The liberal justice took aim at various recent rulings, including one that paved the way for rampant partisan gerrymandering of legislative districts.
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan sharply criticized the Supreme Court’s conservative majority Tuesday, saying it undermined democracy in a series of rulings, including several that have prompted a new wave of legislative map-drawing that has increasingly eliminated competitive districts.
Kagan, who has dissented in those cases, also took aim at the majority for striking down campaign finance restrictions and, as she put it, the “evisceration” of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that was enacted to protect minority voters.
“Part of the reason why the court got it wrong was a kind of lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions,” she said in remarks at Catholic University’s law school in Washington, D.C.
I’ll take “Obvious shit” for 1,000 Alex.
They are 100% undermining democracy. They’re traitors to the country and humanity. I’m sire we’ll do nothing about it though.
There has to be a stronger word than “accuses” somewhere in the dictionary.
“their rights to voting equality” and have the effect of “driving people away from the center, towards the wings, toward the extremes”
That was their objective. They want tribalism so it can be some weird, disgusting Super Bowl of blood, like the Civil War. Also, we know there are nation states fomenting this to divide us so they can wedge their whatever forward.
“Part of the reason why the court got it wrong was a kind of lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions,” she said in remarks at Catholic University’s law school in Washington, D.C.
They know full well the consequences of their decisions and are glad of it.
Some people just can’t accept that human beings can be that evil. So they think they’re misinformed or got tricked into doing the thing. I used to be like that, seeing good in people to a fault. Some people are just evil, cartoonishly evil. Straight up Dr. Evil evil.
they might realize some consequences if republicans lose so much they essentially become a third party.
There’s no viable alternative party to turn the Republican Party into a third party. Widespread electoral reform would need to occur to make that possible, something that must occur at the state level for each and every state.
There’s never going to be three viable parties at once (as you said, not without extensive changes to how voting works, anyway), but that doesn’t mean the same two parties are always the major ones. It would be entirely possible for the Republican Party to implode badly enough that the less-extreme ones all defect and we end up with one neoliberal/conservative party and one progressive/socialist party.
in that situation you would temporarily see a uniparty which we know fights with itself to begin with given its big tent philosophy. It would not take very long for it to split. Im thinking you would likely see something like a progressive democratic party split off and the standard democrats would become the de facto conservative party. Could go the other way though.
Idk, I’m sure the SCOTUS is full of very reasonable and sensible people.
Has anyone just tried talking to them while using facts and logic?
She said the loud part out loud?
The US Supreme Court was never a particularly democratic institution, conservative majority or not.
Sure, but that’s almost a non-sequitur. She wasn’t saying anything about how democratic the institution of the court itself is.
When has the SCOTUS not enjoyed a large conservative majority?
The Warren Court, from 1953-1969. Which is when most of the advances to civil rights that are currently being unmade took place.
The more that do this, the more they will all do this. Encourage this by calling your reps.
Wait, encourage this? Aha! J’accuse! Found the wolf!
So how is she going to fix it then? Tired of hearing the whining about the problems, start taking action.
I agree. People acting like merely being “disgusted” with what’s happening is enough have no fucking idea what they’re up against. You can’t negotiate with fascists or terrorists. You can’t be reasonable. You can’t tell them how disgusted you are with them. They don’t care, it’s their superpower. They don’t give a fuck about you. They want you to die screaming, and they will laugh when you do.
People who are “disgusted” with this need to start taking actual steps, and the disgusted people still in positions of some actual power and authority are especially the ones with the most responsibility to do something about it. Even if they’ve been robbed of the majority of their power, their position is still important.
Hypothetically, if you were a supreme court justice and you believed the actions the supreme court were taking no longer served justice, is there a law against joining or forming a shadow supreme court that makes and publishes supreme court opinions and decisions that are more just and that reasonable people can actually agree with? I don’t think so. Would it have any official legal power or standing? Not in the current government. But would it piss them the fuck off? Yes. Would it provide a seed of resistance that others can latch onto? Yes. That’s what we need, nucleation sites for the bubbles of resistance to develop on and build into something big enough to breathe on its own. Would it be a lightning rod? Of course it would. That’s the cost of resistance against fascism. They will attack you, immediately and viciously. But they’re going to do that anyway, eventually. You can’t escape it by keeping a low profile. Worse choices are coming for you if you wait. The only thing that will avoid that is complete collaboration and capitulation until you become one of them yourself.
I don’t know a lot about this individual supreme court justice, and I don’t want to make any personal allegations I can’t support, but I do have plenty of reason to be suspicious that few to none of the people in positions of power like hers are actually making any meaningful attempts at resistance. They give some sternly worded speeches but do nothing that threatens to delegitimize the system they are part of. I can’t imagine why “Part of the reason why the court got it wrong was a kind of lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions” doesn’t fill me with inspiring confidence that she understands or admits the scale and significance of the problem here. I don’t want to sound like I’m not stuck in the mentality of “blue team good red team bad”, but perhaps power corrupts just a little bit? Even if you’re the good guy? Maybe you can still be part of the problem even when you’re wearing the right color cape?
It’s not just about making empty protests to satisfy principles, it may seem meaningless but it’s not, it may seem like a losing battle but it’s not, they wouldn’t need to or bother to attack it so viciously if it actually meant you were actually losing. It’s about building alternative systems we can turn to and still rely on when the rest of our established systems are just as systematically dismantled. If they’re undermining democracy, build a new democracy they can’t touch, and don’t let them in the fucking door. Trump understands the power of a name, so you can tell them it’s the United States of No-Maga. You can pin your hopes on the broken, gerrymandered, sabotaged voting process if you want, but just be prepared for the fact that it’s going to be buried in a financial, legal, and informational avalanche, so when (not if) that too eventually fails, ask yourself why you’re still trying to play by their rules when they aren’t playing by yours? If you want a functioning democracy, build it. It doesn’t even require a trip to Home Depot. It just requires people to participate and have confidence that there’s a better way than this. That’s all it needs to make it start to fucking happen.
Government requires the consent of the governed, whether it’s willing consent or coerced consent doesn’t matter. While you still have some ability to resist their coercion, now is the time to actively withdraw your consent from this government and reserve it for another. The constitution is a good place to start, but keep in mind it was only written by mere mortals, and hasn’t really been kept up to date, so even that is worth taking with a few grains of salt and an understanding that there’s room for improvement if you’re planning to build something better.
shadow supreme court that makes and publishes supreme court opinions and decisions that are more just and that reasonable people can actually agree with?
We have that; it’s called “writing a dissent” and Kagan (and Jackson, and Sotomayor) has been doing it this entire time.
You’re correct that dissents don’t have any official legal power or standing, but the three non-traitor justices sure as Hell can’t give them that themselves so I’m not sure what more you’re asking them to do.
It’s more on you than her to fix it. She did more than you did today (hint: it’s in the article)
