Donald Trump is merely the symptom of the cancer that’s eating away at American democracy. You only need to look at Congress and the courts to see the ravages of what has been a slow-motion coup.
Make that the courts, particularly the Supreme Court of the United States.
The latest blow to the body politic was delivered by the conservative majority that ruled South Carolina can keep its racially gerrymandered congressional districts. The ruling protects the district of Republican Nancy Mace by moving Black voters in the Charleston area to the district of Representative James Clyburn.
The court had previously ruled that partisan gerrymandering is a constitutionally protected right belonging to the states.
In the words of Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the 6-3 majority opinion:
“We start with a presumption that the legislature acted in good faith.”
That’s a good one.
A quick history lesson. Despite losing the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, Republican presidents have named six of the nine sitting justices. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell played a key role in that mismatch, denying Barack Obama an appointment in 2016, saying the election was too soon, then ramming home an appointment within weeks of the 2020 election.
When Alito isn’t flying insurrection symbols over his homes, he and Chief Justice John Roberts have been the principal attackers in the steady erosion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, declaring southern states have mended the discriminatory voter registration tactics and no longer need federal supervision.
That 2012 decision was followed up by a 2019 opinion saying partisan gerrymandering was a states rights issue not subject to federal oversight and only a racially motivated district map was unconstitutional.
The latest ruling now says we need to give partisan legislatures the benefit of the doubt they have acted in good faith.
Legislatures created by partisan gerrymandering orchestrated by Republicans after the 2010 midterm elections. While Democrats slept.
But wait, there’s more.
The conservative Republican-appointed majority gutted campaign finance laws in 2010 (another McConnell priority), opening the door to floods of corporate campaign cash. Nothing wrong with that, according Utah Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP candidate who declared:
“Corporations are people my friend.”
Had any corporations over for dinner lately?
With a few exceptions (like the Affordable Care Act), the Roberts Court has been on a campaign to toss out significant laws beyond voting rights, some major like affirmative action and reproductive rights; some that fly under the radar of all but those corporate “people.”
And depending on your point of view, the best or worst is yet to come.
When he’s not accepting lavish gifts from donors — or sharing a marital bed with an insurrectionist — Justice Clarence Thomas can be found setting down markers for future restrictions on rights, like birth control and same-sex marriage.
In a concurring opinion to the South Carolina ruling, Thomas set his sights on what he considers the root cause of race-based redistricting: the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that ended the previous tolerance of “separate but equal” schools and banned segregation.
“The view of equity required to justify a judicial map-drawing power emerged only in the 1950s," Thomas wrote. "The court's impatience with the pace of desegregation caused by resistance to Brown v. Board of Education led us to approve extraordinary remedial measures.”
Roberts has been conspicuously silent on the ethical misdeeds of Thomas and Alito, despite his insistence he cares for the legacy of an era of the court that will bear his name.
That contradiction can be found in the fact that he began his push to end the Voting Rights Act as a wet-behind-the-ears lawyer for Ronald Reagan. For him, the end justifies the means. And there’s no one around to second guess or overrule him.
Even if those ends don’t match up with the majority of Americans.
Which includes the right to know before the 2024 presidential election whether Trump is guilty of trying to overthrow the previous one.
Well said Jerry. Trumpkin legislatures are going berserk. Louisiana now treats medical abortion pills as dangerous drugs like fentanyl. Females seeking care treated like meth dealers. No wonder the Bayou State ranks dead last in health care equity.