Mitch McConnell and the people he represents (i.e. not so much his Kentucky constituents as mega-donors across the nation) realized their decades-long dream this week – the seating of a sixth hyper-conservative Supreme Court justice who will very likely play an important role in rolling back labor rights, voting rights, the regulatory power of federal agencies, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and much more in the decades to come. Stick a fork in it: the Supreme Court is now locked down by reactionaries for the foreseeable future, thanks to the determination and ruthlessness of the Republicans and the lack of focus and passion on the part of Democrats. We had three major electoral opportunities to regain control of the Court since 2000, and we blew every one of them, and now we’ll have to deal with the consequences.
Readers of this blog and listeners to my podcast, Strange Sound, will know that I grew up in a white, suburban, solidly Republican town in upstate New York, and it will surprise no one to hear that many of my former high school classmates had cause to celebrate the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett this week. I have to say, though, what I saw instead was a shocking amount of whining on the part of my old Republican friends. Instead of high-fiving each other over the awesome news that any future progressive legislation will be knocked back by judicial fiat until kingdom come, they were screaming about the possibility that a new Democratic administration would “pack the courts”, do away with the filibuster, ruin the Senate as a “deliberative” body, etc. Seriously? These folks need to take a day off once in a while.
Of course, that is the source of their strength, in a certain respect. This is a movement fueled by aggrievement. The Republicans have never, ever forgiven the Democrats for failing to confirm Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork back in 1987, when they held the majority. They held a similar grudge over the hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas back in 1991. (Mind you, in both of these cases, the ultimate result was the seating of a tremendously conservative justice on the Supreme Court.) They fumed over George H.W. Bush’s loss in 1992, and subjected Clinton to eight solid years of investigation because of their resentment. This anger is part of what animates them, and I think we need to borrow some of this for our own movement. The Republicans must be made to pay a political price for this, not just in this election, but into perpetuity. We must turn the Garland nomination obstructionism and the Barrett confirmation into our equivalent of the right’s Bork obsession – painful losses that galvanize us to fight all the harder. Our politicians must remind the voters of these wrongs over and over and over.
Anger can be useful, if it’s channeled in the right way. After what happened this past week, I would think we on the left would be more than ready to turn up the heat under these fuckers, and make them pay. We shall see.
luv u,
jp
In listening to the hagiographic coverage put out by NPR, NBC and MSNBC, it’s clear that H. W, Bush’s conservative politics is a kind of “sweet spot” for our mainstream press – the ideal foil to the uncouth hair-hatted fiend who currently occupies the White House. Like the McCain funeral, this is an opportunity to demonstrate their middle-of-the-road reactionary bona fides. It’s as if there’s Trump and then everyone else, and they take the side of the latter. The stupidity of the rhetoric is kind of sobering, though. On Morning Joe, Willie Geist was talking about how Bush 41 chose to join the Navy as an aviator, as if that was a singularly selfless act. The guy is so distant from the notion of conscription that he barely knows what he’s talking about. Note to Willie: Practically everybody ended up in uniform and shipped overseas in those days. Aside from a draft, there was enormous societal pressure to join up and do your part. Every military age male in my extended family at that time was sent to fight in World War II (one didn’t return, another committed suicide afterwards). No shade on Bush 41 – he sacrificed during the war, but his experience was very, very common.