge their delegates.
We don’t know what will happen in court cases, but Trump is saying that he wants ACB on the SCOTUS to rule on this an avoid a 4-4 tie. If a 4-4 tie occurs, lower court rulings would be upheld, which is something Trump is saying he doesn’t want.
Given all of this, saying that he wants ACB on the court to rule in an election case is not something that has no relationship with the real world. There is no way for ACB to not have got the message of what Trump expects from her. This of course doesn’t automatically mean that she will rule for him no matter what, but the expectation is there and the only ethical response would be for her to commit to recusing.
See, it’s only “judicial activism” when you don’t agree with the result.
The reason I’m against Barrett is that “originalism” is a fundamentally flawed outlook. It’s the assumption that somebody else, back in the past, with less information, nevertheless knows more about the current situation than those deciding it in present day. Ludicrous.
And frankly, even Scalia couldn’t hold to that notion 100%. Not when it couldn’t support the agenda he was trying to ram through.
I don’t disagree that Barrett should recuse herself if a case comes before the Supreme Court that involves them making a judicial decision that has the effect of deciding between Biden and Trump. It will be her job to be impartial, and if her appointment during a tumultuous election time influences her impartiality, then she should recuse herself. However, trying to predict how that could happen and then asking her how she’d react is just playing with meaningless hypotheticals. Suppose a state is violating its own constitution in reporting its electoral results. Is she supposed to just “no comment” on that, or should she do her job and try to uphold the integrity of the law. (And yes, I just made a meaningless hypothetical.)
Furthermore, that has nothing to do with whether Trump and associates are actively planning on stealing the election and relying on the Supreme Court to go along with it. Some people here are seeing conspiracies. I’m seeing a bunch of noise. I don’t care if we disagree on that point. But I find the idea that their conspiracy ideas should invalidate Barrett’s appointment both poorly thought out and disturbing.
This was the part that is actually relevant to the topic at hand, and it turns out we agree on it. I’ll take what common ground we can get, and leave it at that.
~Max
Here’s what she said:
“I commit to you to fully and faithfully apply the law of recusal and part of that law is to consider any ‘appearances’ questions” — as in, even whether it might look to outsiders as though the judge couldn’t be fair, Barrett said.
But: “I can’t offer a legal conclusion right now about the outcome of the decision I would reach.”
She’ll obey/uphold the law, but won’t make a decision on a hypothetical future case before it exists. The same way every other Supreme Court candidate for the past few decades has refused to be drawn out on hypothetical future decisions. It seems like both your morality and your evaluation of repugnancy are based on your partisan biases rather actual events.
Yesterday, I watched a segment on BBC about the Evangelical Christian right that supports Trump (because of course she does). The report focused on a late middle aged white woman, living in a small town in North Carolina, and who is a gun/shooting instructor. Every bit of her was emblematic of American right wing politics when it comes to issues about abortion, guns, religion, gay marriage, immigration… etc, down the line.
As repugnant as I find her politics, and they are repugnant, it is clear to me that there is no argument that anyone can make to shake her of her ignorance. That said, your “civil war” solution seems even more extreme. Especially given the fact that the last civil war didn’t seem to solve the problem of the kind of mentality she and millions like her exhibit. It strikes me that an awful lot of blood will be spilled (again) with little in the way of promise of a more enlightened outcome.
No, there’s actually less reason to find someone repugnant because they have a judicial philosophy based on textualism/originalism. I can understand people finding Trump repugnant. He’s said some pretty awful things, treated many people badly, and treated the Presidency like he’s the chair of a private company, rather than the most important public office in the US. However, I don’t think you should find someone else repugnant because they have different views than you on abortion or religion, or US healthcare policy. I don’t agree with Puritans, but I’m glad they were granted the freedom to have their viewpoint in a process that started 233 years ago. I certainly don’t find them repugnant, even if I disagree with some of their beliefs. I can at least understand why a passionate pro-lifer would find a pro-choicer repugnant, even if I disagree with judgment. But generating a passionate personal disagreement based on a complicated judicial philosophy? That doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m sure Ruth Bader Ginsberg disagreed with Antonin Scalia on textualism/originalism. She didn’t find him repugnant. They were friends who went to the opera together.
These are not normal circumstances. In the universe I live in, we’ve never had a president as openly corrupt and anti-democratic as Trump. That demands a higher standard of morality, at least in my universe. Your universe is probably different.
I think that your assessment is flawed, but I will acknowledge that you’ve at least made a decent argument to back up your viewpoint. Is there a fairly impartial news organisation that’s written a news article, not an opinion column, that makes an evidence-based case that this is happening? I’d especially like to see you back up this assertion:
No, it’s judicial activism when members of the judiciary try to create laws when that’s the responsibility of the legislature. It’s compounded when that judiciary doesn’t have to answer to voters, yet the legislature does. It’s further compounded when the judge has spent an entire career advocating on an issue, and then uses their court seat to not only continue advocating on the issue, but turn it into law through judicial precedent.
Let’s suppose that the Democrats win both houses of Congress and the Presidency and pass laws on campaign finance reform over Republican objections. I would absolutely classify it as judicial activism if a conservative Supreme Court deemed those laws unconstitutional because their personal politics disagreed with those laws.
This comes from an Atlantic magazine piece that has its attribution level at “sources say”. As far as opinion/news I’m not exactly sure where Atlantic’s longform pieces fall.
Common law – that is, law created through judicial precedent – is a feature of English law that is older than the United States. There is no point in debating that. Judges interpret laws in ways that layman often don’t understand.
I prefer when a SC strikes down a law less because of “personal politics” than because of the public interest.