I don’t believe we will be able to move beyond Donald Trump and all he misrepresents, until we deal with the pre-conditions in this country that made his climb to power possible. I’m thinking specifically about the Supreme Court.
As most Americans know, our government consists of three branches: Executive (president), Legislative (Congress, both houses), and Judicial (Supreme Court and lower courts). Each branch is designed to act as an important check on any abuses of power by the other two branches.
Though the Executive and Legislative branches have some semblance of accountability built in, the Supreme Court has none. The original idea was to preserve the High Court’s independence, to shield justices from the compromises of corruption, partisan politics and extreme ideology.
But what happens when the justices themselves are corrupt, politically partisan, and ideologically extreme? Consider our current situation: an arch-conservative 6-3 majority that has granted unlimited power to an autocratic president who doesn’t even know what it means to defend and uphold the Constitution — or respect the rule of law. Yet the court majority bestowed upon him near total immunity to do anything he wants. And their ruling is absolute (unless overturned by a future court).
Do you know how long it has been since the Supreme Court had a “liberal” majority? 1969. Shocked me too — 55 consecutive years of conservative majorities. And they weren’t thin majorities:
1970-71: 5-4; 1972-75: 6-3; 1976-91: 7-2; 1992-94: 8-1; 1995-2010: 7-2; 2010-2016: 5-4; 2017-2025: 6-3
Six Republican presidents (over a span of 32 years) made 16 Supreme Court appointments, whereas four Democratic presidents (24 years) made only five. 16 to 5. So much for balance. Luck of the draw? Not entirely. Obama’s third opportunity, in February of 2016, was flat-out stolen by Mitch McConnell and the Republican-controlled Senate, who refused to hold hearings for an entire year, violating the Constitution’s “advise and consent” mandate.
Democrats, foolishly, chose to be good sports about it. If they had fought for that appointment instead, the majority would have flipped for the first time in 46 years. And if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had lived just a few months longer into 2021, Trump likely would be in prison today, where he belongs, instead of in the White House — again.
According to a Wikipedia entry titled, “Ideological Leanings of U.S. Supreme Court Justices”:
“In every term since 1970, the court majority (consisting of at least five of the justices) has been appointed by Republican presidents. Every chief justice since 1953 has also been appointed by Republican presidents.”
In the ’70s and early ’80s, political partisanship and ideology were not major factors. But that changed, beginning with the arrival of justices Antonin Scalia (1986) and Clarence Thomas (1991).
Since then, “ideology has been much more important in choosing justices — all Republican appointees have been committed conservatives and all Democratic appointees have been liberal. As the more moderate Republican justices retired, the court has become more partisan. The court is now divided sharply along partisan lines with justices appointed by Republican presidents taking increasingly conservative positions and those by Democrats taking moderate liberal positions. This alignment between the justices’ partisanship and their ideological leanings appears to be greater than ever before.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ideological_leanings_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_Justices)
The trend was exacerbated by the fact that Republicans controlled the Senate for 10 of the last 16 Congresses. The Senate determines whether a President’s appointee is confirmed. That’s how the Republicans were able to hijack Obama’s third appointment.
So the deck has been stacked in favor of increasingly extreme conservatives, making the Supreme Court, in effect, a politicized subsidiary of the Republican Party. After the controversial dead-heat election in 2000, the conservative majority handed the presidency to the candidate from their party, on the flimsiest of arguments (the recount has gone on too long, we need to name someone), and once again the Democrats chose to be good sports about it. The beneficiary, George W. Bush, went on to make two appointments (Samuel Alito and John Roberts) that could have, arguably should have, gone to the Democratic candidate (who, an independent final count later showed, actually won the Florida vote).
Democrats really need to stop being such good sports about all this.
The rightward shift of the court parallels the rightward lurch of our country during the last half-century. An unchecked and unbalanced Supreme Court has, to say the least, not served our nation well.
Until a way is found to reform the Supreme Court, we will have no functioning system of checks and balances. Unlimited and unchecked power corrupts and will be this nation’s downfall — exactly as our founders predicted 249 years ago when they overthrew a monarchy.
And if we’re going to realize our “No Kings!” rally cry, then before we celebrate our 250th birthday next year, we need the Six Supremes to grow a conscience and start living up to their job title:
Justice.
