President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Doing that would completely undermine the Court's authority. It's the Democratic Party saying, "You can rule on this however you want, as long it's the way we think. Otherwise, your court might have an unfortunate accident."
It turns the Court into a rubber stamp for the Democrats and completely neuters one branch of government. Moving forward, it completely strips the Court of any pretense of fairness or objectivity, or of adhering to the Constitution. If there are a couple of justices, like Roberts, who turn out to be wild cards or are not voting "how they should," what's to stop the Democratic leadership from just adding another justice or two who does vote "the right way?"
Or, when the Republicans eventually get power back, what's to stop them from adding justices to balance out the numbers?
It's one thing to fill or not fill naturally-occurring appointments as they arise with people who suit your ideology. That's politics. The Democrats were quite successful with it for a number of years when it comes to the courts. It's another thing entirely to change the basic rules of the system to get your way. It's not a good road to go down. It's a dangerous road to go down.

 

So let me get this straight. One candidate is refusing to say whether he would support Congress expanding the Supreme Court and end the Senate filibuster. The incumbent is demanding that his opponent and his predecessor be arrested on treason charges. Which is frightening again?

 

Nothing is stopping the Republicans if they gain power again. Nothing. It's all constitutional, every bit of it. The Court HAS been expanded, by President Grant and the Republican Congress of that time.

 

Why would the consequences be frightening? And why a one party system? Didn’t hear this crying when Reagan won, Bush or Bush Jr.? But the minute Clinton or Obama has a majority, it’s the end of the republic
Just sour grapes and temporary loss of telling other people how to live and what to believe.

trumps had 4 years and has done nothing but raid the treasury, kill alliances, kill trade, destroy foreign policy, align the country with despotic Putin and infect he country with a deadly virus.

 

Literally all the Democrats will be doing in these scenarios is making it so that the government actually reflects the express will of the voters.

In a two-party system, you’re supposed to be forced to shift your positions when the other party constantly gets more votes than you. That’s the marketplace of ideas at work.

Republicans believe it is their god-given right to have more than half the power despite getting less than half of the votes, and they have used that to move further right even as the people of the United States move further left.

Under a fair system, the parties will still reach equilibrium. That equilibrium point will just be forced to be where the average American is, not where the average white American is, and that’s what they find unacceptable.

 

PS: Arizona and Georgia, with Republican Governors and legislature, have expanded their state Supreme Courts in the last four years. So fucking spare me the tears. We can't have a democracy if one party does whatever is within its legal power to hold and expand power and the other party refrains because it holds to what are now-dead norms.

 

the ability for congress to change the number of justices as a check and balance on the power of the judiciary is intentional and was written into the constitution for *precisely* this reason.

conservatives always pretend to care about the constitution and the will of the founders, but it’s a transparent lie.

 

In the wake of the Civil War, when we were rebuilding the country. It's been 150 years or so since it's been expanded again, and the one time it was tried it was quickly denounced and defeated as a dangerous tactic. There have been ebbs and flows in its ideological makeup during that time as various justices have died or retired. It still seems to have sorted itself out and worked just fine. There have been rulings that one side or the other doesn't agree with, but we all have agreed to abide by them and carry on.
So what's the real reason to blow it up now? Why do Democrats really believe that needs to be a Day One item under a Biden presidency?

 

what you are describing is *exactly how it’s supposed to work*. Congress is supposed to have the power to adjust the court as a check and balance against the court getting too far away from the will of the people.

If Democrats do it and people don’t like it, they’ll vote in Republicans. If Democrats do it and people do like it, what’s the problem, besides white conservatives being sad to find out that god didn’t make their vote count double?

 

Because a minority party used the power granted to them by quirks of history and the constitution to install a court that is against what the majority of Americans would prefer

 

Remember, although FDR didn't expand the court, because of the filibuster incidentally, the Court stopped invalidating New Deal legislation in response to the attempt. The majority is not going to let an unelected body impose minority rule on its largest priorities. It just isn't. If the Court has the nerve to throw 20 million Americans off health insurance, it should stand the consequences. A legislator or President would lose their jobs for that. Justices can hardly be fired, so they must be neutralized.

 

Republicans get less votes but get to win anyway: sucks to be you, it’s in the constitution.

Republicans trash norms to steal judiciary appointments from Obama: sucks to be you, it’s in the constitution

Democrats might hypothetically use the constitutional rules in a way that goes against a norm: oh my god how dare you?!!!!