Some conservatives, frankly, do not, including at least one on the Supreme Court.
I wish that were true, because no, I don’t think that the vast majority of so-called “conservatives” in the U.S. believe in and support the Constitution.
We have a president that has repeatedly castigated and denigrated the free press, calling them “enemies of the people,” a phrase favored by authoritarians and dictators. What could be more un-American and unconstitutional that that?
I’ll answer my own question: maybe attacking the freedom to vote—the most fundamental constitutional right in the nation. Or maybe governing in defiance—and in ignorance—of the Constitution, notably declaring, well into his third year in office, that he has “total” authority over the states.
There is literally nothing Trump has done while in office that is not one of the following: illegal, unconstitutional, detrimental to the country and/or our allies, or abjectly self-serving and profitable to himself.
Indeed, the very thing the American Founders sought to avoid in the democratic (small “d”) experiment they laid out—a public held captive by the whims of a fickle ruler—has now come to pass.
The political party that supports this president, is home to these so-called conservatives and supposedly has conservative principles is the Republican Party. Why “supposedly” and “so-called”? Because over the last four years the Republican Party has largely abandoned its core principles to instead support whatever the leader wants. This was seen in the GOP’s decision a few months ago to not create a 2020 platform, but to instead issue a resolution saying that “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”
These “conservatives” only appear to care about staying in power, and evidently will do anything to accomplish this, including disenfranchising voters, hamstringing the Post Office, false claims about voter fraud, all on top of decades of ridiculously extreme gerrymandering.
The Congress and especially the Senate have ceased to provide meaningful oversight over the executive branch as called for in the Constitution. The President routinely violates the Constitution (like the emoluments clause) and the laws of our country (such as diverting funding to the wall in contravention of Congress; and firing whistle-blowers, agency AGs, and federal prosecutors for corrupt purposes), and the Congress allows this to happen.
I have served my country as a former Naval officer and sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and I have never in my life felt such despair for the state of our union and the future of our democracy.
RightWinger “textualist originalists” will say to you that nothing in the actual constitution actually mandates easy, broad universal suffrage. That a right to vote is implicit in the 4 amendments that address the right to vote by race, sex and age and the nonpayment of poll taxes but that otherwise states are at freedom to make the citizen jump through hoops to vote, until and unless higher law or jurisprudence outlaws said hoop.
At this point, probably our best hope is that the America-hating fuckstick will tell the press that he has a tremendous, brilliant nominee to announce and he’ll be presenting her name “in two weeks”…
Well, at least it won’t be Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton.
Pardon me, I’m just trying to find a reason to live.
I wouldn’t have thought so either, but it turns out that the identity of the “someone” under discussion has some relevance to that assessment.
2020 really IS a fucked up year.
I think that we’re fucked because the GOP is a violent, anti-democratic, white nationalist political movement.
What a brilliant, well-crafted post. It couldn’t be said any better. Thank you.
Well, as long as you are keeping an open mind.
Get the fuck over yourself, you dime store Bricker.
I actually will defend Mortiss on this one: I think conservatives do have their own interpretation of the Constitution, and that interpretation is no less real to them than ours is to us.
I think rather than focusing on whether they support the Constitution, which is a debate without a resolution, a better question is whether they believe in an inclusive democracy, equal opportunity, equal protection under the law, and progress of the human mind.
I’d say no. Conservatives don’t exist to stop the excesses of liberalism; they exist to promote a society in which their cultural values win out over others, not through winning a competition of ideas but simply by gaining control over the machinery of power.
Our worship of the Constitution and who loves it more is becoming a bit of a joke. The fact that we are freaking out over a single vacancy on the high court is a bad, bad sign for the future of our democratic republic. We don’t trust the presidency of the congress to execute the will of the people; we instead seem increasingly reliant on the judiciary (the branch of government with the least democratic influence) to correct our mistakes. Not good.
I agree that the fact that we are worried about one justice seat is a bad sign, but that is precisely because conservatives don’t value the constitution, or the rule of law. It is patently obvious that Trump is capable of any criminal behavior to keep power and it is equally obvious that conservatives will go along with him. They have disregarded stunning corruption, open collusion with foreign governments to subvert our elections, and the use of troops to repress peaceful protests. It what way is any of that an indication that they value the constitution?
Here are some of these constitutionalists in action:
“ Photos and videos by Washington Informer reporter Anthony Tilghman show Trump supporters blocking the path to the early voting site, standing together waving Trump flags and chanting "Four more years!””
Another lover of representative democracy:
Last year, Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai (R-PA) admitted that voter identification efforts were designed to suppress Democratic votes, telling a Republican Steering Committee meeting that Voter ID “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
A thread on this topic; in so far as the SDMB has a representative selection of non-American dopers
Short answer, for seemingly the rest of the world, concern as to who gets a bench seat on their country’s highest court is meh.
I honestly don’t know what it’s like in other countries - should probably read up on the subject myself. But the judiciary has become so blatantly politicized that it’s in danger of becoming viewed as an extension of polarized politics, and if that happens, it becomes either discredited, or it becomes so badly politicized with loyalists that it rubber stamps an authoritarian regime.
American politics has been badly polarized throughout its history, but we’ve been fortunate in that we’ve at times had the judiciary to fall back on as an arm of the government that can rise above politics and render decisions that even strongman politicians feel compelled to abide by. We’re on the verge of having the supreme court lose that distinction, and we as a nation would suffer. In my view - and I’m being completely serious - if the judicial branch loses its credibility, then we’re probably well on the way to being ruled by the military or a military/political regime at some point in the not-too-distant future.
The judiciary lost its credibility with Bush v Gore. America is in its death spiral.
Last year? That story was published in 2013.
That and Citizens United.
ETA: Oh, and also trashing the Voting Rights Act (Shelby vs Holder).
I know that, it was a direct quote from the article. Conservative voter suppression is not a new tactic, it is a key element of the movement: stoke white suburban fears of people of color and suppress minority voting.
Exactly, people are living in a fantasy land if they think once Trump goes away, it will all be better. Trump is a symptom of a profoundly broken nation and the tensions that produced him are nothing to the tensions that are coming now that climate change has reached its tipping point. We simply do not have the resiliency to meet the challenges we face and will not thrive. Meanwhile, people will keep telling themselves we’re the greatest nation on earth as the rest of the world laughs and laughs.