SCOTUS under Trump

[Enidigm]

I just an email from WaPo saying the vote has been made.

[abidingdude]

I know that Collins will vote yes but I want her to do the right thing so badly it’s still gonna break my heart when she does.

[sillhouette]

The cloture vote passed (51/49) about an hour ago. Full vote probably tomorrow evening.

[Enidigm]

Women’s March on Versailles: Turning Point in the French Revolution

The women's protest that sparked the Russian Revolution

'People Are No Longer Afraid.' Hundreds of Women Protest As Kavanaugh's Fate...

[JonRowe]

I think, despite everything, he is 1 of 9. He obviously doesn’t belong there, as his tenor and inconsistencies during his hearing alone show that he is incapable of serving in the highest court of the land for a lifetime, let alone the numerous un-investigated assault allegations from his past.

But, he is 1 of 9, we traded Scalia for a Kennedy and Kennedy for a trash Scalia.

His vote alone won’t greenlight the court’s acceptance of all of Trump’s nonsense. Gorsuch said as much when he was confirmed, and I don’t think 6 of the other 7 hold as crazy partisan views as Kavanaugh.

I guess I am at the bargaining stage of this now.

I am secretly hoping that McCain told his successor before he died to vote no on whatever McConnell brought as the supreme court nod. A final fuck you from beyond the grave to the GOP establishment.

[ravenight]

I am secretly hoping that McCain told his successor before he died to vote no on whatever McConnell brought as the supreme court nod.

McCain was alive well after Kavanaugh was nominated, and I don’t know if he had any idea who his successor would be, but I do wonder if that’s one reason for Jon Kyl being installed there - he has no reason to buck the party and as a long time GOP man, no soul to get in the way.

[barstein]

Protesters Chug Beer Outside Mitch McConnell's House (Video)

[BiggerBoat]

Hopefully the soon-to-be Justice Kavanaugh will endeavor to upend his reputation as a misogynistic partisan hack by making some moderate and even lean-left decisions, but I sure as heck doubt it.

Pack the court in 2020, I say. Fuck it. The process is broken. Might as well just take a sledgehammer to it.

[vyshka]

Gorsuch is a Kennedy?

[triggercut]

Paul F. Tompkins (PFTompkins)

[CraigM]

Yeah, that’s not remotely accurate I would say.

[Oghier]

Flake reminds us that ‘moderate’ Republicans are just regular Republicans who whine a lot before doing whatever McConnell allows.

[Calelari]

what I’d do if I was someone like Flake or Collins

If you were someone like that you’d hem and haw and furrow your brow about your “concerns” on the chat shows and whatnot, and then vote the party line at the end.

[Enidigm]

One thing that has become clear to me in RL is that conservatives are kind of freaking out about protests becoming personal. They genuinely feel this is the long-awaited Step Toward Communism they’ve been pearl clutching over for decades. Tracking down politicians and protesting outside their homes and businesses is Not Ok to them, no sir. It freaks them right the hell out, and from their perspective makes them seem like the party of decency and civility being “assaulted” by radical leftists.

Since we’re living in different realities now, i can’t see this as something good, whatever the abstract “justice” or merit of it all is. It just feels like more ammunition for whatever is coming.

[KevinC]

One thing that has become clear to me in RL is that conservatives are kind of freaking out about protests becoming personal.

Good, because it is personal. These are the people destroying the environment, depriving they and their families of healthcare, kidnapping children at the border, and emboldening racists and bigots across the country.

Damn right, it’s personal. Bring the fight right to their fucking doorstep.

[Menzo]

One thing that has become clear to me in RL is that conservatives are kind of freaking out about protests becoming personal.

Yep, let’s not forget they are the party of civility.

[Oghier]

Good, because it is personal. These are the people destroying the environment, depriving they and their families of healthcare, kidnapping children at the border, and emboldening racists and bigots across the country.

Couldn’t agree more.

As others have said upthread, we may be headed towards 1960’s levels of politically motivated unrest and violence. If the GOP keeps the House and they continue along the current path of authoritarianism, donor-focused policy, racism, misogyny… well, the next few years could get ugly.

I’m not talking about crazy civil war or secession scenarios. Those will not happen. But I do think this may be a good time to invest in whoever makes tear gas.

[CraigM]

Like I said, they have insulated themselves so they only fear their donors, not their voters. This only resolved once they fear their voters once more.

And if they push so that they can insulate themselves from protests, from having to answer to constituents when making objectively shitty actions like this, from even hearing the backlash?

History tells us that erecting barricades is ultimately not going to solve this. Make it so the people can’t be heard legitimately, and that’s when the real nasty starts.

[Rock8man]

An essay by someone Vox called a leading historian on the holocaust:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/

A second aspect of the interwar period with all too many similarities to our current situation is the waning of the Weimar Republic. Paul von Hindenburg, elected president of Germany in 1925, was endowed by the Weimar Constitution with various emergency powers to defend German democracy should it be in dire peril. Instead of defending it, Hindenburg became its gravedigger, using these powers first to destroy democratic norms and then to ally with the Nazis to replace parliamentary government with authoritarian rule. Hindenburg began using his emergency powers in 1930, appointing a sequence of chancellors who ruled by decree rather than through parliamentary majorities, which had become increasingly impossible to obtain as a result of the Great Depression and the hyperpolarization of German politics.

Because an ever-shrinking base of support for traditional conservatism made it impossible to carry out their authoritarian revision of the constitution, Hindenburg and the old right ultimately made their deal with Hitler and installed him as chancellor. Thinking that they could ultimately control Hitler while enjoying the benefits of his popular support, the conservatives were initially gratified by the fulfillment of their agenda: intensified rearmament, the outlawing of the Communist Party, the suspension first of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly and then of parliamentary government itself, a purge of the civil service, and the abolition of independent labor unions. Needless to say, the Nazis then proceeded far beyond the goals they shared with their conservative allies, who were powerless to hinder them in any significant way.

If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.

One can predict that henceforth no significant judicial appointments will be made when the presidency and the Senate are not controlled by the same party. McConnell and our dysfunctional and disrespected Congress have now ensured an increasingly dysfunctional and disrespected judiciary, and the constitutional balance of powers among the three branches of government is in peril.

Whatever secret reservations McConnell and other traditional Republican leaders have about Trump’s character, governing style, and possible criminality, they openly rejoice in the payoff they have received from their alliance with him and his base: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial and environmental deregulation, the nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices (so far) and a host of other conservative judicial appointments, and a significant reduction in government-sponsored health care (though not yet the total abolition of Obamacare they hope for). Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump. The combination of Trump’s abasement before Putin in Helsinki, the shameful separation of families at the border in complete disregard of US asylum law (to say nothing of basic humanitarian principles and the GOP’s relentless claim to be the defender of “family values”), and most recently Michael Cohen’s implication of Trump in criminal violations of campaign finance laws has not shaken the fealty of the Republican old guard, so there is little indication that even an explosive and incriminating report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller will rupture the alliance.

[KevinC]

Totally agree with you. The right wing media has been whipping up that side for decades, but this is the first time I’ve felt this kind of rising anger on the left. I don’t see this ending calmly if we keep heading in the same direction. As an increasingly minority party, the GOP is going to rely to more and more gerrymandering, voter suppression, and perhaps outright vote manipulation. I mean, they’re already in bed with a foreign dictator.