Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
Europe at least has had the benefit of being able to work country-by-country, whereas the US is one massive tangled morass. Hell, even achieving the kind of restructuring and harmonious cooperation that you see in the EU had to come as a result of two of the most atrocious wars humanity has ever mustered in the span of less than half a century.
Kinda puts it a little more into perspective when you consider the absolute shit-show Europe had to turn into before it was ready to grow up.
Yes, absolutely right. However, it is very sad that the Europeans in particular do not seem to have learned much from their history. I am German and here, unfortunately, a blatantly fascist party is on the rise again. That political direction is unfortunately quite popular in many European countries as of late. It might be similar to what is happening in America: the standard of living is falling and so people seem to be longing for a strong leader who will supposedly improve their living situation. The fact that this strong leader has completely different interests is apparently of no concern to many. They simply vote for the party whose rhetoric appeals to them (foreigners are to blame and so on), and that promises a way back to the good old days. It is enough to make you cry.
Yeah. That's basically what's happening in the US. Combine that with our two political parties not giving a fuck about the voters belonging to the other party, and you've got two, deeply entrenched political parties which can basically do whatever they want because your only real choice is between red or blue.
Then you have the… god I hate this term …privileged… people who vote and donate to team blue and insist on the blue team taking the high road at all costs; because even if the blue team loses you can still claim the moral high ground and that's all that matters in their eyes; they're too comfy and financially insulated to truly feel the affect that blue team losing would have because of feel-good morality.
This comes at the cost of civil rights, because it means team blue (the party currently concerned with civil rights) doesn't really have a reason to expand their voter base outside of the areas they're already entrenched. That's where their big donors are, and they might have to sacrifice their righteous morality in order to expand into the hard red areas.
You've also got team red voters who's views actually align more with team blue, but they vote team red because team red is the only one who actually pretends to listen and serve them; because team blue is too eager to take Ls if it means their precious morality and ethics are intact even though it risks allowing team red to destroy marginalized communities. Also, team red is destroying the quality of life of their voters while successfully convincing them that it's team blue's fault, because any attempt team blue makes at countering them is half-hearted at best.
My biggest fear is that we're heading towards a new civil war, and the history books aren't going to teach how team blue assisted in team red's bullshit by stubbornly insisting that they mustn't take any action that might be immoral or unethical while team red runs rampant.
Sorry to hear that, man. It's definitely a sad situation all around. The apathy of so many is hard to overcome, then there are those like you mentioned who cling to cults of personality or are just looking for a savior. Democracy is still hanging on, but it's in a rough spot.