Well… fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck…
“Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he is retiring from the Supreme Court, a move that gives President Trump the chance to replace the court’s pivotal justice and dramatically shift the institution to the right, setting up a bitter partisan showdown on Kennedy’s successor.”
In fairness, he was a Regan nominee, and while he’s done the right thing a few times in his 30 year carrier, he’s a conservative through and through and replacing him with another one is kinda a, more things change and then more things stay the same kinda deal.
Kinda similar to Scalia to be honest. Gorsuch is just kinda a more boring copy of him. Whatever nimrod they replace Kennedy with will just be filling the robe.
Or we could grow a pair and keep the court at 4-4?
This is the correct answer.
How?
The Republicans have 51 Senators (and have Pence to break any potential tie). I don’t want to be a defeatist here, but there isn’t a way for this to be held up unless a couple Republican Senators defect and decide to vote no on a Trump nominee.
And almost as bad(?), if by some miracle the Democrats do manage to prevent Trump from nominating a new Justice before November, that will just spur Republican turnout in the mid-term elections, possibly offsetting the potential Democratic “wave,” making it that much harder for the Dems to take the House or Senate.
In short, welcome to the Republic of Gilead…
If the GOP appoints anyone, it could literally end marriage equality and reproductive rights.
Exactly. Kennedy may have been mostly a Conservative Justice, but at least on a couple issues, he voted with the Liberal justices. I doubt any justice that Trump nominates will even do that.
I die in a particicution, calling it now.
Stop calling for civility and insisting on following the rules. Fight fire with fire. Use every dirty trick just like the Republicans keep doing. Invent new dirty tricks. Lie, cheat, and also steal. Even a weakling like me can beat up a heavyweight if I can kick them in the junk and poke them in the eyes.
Fine. Throw civility and following the rules out the window. Now what?
How do we stop this from happening? Because I don’t see a way to do that other than a couple Republican Senators voting no.
Dirty tricks won’t stop this. Using fire won’t stop this.
You can burn down as many buildings as you want, you can kick out as many Republicans from restaurants as you want. Hell, you can even punch as many Nazis as you want, but at the end of the day, if Trump nominates a justice, and 50 Senators vote for him (or shockingly a her), there is nothing you or I can do to stop this.
What you’re saying is there’s no reason for me to do anything but leave the country and never return…
The one thing, the ONE THING, that could blunt this is that there is literally no conservative “wave.” Analysis of their voting block has shown that it has stabilized over the last 20ish years or so - 60 million +/- 3 million votes. Nothing will spur them to any further action.
We could be wrong, but probably not. There are more Democratic voters, period full stop, than Republican voters.
If we can get them to turn out, it can be done.
It is literally a dying faction.
So obstruct like crazy, vote in as many Democrats as possible, turn over the executive, and pack the court.
Or.
Or.
Or.
Guillotines.
Are you ready to join me in burning everything down yet?
I was just gonna say that. But they’re cumbersome and not very portable.
See the president has like the secret service and stuff. But I’ve met both my senators and my rep. No armed guards, no nothing.
As pessimistic as I am right now, it can get worse. Think about this…
At least Anthony Kennedy was willing to entertain the idea that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. He just couldn’t pull the trigger.
Any Trump nominee will most likely be 100% against it. That means that Republicans will have almost free reign to gerrymander the shit out of districts.
Which is why we burn it down now, before it actually gets worse.
See?
It always comes back to tearing it down.
I don’t think he was going to pull this trigger.
Certainly not with him retiring at the end of the term. All of the court is so fucking reverent of their legacy, and him doing anything but rubber stamping the worst shit would have be overturned. NEXT YEAR.
Serious question, what does burning it down even look like in the modern era?
Burning it down has been done before a few time in history. I think in France it looked like a spontaneous angry mob storming government buildings and killing almost everyone inside, followed by a few charismatic people using their maxed CHA to increase the size of the mob. Then the rest of France kinda got in on the action.
We have the internet now though. How does eating the rich differ now from then?
He didn’t pull the trigger now, but maybe, possibly, at some point, he could have pulled the trigger.
Now though, I don’t think we get a justice that’s even willing to consider it.
That’s a legitimate question that I have not thought through much, except that almost certainly the under-privileged will suffer horribly.
The question remains whether or not there are peaceful ways to enact change, because if they’re truly gone, then burning it down may be the safer option.
Ultimately, I think it will look the way it has always looked: an angry mob storming buildings and blood in the streets.
It’s not terribly realistic, but then, I spent all of 2016 thinking that President Trump was unrealistic.
There’s a bit more to consider. Militarized police. Way back when, while the guards/police definitely out gunned/sworded the masses, the masses effectively had the same tools at their disposal. Just less of them.
The modern era features all kinds of force multiplier and crowd control technology on the side that isn’t ours.
I do wonder if the masses are even capable of taking on the establishment. I’m not saying it can’t, just that it’s not been done before at this time period.