What can Democrats actually do about Thomas’s and Alito’s corruption?
What can Democrats actually do about Thomas’s and Alito’s corruption?
Nothing, unless they win the election.
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Vote Biden. Then vote D again in '28, '32, '36, and '40.
Flip the House. Widen the lead in the Senate.
Thomas is 75, Alito is 74, if they don't get replaced between 24 and 28, it's virtually assured they'll be out between 28 and 32.
The problem then becomes the next two oldest justices, Roberts and Sotomayor, so we have to hold the Presidency through probably 2040.
The last time a single party held the presidency for more than 12 years was when FDR won 4 times. Prior to that it was civil war reconstruction.
Keeping the white house from 2020-2040 would be the longest single party streak without one president occupying the office more than 8 years. 3 consecutive Democrats would need to win. Ignoring the Democratic Republican steak at the beginning of the 19th century, because at one point everyone ran as a democratic Republican regardless.
My point is, what's plan b?
My fear is Biden wins in '24, dies in office, we get President Harris, who is the party pick in '28 and she loses terribly because nobody likes her.
If Thomas and Alito make it to '28, they step down to assure a Republican replaces their seats.
So we get Republicans in 28 and 32, maintaining the 6-3 split, then Roberts and Sotomayor are out, eliminating the reliable swing vote (Roberts) and leaving the court with a 7-2 majority.
100% agree. We need to stop autopicking the next candidate just because they were VP. I don't hate her, but she hasn't done anything to stake a claim for the next seat.
Tbf the vice president has not been the candidate since Al Gore, so I don’t think it can be seen as the default.
(Ahem - Biden was VP)
Was Biden the 2016 nomination?
He came back specifically because he was a decent candidate to take Trump down.
And still is.
He was going to be, then Beau died in 2015. :(
We need to stop autopicking the next candidate just because they were VP.
The system does not allow "autopicking". Either she gets the most votes, or she doesn't.
!remindme
dies in office,
That's like a 1% chance.
we get President Harris, who is the party pick in '28 and she loses terribly because nobody likes her
Why wouldn't people "like her"? If "nobody likes her" she would get 0% of the primary vote. She will likely be the Dem front runner in 2028, but we will have to see who runs.
Even her own staff hates her:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290
What if we dust flyover states with MDMA?
Bold of you to assume that we're not already partying constantly.
Alright maybe just the suburbs
Fuck that flyover states. Send me some of that shit. Dust the capital.
No. MDMA is for real voters.
Take one of those air mover things, pack the inlet full of weed, light it, and hook it up to the Capitol's HVAC system
Just to add, if Trump wins, they will certainly step down and Trump will appoint 40-year olds to the SC. Possibly the crazy lady from Florida. Voting Blue is the only thing that will stop this distopia.
I could see him nominating Cannon and Giuliani - sure Rudy would only be on the court until he died but Trump would still appoint the replacement five months later.
They wouldn't put Rudy up there, it's too much of a gamble when they could literally just put Ben Shapiro on there because there's no such thing as an unqualified judge anymore and be safe forever.
Voting blue isn't enough, though. It's the bare minimum to keep the lights on while trying to repair the broken status quo that the Dem leadership and their owner donors love so much rather than let the fascists create something much worse.
Yea absolutely, but also off-year elections are important too! We elect the House every 2year, the senate every 6, and there’s tons of local issues on the ballot every year.
Absolutely this. This is why Dems have had control of all 3 houses (house of reps, Senate, presidency) for only 4 years of the last 24 years. Voters don't show up and then GOP gets one of them. We've all seen what happens when it's president and not Senate - the GOP Senate blocked Obama's supreme Court Justice.
It's so fucking ridiculous that this needs to happen for America to not become a dictator/fascist country. Why the hell do we have to fight so hard to protect our nation's well-being. How come these assholes can attack our country from within constantly for decades without anything happening to them. Ridiculous.
The nature of democracy not being a system that relies purely on violence for legitimacy (unlike authoritarian forms of government) means that it is a constant forever war against the lapping waves of fascism attempting to slowly erode away our democratic institutions (because we, thankfully, don't just use violence to immediately silence dissidents)
I think an entire generation of people raised in the peace dividend have forgotten this fact, figured that democracy is the natural course of things, ignored its badly needed maintenance, and are swiftly being reminded of it now that the damage is so readily apparent
Because the founders assumed that our rulers would be rational actors. They didn't have a plan for an entire party going bad. "Oh, sure, we'll just add an impeachment clause so nobody has to get assassinated..." (paraphrasing Ben Franklin):
"The Founding Fathers wrote impeachment—originally a Roman political institution—into the constitution for the purpose of removing an official who had “rendered himself obnoxious,” in the words of Benjamin Franklin. Without impeachment, Franklin argued, citizens’ only recourse was assassination, which would leave the political official “not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.”
But they didn't take the extra step to realize "What happens if that party refuses to impeach? Or indict? Or convict?" Suddenly there is no alternative.
Ideally, there needs to be a process to nullify the entire party, but I have no idea how you'd go about it.
The founders were entirely aware that not only an entire party, but the entire government could become irrational and work against our best interests: that's why we have the second amendment as a backstop and last line of defense against authoritarian rule
money.
there's more to it, but basically money.
money spent on elections to convince idiot sheep to vote for the wolf. money spent (invested) on the elected to get more money.
if PACs were shut down, and companies not people, and private donations capped, and the IRS watched money transfers like a hawk - it would slow some of the work of the billionaires.
why do we fight? because of money.
Just add judges. Done.
This is why just electing Biden and conservative Democrats like him isn't enough.
He's had the power to expand the court or at the very least encourage Congress to do so (which the Democratic majorities absolutely would if he leaned on it hard enough) since day one and aware of the problem since before he even started his campaign, but he's so far refused to and, like that other stance of his that the majority of the country disagrees with him on (his unconditional support of the genocidal apartheid regime), it's extremely unlikely that he'll ever change his mind.
Same goes for the rest of the out of touch Dem leadership: they're supposed to represent everyone to the left of literal fascists, but in reality they mostly represent their rich owner donors and the increasingly tiny portion of the population that think the American Fascist Party has some good ideas but haven't yet drunk the kool-aid.
Yeah, we fucked.