Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:27 pm
We have no way to know for sure, but I strongly believe the current rush to have Amy Covid Barrett seated ASAP is because they know they're (GOP) in big trouble and are at significant risk of losing the Presidency and possibly critical seats in Congress. Guessing that 2021 looks bad, McConnell is putting everything into seating *another* justice (and as many lower court judges as possible) as a final firewall against what he imagines will be severe (D) reprisal in 2021 and beyond. If they can't control the budget and policies the can certainly potentially influence the decisions made when challenges are made.
A bit late in the response here, but the reason for the rush was because Trump and GOP fully expect to bring election/vote count cases to the SC. Having ACB confirmed gives them at least four judges (ACB, Kavanaugh, Alito, Thomas) who will rule in whatever way helps Trump maintain power. They only need to convince one other (likely Gorsuch) to join them to be able to throw out ballots and potentially swing the election.
The reason I don't think this happens is it'd likely be the end of the United States as we know it. This is well beyond a take the streets moment.
There have been many things that should have been a take to the streets moment in this presidency that weren't, so why not try another? In a hypothetical situation where the SC does rule in Trump's favor and swings the election his way, what do you think taking to the streets will do? I don't see any way that scenario plays out with Trump standing down and we've already seen that Trump/GOP have no problem calling in troops and teargassing citizens protesting. With how much everything has already been corrupted, I don't see any way such a decision gets reversed.
Sustained mass protests have a pretty good track record in getting would-be autocrats to depart office, even in legal frameworks that are decidedly less democratic than ours. In a situation where the public at large views Biden as having won, but Trump is poised to be the electoral college winner in large part *because* of a SCOTUS ruling, particularly if it's 5-4, that would create mass protests that would create *intense* pressure on Trump and the GOP.
That doesn't mean that the forces of good automatically win, it just means that it would be a winnable fight. And be assured that Biden has a lot of experienced smart lawyers figuring out how to channel that into a Biden presidency.
Jeff V wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:55 amAgain, a constitutional convention could specifically exclude the existence of political parties.
Theoretically, maybe. But practically, I'm not sure how you would enforce it. Given just how powerful block voting can be, you would pretty much have to ban people from talking about politics at all to prevent a block voting scenario from occuring. And once you hand government the power to determine what people can and can not talk about, the temptation to use that power for less than pure purposes becomes almost overwhelming to the current political elite.
I suspect we're looking at a case where the cure is worse than the disease.
Oddly enough, my town seems to run just fine without political parties. They all run on issues, not dogma. It could work.
And the Hugo's ran just fine for something like 60 years...then the Sad Puppies figured out that if they just banded together and voted as a block....they would overpower everyone else. And they did! Even though the Sad Puppies were actually quite a small minority.
The bigger the opportunity for wealth and power, the more people will try to game the system. Not everything scales well.
/. "She climbed backwards out her
\/ window into Outside Over There."
Remember the First Amendment will be interpreted by our new conservative SCOTUS so even reasonable restructions will face an uphill battle.
The next decade of court decisions will extend the shitty legacy of 2020.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
People don't seem to realize that is pretty much all the Senate has been doing...for awhile now. Confirming judges. Not addressing the pandemic. Not passing a budget. Not oversight. It is pretty much ramming through Federalist Society judges. And if judges were supposed to be neutral arbiters why is this their sole focus? I can't help but think this is the end of this system of government unfolding in slow motion.
