https://newrepublic.com/post/183374/trump-lawyer-will-scharf-supreme-court-immunity-ruling-2020-election
Donald Trump is already using the Supreme Court immunity ruling exactly how you’d expect.
Honestly, I think that impeaching all 6 justices is the right thing to do.
Just explain it to people in congress. You WILL lose your power when the whip comes down. You MAY be imprisoned or killed if you don’t get in line, and even if not, any power you had in congress will be stripped and discarded. There is no safety, even for the most extreme of the true believers. This is your chance. If you don’t try to stop it, then I think it’s better odds than 50/50 than within a couple of years you’ll be saying you’d do ANYTHING to be able to go back to today and do it, and have your old life just hanging out in Washington and doing legalized insider trading and collecting bricampaign contributions and not having to worry about what will happen to you or your family or your home, again.
I don’t know if the people will believe if it is explained to them. Groupthink and complacency are powerful things. But that is absolutely what’s at stake.
Why bother with impeachment? Biden should just exploit their most recent verdict and round them up as part of an emergency official act.
This is the fascism trap. It’s tempting to fight back “in kind” once the rules start going out the window, and obviously by the letter of their decision it would be perfectly legal for him to just assassinate them as an official act and then nominate all new justices. But this is a trap. The further we all abandon the unspoken rules that keep things on the rails, the worse it gets. You have to fight back on the tilted table without yourself breaking any rules you can avoid breaking.
It’s a shitty situation but that is the strategy, as far as I understand it.
(And I know, or I assume, that you weren’t serious - but still it applies, even to more minor things like solving the problem by nominating 10 new justices or things like that.)
Isn't this the same "taking the high road" strategy that has consistently put democrats at a disadvantage when dealing with a side that doesn't care about the rules? I bring this up because I'm trying to get an understanding for this framework of thinking. In my heart, I know it's probably the correct path, but I know it's not the best one when dealing with the current political game.
So I am basing this on a book “How Democracies Die” that describes a series of case studies of nations that were threatened by a fascist movement, and those that succumbed, and those that defeated it, and what were the differences and tactics involved.
It’s fairly depressing, because a lot of times once it reaches a certain point there aren’t a lot of good options, but it is based on real outcomes and I think it’s instructive.
The Democrats’ “taking the high road” that they like to do is different. Assassinating the justices would be responding in kind. Growing the court would be a dangerous escalation. Making a crash priority out of impeaching them, like equal in priority with taking your fucking vacation for July 4th or passing a resolution honoring National Snails Day or whatever useless thing that are doing instead, would be a proper response (to me). Holding a hand-wringing press conference and then doing more or less nothing other than crossing fingers and hoping that this November doesn’t bring the end of the Republic - I.e. taking the high road, i.e. apparently what they’ve decided to do - seems like a pretty sure road to calamity. That, I’m 100% not advocating as the right course of action, although I can see how it might have sounded like I was.
You gotta screw the whole system up. But not like how the fascists would. Going to filibuster the SCOTUS? Fill it with 99 judges.
But this is a trap. The further we all abandon the unspoken rules that keep things on the rails, the worse it gets.
The left: "we can't break decorum and unwritten rules, or the right will do it even worse!"
The right: does it even worse anyway.
the left
Liberals.
Leftists have been screaming at them for ages to fucking do something.
Liberals refuse to break rules that exist entirely within their own heads.
If you're afraid republicans are going to shoot democracy in the face, the answer is not to shoot democracy in the face before they can do it.
Everyone seems to think that it's naïve to not do first what we expect the republicans to do once they get the power. But just because the Supreme Court made fascism legal, that doesn't make it any less fascism to do it.
America's dependence on unspoken rules and the assumption that people would abide by those rules is the weakest link in American democracy. It was just a matter of time until someone decided to exploit that...
Part of the point of the book was, every country is like that. You can't just write some stuff in a book and expect it to do anything. People will follow them, or not, or they will as the current Court is doing find absurd reasons to argue why they are following the rules when they are not. At the end of the day it's just a book.
Habits are strong, shared values are strong, codes and norms and laws and traditions are strong. But they're not invulnerable. Fire up people's loyalty and sense of justice and tell them that the leader is the law and that's now the most important thing, and watch all the laws in the world crumble and tear like wet tissues. It doesn't matter if it's just in people's heads or it's written in stone on every street corner. It doesn't make a difference.
Dont forget we got most of our rights by making plays that were "illegal". Every single right you enjoy today is because people risked it all to change it. Biden should do it. Why? Because good people are accustomed to making good choices, and it is much easier for a good person to make one intentionally morally bad choice, than it is for a bad person to make morally good choices as the leader of our country.
It's getting worse either way it seems, frankly it's getting to the point that drastic action now could prevent worse harm in future.
And yet... you're the one in this thread who's stumping for the boot coming down on all our necks. But sure. Keep talking.
And pay your power bill, and brush your teeth even though you already did yesterday, and try to prevent a horrifying fascist dictatorship with a credible chance at taking over the US from succeeding. I know I know it is oppressive to have to do these things.
I mean honestly I’m not even saying you should do that third one, just that you should stop implying that the pro killing protestors and political opponents guy is basically the same thing as an identifiably old person who isn’t as on board with a good progressive agenda as I would want him to be. But yes, whichever version you want, all three of those things are among the things I would recommend to get in line with if you want a safe and happy life going forward for the next few years.
I was remarking on the fact that the guy I was commenting under was wanting the blue tie guy to do the same thing the red tie guy wants to do. Advocating for fascism-left.
Biden should use the 6 infinity stones Supreme Court judges to destroy the infinity stones fire the Supreme Court judges
I just looked up the inaugural oath and the president promises to defend the Constitution from domestic enemies. So if the president as part of their duties consider the supreme court a thread to the constitution then it's his duty to fire them. And they already said he'd be immune.
Not sure what he's waiting for to be honest.
Biden needs to dissolve the Supreme Court and recreate it with more justices and term limits as an official act.
There is no federal documentation saying the President can't. And thusly we see Biden should remove them to show them what naked force feels like to receive.
I agree that there are 6 Justices contorting their understanding of the Constitution but I don’t think impeachment is the answer. The political tit-for-tat has only grown more outrageous each passing year, from withholding SCOTUS justice confirmations to cabinet picks and budget brinksmanship. Our elected officials are more interested in scoring points than governing. Both sides of the aisle should be ashamed of how they are representing us, “We, The People.”
I wish I had a solution but I’ve grown disillusioned by the one-upsmanship and grandstanding. There is no coming together anymore.
This exchange from DS9’s Past Tense, fittingly set in late-August 2024, comes to mind.
SISKO: It's not that they don't give a damn, Doctor. It's that they've given up. The social problems they face seem too enormous to deal with.
BASHIR: That only makes things worse. Causing people to suffer because you hate them is terrible, but causing people to suffer because you have forgotten how to care? That's really hard to understand.
SISKO: They'll remember. It'll take some time and it won't be easy, but eventually people in this century will remember how to care.
Call it Trekkie idealism but I still have hope. Live long and prosper, y’all 🖖
impeachment or death. They are the only two options I'm aware of to get a SCOTUSee out.
And the latter now includes assisted suicide with a Biden held gun.
The US now has nine unelected people who control the President.
What can go wrong?
I was about to get really angry but then I saw your sarcasm punctuation so I'm calm again.
They've made a complete mockery of our entire country and all of its systems. I'm about to turn to extremism. Even my local action feels like its useless in the face of this shit.
If the supreme court is going to make political decisions and try to interpret the laws in such a way to support those decisions then they should be an elected body.
Electors are appointed by the states and counted by Congress. Where does the president come in?
We all saw this coming, that everything Trump did as president would be argued as an official act.
Was it an official act when he stole classified documents and sold them to our enemies? What ever even happened with that? They raided his fucking house, and then we never heard anything about it again. There's too much corruption with this guy to keep track. That's why he should be held accountable for treason with the strictest possible sentence.
I guess they can say that now, considering that corruption is now legal if your name ends with a Trump.