How vulnerable are various Western Supreme Courts from devolving into the mockery that is the current US one?
How vulnerable are various Western Supreme Courts from devolving into the mockery that is the current US one?
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All of them.
It can happen here. It’s frighteningly easy to get to this point.
Different countries have a variety of very different approaches to appointing judges, and some of those methods are not nearly as easy to corrupt as the American system.
Americans are subject to a lot of cultural indoctrination about how their system is the "greatest democracy in the world," "leader of the free world," and other such platitudes. It's really not the case, though. America's system is one of the earliest that's still around, and unfortunately that means it's got a lot of problems that have been corrected in democracies that were founded later on but have remained embedded in America's.
Doesn't help that America has a somewhat problematic electorate as well.
I remember being taught in school all of those, and the fact that justices not being elected or having term limits meant that they were 100% not swayed by anything other than justice. A very noble idea I respect, but we see obviously that anyone is corruptable. I see very few judges now who aren't electable. They don't run under a platform, they have agendas and it's not perfect - but it's better than our system where we're stuck until they die - and then we're at the mercy of whoever the flavor of the month is.
Yeah… the older I’ve gotten, the more obvious it’s become that civics/social studies classes related to American government in high school were mostly just hilariously abstracted theoretical bullshit.
I very clearly remember thinking "I'm so glad America solved corruption"
Okay, so, American here who has been telling fellow Americans "it can happen here" for years about various shit. Because I know it can. There's no reason it can't.
But seeing someone use that expression to say that something happening in the US could happen elsewhere just made that phrase click in a terrifying way.
It can happen here.
It has already happened
Oh God
It happened in Hungary when Orban decided to break bad and shoot for being president for life.
It happened in Russia when Putin orchestrated a series of false flag “terrorist” bombings to help seize the presidency which he hasn’t really ever relinquished control of (regardless of official position) at any point between then and now.
We really are fucked
That’s not what I’m saying. All I’m saying is that everyone really needs to pay the fuck attention, and that fascists should be given no quarter.
Totally agreed. But I'm saying it. We're fucked. Even if Trump loses, best case scenario is a couple years of delay. We're not addressing any root problems, and a trump loss only plays into the idea that we're somehow destined to avoid the shit that happens elsewhere.