An Old-Fashioned Crisis for American Democracy

[Nevilledog]

https://zacharydcarter.substack.com/p/another-crisis-for-american-democracy?s=r


The most frightening implications of the Supreme Court's apparent plan to overturn Roe v. Wade do not involve abortion.

Justice Samuel Alito's brazen, bizarre draft opinion would undoubtedly engender tremendous, unnecessary suffering for countless Americans. Even in the most restrictive red states, thousands of women receive abortions every year, both in clinics and by prescription. What it means to be a woman in red America -- and what it means to have women in your family -- is about to change dramatically, for the worse.

But embedded in Alito's inflammatory language is an extraordinarily radical conception of American government, grounded in a worldview held by only about a fifth of the U.S. population, invoked to detonate a Constitutional right that has been accepted under American law for half a century. As a result, repealing Roe entails not only a disaster for women's rights or even the legitimacy of the High Court — but a crisis for American democracy.

And so I find myself agreeing with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened before. In an open letter to the Court's conservative wing, Stephens emphasizes that whatever one thinks about the merits of Roe, overturning it would require a sweeping transformation of American life that most people associate with radical social change, not cautious conservatism. Exchanging a settled legal consensus decades in the making for the views of a fringe, fervent minority is, Stephens argues, an invitation to social upheaval. And the testimony of sitting conservative justices in recent confirmation hearings will only make matters worse. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh both emphasized the degree to which Roe had been settled law, confirmed as legal precedent. To put it more bluntly than Stephens does, the draft opinion makes them look like lying cranks. No democracy will accept such an outrage lying down. No one can predict exactly how the ensuing culture war will be resolved, but the fabric of the nation will be tested.

Rebecca Traister and others have detailed the extremism of Alito's draft opinion language. He uses derisive terms ripped from the talking points of far-right activists, calling those who support abortion rights "abortionists" as he invokes both the Dred Scott decision and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as judicial debacles comparable to Roe. Nobody deploys such language by accident. Alito and his allies are deliberately insulting a significant majority of the country, along with the memories of the three Nixon appointees and two Eisenhower appointees who issued Roe and the two Reagan appointees, the Ford appointee and the George H.W. Bush appointee who upheld Roe in Casey vs. Planned Parenthood.

*snip*

[dwayneb]

1. Why is anyone surprised? That's the only question.

I have been trying to explain this threat to those around me for 50 years, because anyone with half a brain could see this coming.

My children understand it well because I made sure they were well schooled in history and political science and made sure they had the critical thinking skills to be able to discern between propaganda and reasoned thought.

The Fascist Right has been working toward this for a long, long time. They are not stupid, they saw clearly the land mines and weak points that lay under the framework of our Constitution and our rule of law.

One of the most blatant was the concept of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court judges. They had no problem packing the court with extremists who are ready to pull the pin to detonate the grenade which may very well lead to the end of American democracy as we have enjoyed it in our lives.

Now we will see if Biden and Democrat leaders understand the threat and are willing to do what is needed to save our union. Will he move to expand the court? It's time for Democrats to play the same game as the Fascists.