The 2020 Presidential election will soon become a single-issue campaign — who gets to appoint to the Supreme Court in the next four years.
Forget about anything else; including race, the economy, COVID-19. The election will be about who determines the law.
Several Justices, liberal and conservative, are absolutely likely to leave the court due to age or health in the next four years. The GOP will likely remain in control of the Senate.
This is a once in a generation golden opportunity to control America’s Courts for who becomes President. It’s based on the simple life expectancy probability mathematics of the mostly older and clearly health compromised Justices.
Trump lost by three million popular votes last time; he can lose by five million popular votes in 2020 and still win the electoral college and be President. Do the math.
Just like Prohibition was for the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, 2020 will become a single-issue campaign.
The Electoral College gives Republicans the clear edge, in my opinion, especially because of the low and non-voting culture of minority factions, the split in the sisterhood that still votes 40% patriarchy, and the unrelenting massive GOP anti-democracy disenfranchisement campaign of voter suppression of minorities and the poor.
Evangelicals and mainstream Christians, far right-wing advocates and even mainstream conservatives, some of whom might retch at the thought of Trump, will certainly recognize this opportunity to make the Court unassailably right-wing.
This is exactly what Mitch McConnell did during the Obama years. It is what the 2016 Merrick Garland holdup was about, and what the McConnell GOP Senate has architected in federal judgeship appointments.
Legal scholars and so-called “experts,” can all spare me their sanctimonious outrage over the Court being characterized as political. To say otherwise is an outright lie; and those who say it isn’t are merely lying to themselves.
Our entire nation’s history has been about the political bent of the Supreme Court. Every law-trained student learns that from day one. Every intervening appointment has been a political calculation by either party. However, right now the Court has become, and is, a serious hyper-political entity.
The Court reinforced its political status with Bush v. Gore in the 2000 election and the following “Citizen’s United” case which opened the money flood gates that gave corporations “human people” protections and made unlimited money equal to free speech.
The McConnell / GOP-led Garland holdup overtly and outwardly sealed the deal that the SCOTUS is now almost purely political.
The public long ago has lost faith in our Supreme Court; now recognized for what they are — “politicians in robes.” They are all political animals first — their portfolios molded by their prostitution-like rulings and actions to get the appointment; then confirmed, hustled through, and deified by partisan politicians should the opportunity present itself.
Every single judge, congressman, governor, attorney general, prosecutor, defense attorney, lawyer and legal advocate that has ever been appointed, confirmed, practiced, studied or followed the law knows that. So do the wealthy 1%, big and small business, Wall Street, and Evangelicals.
While Congress or legislatures may make the laws, every law is either ruled acceptable, overturned or content ignored (and thereby allowed or turned down) by the Supreme Court taking it up or ignoring it. That makes them the final rulers of what passes for what the law is.
Just this week Trump got his 200th lifetime hyper-conservative federal judgeship approved by the GOP Senate; none Black. That coupled with Barr’s forceful abdication of the rule of law in the Flynn case, and the lame forced dismissal by a Trump appointed judge, is just a prelude for a wider Trump’s SCOTUS solid take-over in a second term.
Make no mistake — Trump, with his circle of spineless fawning sycophants will triple down to punish anyone and everyone who did not become subservient and submit in his first term; or anyone who dared to utter a single word against him.
With no need to run again, a second Trump term and a cuckold GOP will march America toward Chinese- Russian- North Korean-type authoritarian rule.
• Anselm Staack, is registered non-affiliated, is a CPA and an Attorney who has been an Alaska resident for over 45 years. He was the Treasury Comptroller for Alaska under Gov. Jay Hammond and worked directly on the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund and Corporation. He resides in Juneau. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
