Comment on YSK the full scope of the recent US presidential immunity decision
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I realized today, by giving the president protection from the law, the opinion also implies the court system, including SCOTUS is too incompetent to adjudicate.
In another country where we had actual jurists on the bench representing the highest council for 320,000,000 people, I’d expect them to be more than capable and willing to wade through the delicate nuances of any presidental action, and determine if criminal acts were justified in the service of the state. But Roberts essentially is admitting he and his associates are either too inept or too corrupt, and either way are not up to the task.
If the US democracy is to survive, we will not just need a constitutional amendment, but a complete judicial overhaul, and a federal election reform to restore power to elections and thus, to the people. Until all this happens, we are governed at gunpoint, rather than by consent.
So put away your fireworks. The nation is too unwell to be celebrated.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It’s definitely the latter, corruption.
There’s no way the conservative justices could have drawn many of their conclusions with any consistent interpretation of the constitution and the enumerated rights.
The court conservatives are clearly advancing corporate and political partisan interests and interpreting identical constitutional amendments and passages different ways on different decisions.
Thomas is explicitly said that all he wants to do is hurt liberals, and accepted gifts from wealthy donors with connections to cases he oversees.
I’m sure he’s not the only one.
gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I think the most realistic way of doing this ruling is for Biden to step down and Harris or someone else to take over. They would very likely win, and if the turnout is strong enough, they could use a legislative majority to either pack the courts or impeach/replace a few Republican Justices. The now majority liberal court could contrive some excuse to make a new ruling on presidential immunity and overturn the previous one.
It requires a lot of things to go fairly well and for the Democrats to be more organized and competent than they’ve ever been, but it is Possible, unlike a constitutional amendment imo.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Replacing the major candidate who already passed significant democratic legislation for 4 years is unlikely to result in greater Democratic faith or voter galvanization.
Harris certainly does not have that kind of momentum or support.
Any sort of candidate scramble now is all but forfeiting the 2024 election to trump.
Democrats already functionally control the Senate and have for biden’s four presidential years; I can’t see how nervously replacing Biden wins them any more seats, even optimistically.
That said, by the numbers, keeping the house majority and packing the court is more likely than a complete constitutional rewrite, a strategy I used as an example to show just how bleak the chance of restoring the us balance of executive power is.
gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
He’s polling worse than “generic Democrat” and he can barely form a coherent sentence. Fundamentally, I just don’t believe there is a person who would vote for Biden, but not Harris or Whittmer or whoever, but there’s lots of people who lack confidence in Biden and would be more likely to vote if someone else was nominated.