Democracy in America

 

Mitch McConnell shares the ignominy of Donald Trump for doing more shredding  our democracy than any other of the conservative actors of our time.

McConnell thought Donald Trump was in his political death throes after Trump’s slim escape from conviction in his Senate impeachment trial.  After voting not to convict, McConnell passed the task off to the Justice department, which under Merrick Garland, diddled about prosecuting a clearly criminal insurrectionist and his enraged band of miscreants.  “Trump will be held accountable by the justice system,” McConnell asserted.  Maybe not.  Trump is trying to run out the clock.

When Al Gore lost the election of 2000, the Supreme Court throwing the election to Bush, Gore dutifully stepped aside “for the good of the country.”  How wistful, even naïve, that seems today, one would ever thinking that Trump would ever do anything for the good of the country.  Instead, he puts country through the worst constitutional agonies since the prelude to a civil war in which 700,000 Americans died slaughtering each other. 

In 1857, the Supreme Court issued the infamous Dred Scott decision, denying essentially that black people are humans, instead they are chattels, like cows or dogs.  Roger Taney,  chief justice, owned slaves and was apparently determined to keep them.  His decision was supported by other members of a slave-owner influenced court.

The Taney court was, for the time, a national disgrace, contributing to national anger, the court repealing the Missouri compromise by judicial fiat.  The Missouri compromise was an attempt to balance the entry of slave states with free states entering the Union. Dred Scott enraged abolitionist and popular opinion, eventually electing Abraham Lincoln.

The Roberts court will, in 100 years be looked upon the same way as we look on Taney’s abortionate decision (forgive the pun).  This court has in short order, repealed a woman’s right to reproductive choice, exacerbated the presence of dark money in politics, and arrogated unto itself the rewriting of the 14^th Amendment that had clearly barred insurrectionists from holding office.   Add to this, corrupt practices and gifts received by the justices the largesse of which comes from billionaires having potential interests to be protected by their judicial friends, including Clarence Thomas, whose wife helped fund the festive party at the Capitol on January 6^th.  

And let us not forget the Roberts court’s evisceration of the voting rights act, that had required those great bastions of civil liberties, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi to preclear voting districts to protect minorities.   We have done all the civil rights work necessary, says Justice Roberts, all is well, no further protections needed. 

Justice Samuel Alito, that paradigm of intolerance, cited that a 17^th century precedent in English common law that criminalized the killing of a fetus.  Originalism run wild, authored by a religious zealot. He forgot to mention the burning at the stake part.

The sad part of all of this is that the present court comprises justices appointed by two presidents elected by a minority of American voters.  By a president who lost the popular vote to Al Gore, and a president who lost the popular vote by millions to Hillary Clinton. Abetted by leader McConnell who would not even consider Merick Garland because it was too close to an election, except when it was Amy Coney Barrett, who needed a quick confirmation close to the next election. Public sentiment be damned.  So when one speaks of American exceptionalism, it is in the pejorative sense.  Frank Underwood would be proud.

Moreover, the coming election will have two candidates, neither of whom inspires much confidence.  One is an unhinged criminal defendant trying, with the aid of his judicial friends, to stay out of jail, and the other who projects being feeble and frail.  Perhaps he is not, but that is the popular perception, and perception being reality, these days, you fill in the blanks.  All of this to be decided by a few thousand voters in battleground states. The Electoral College says, why should voters on the coasts where most of the people live have an equal say with rural overrepresented voters?  After all, 500,000 voters in North Dakota should have two senators, just like the 40,000,000 people who live in California.

 That’s the way it was in 1789; it should stay the same in 2024, don’t you think?

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