This is more or less the argument you'd hear from a Biden supporter against packing the court. The counterargument is that the judicial system is already massively politicized so 🤷♂️
Politicizing is one issue, the other issue is that where do we end up after repeated court packing? We will all be supreme court justices on that blessed day.
I don't know that I actually agree with that but it's at least a realistic fear.
This concept that politicization is somehow a bug and not a feature always bugs me. Was there a point in our history when we weren't politicized, outside of a state of mobilization for war?
Politics is simply how people make decisions outside of rigid authoritarian structures.
Trying to eliminate politicization is trying to eliminate representative government by the populace, aka, democratic rule. The people are free to be political, that is all there really is to it.
This really reminds me a lot about what Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek minister of finance) said abouth the EU. It’s been a while, but the gist of it was exactly what you say, that they have depoliticized the political system of the EU. Leaving a technocracy that is completely immune to debate, regardless of who is right or not.
This is an apples to orangutans comparison. The USA is a country that operates under a single representative government. The EU is a multi-nation body that cooperates on economic matters.
I hate this hand-wringing over "b-but what if we break the rules for a good thing?" Meanwhile every time the GOP comes into power they trod on rules and norms in their crusade to bring American political and civil rights back to the 1800s.
Like, this court wasn't just politicized, it was hijacked when they refused to consider Merrick Garland at the end of the Obama presidency, only to ram through appointments under the Trump presidency.
Packing the court to better align with where American society actually is, when specifically in retaliation for the GOP'S attempts to force millenials and zoomers to live in a Christian Theocracy for the next 50 years strikes me as the only way for Democrsts to actually govern successfully.
We were dangerously close to the gutting of American democracy this past week, but we got lucky the court rejected Independent Legislature Theory.
How is that a fear? That would be awesome.
In any case, as long as the supreme court is gonna be a bunch of clowns, no reason not to turn it into a circus.
I think the issue is packing SCOTUS isn't even a band aid fix to the problem. You'd have to completely overhaul the way the Court works to get a meaningful impact on the way it operates currently. I've seen ideas floated like expanding the judiciary and then choosing a certain number of justices randomly to preside over each case, but that is probably worse than our current system because you could end up with an even more radical Court presiding over a very impactful case.
Wouldn't packing the SC realistically break the SC so hard it would have to be overhauled?