What can Democrats actually do about Thomas’s and Alito’s corruption?

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.

What if we dust flyover states with MDMA?

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.

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.

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.

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):

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-presidents-can-be-impeached-because-benjamin-franklin-thought-it-was-better-assassination-180961500/

"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.

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.

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.

Exactly. The R's have shown how this works plenty of times. And more importantly the public has a right to know. So yeah. And you can subpoena the judge, and if he does not want to show his tax returns, subpoena the IRS. The justice can either come and provide context, or we do it for you.

I mean, Joe isn't known for his ability to spike his income like Pelosi or to just hand the reigns to billionaires and lobbyists like Trump to get favors (like his recent bailout).

Rather I get the feeling Biden likes to schmooz around operates according to the temperature of the democratic party. Like the problem here is more that he doesn't seem to really be strategic about the court.

When the choice is between status quo and a fascist, status quo isn't so bad.

If there's ever a way to undo first-past-the-post, that should be the focus. FPTP requires you to vote strategically to keep the greater evil out, but that frequently means voting for the lesser evil. Get rid of this need to vote strategically and maybe you can have a meaningful choice.

Joe “Nothing Will Fundamentally Change” Biden.

My neice is an actress and before a performance I always tell her I hopes she shatters her kneecaps... you know, for luck

In other countries, there is no written constitution or the constitution is merely aspirational

What specific country are you referring to? It's hard to find one without a constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_constitutions

the Constitution is considered legally binding

I don't believe anyone is disputing that the constitution is a legal document. Is that what you think Marbury is about?

You’re missing the nuance of the cited case (Marbury v. Madison), in which the USSC effectively gave themselves the power of judicial review.

Judicial review isn’t explicitly in the constitution.

I agree that judicial review is nominally a good idea, but not under these circumstances, and not when the top of the judicial system is shamelessly and obviously biased to this degree.

They made their decision, let them enforce it.

In other countries, there is no written constitution or the constitution is merely aspirational, like our Declaration of Independence.

That's false for several if not most republics and constitutional monarchies (democracy but with national nepo babies on top).

The 13th Amendment doesn't discourage slavery, it prohibits it.

Except for penal slavery. It explicitly allows the prison slavery that's common practice to this day. There's almost half as many legally enslaved people in the US today as there were in 1860.