Despite everything Hillary supposedly did wrong she did still win the popular vote by some three million votes and in any other democratic country in the world would have won the election. The electoral college is another absurdity of the American system that will have to be fixed and the sooner the better.
Good piece, and I am in agreement with most of it.
I am of two minds about whether Ginsburg should have retired. On the one hand, Democrats tend not to think in strategic terms, and that always puts them at a disadvantage with Machiavellian Republicans. Machiavelli was at least PARTLY right in noting that when you are in a no-holds-barred political gunfight, you have to think about your political aims and goals and how best to preserve them in a hostile environment. The Republicans are not dialogue-oriented Deweyan Democrats. Especially since Gingrich, they take their cues, wittingly or not, from Carl Schmitt, for whom politics was all about and only about defeating and "owning" your enemies. The Democrats do not know how to deal with that, and this is not a complete put-down: Schmittian politics is anti-liberal and anti-democratic, nasty and unprincipled. But it's a real dilemma for the Democrats, who generally have been sticklers for fair-play and observing both explicit rules and implicit norms, to have to deal with the orcs and Harkonnens of the GOP. Will Rogers once quipped "I belong to no organized political party: I am a Democrat." Still true today.
On the other hand, the deal is that the appointment was for a lifetime, and she has proven more than competent. She was indeed very good at being the thorn in Trump's and McConnell's sides on the court. She was doing a fine job, and had the respect of even the most conservative justices. So this IS a dilemma.
But the dilemma exists only because of the utter absurdity of our political system. It is ridiculous that the fate of the nation rested on an 87-year-old cancer patient not dying, especially not 6 weeks before the election. If SCOTUS is supposed to be non-partisan, and by definition a president represents ONE party, why does the President get to choose and then strong-arm the Senate? Why not a bipartisan Senate commission sworn to achieve a consensus? Since one's legal philosophy reflects, at least to some extent, one's political philosophy, then shouldn't a democratically-committed court be constructed to achieve some sort of balance between legal/political philosophies? If not, then why aren't Federal justices elected, as are State judges? Is it possible for our elected officials to stop acting as if politics isn't just civil war by other means? And why 9 SCOTUS justices? Nothing in the Constitution about that. Why lifetime? Why is the composition of a supposedly impartial SCOTUS so utterly dependent on the partiality of the party in power? The questions go on and on.
The ultimate point here is that Madison's structure of the federal government is simply not working anymore -- if it ever really did except as a matter of good luck. It is part-and-parcel of the irrational Founding Fathers worship that has befuddled Americans from day one. It is no longer a functioning vehicle for Liberal Democratic Republican (all 3 are necessary) values anymore. Cornel West recently said "The USA is a failed social experiment." Which is perhaps a bit extravagant, but plausible. But it's also a failed POLITICAL experiment at this point as well. Lincoln tried to salvage it, but the failure of Reconstruction kept chipping away, and, well, here we are. I am not sure what the solution should be, but as things stand, well, look at it this way -- any nation where 35% -- 40% of the population has a positive or neutral view of the Trump administration is not one where Democracy is safe.
Despite everything Hillary supposedly did wrong she did still win the popular vote by some three million votes and in any other democratic country in the world would have won the election. The electoral college is another absurdity of the American system that will have to be fixed and the sooner the better.
Good piece, and I am in agreement with most of it.
I am of two minds about whether Ginsburg should have retired. On the one hand, Democrats tend not to think in strategic terms, and that always puts them at a disadvantage with Machiavellian Republicans. Machiavelli was at least PARTLY right in noting that when you are in a no-holds-barred political gunfight, you have to think about your political aims and goals and how best to preserve them in a hostile environment. The Republicans are not dialogue-oriented Deweyan Democrats. Especially since Gingrich, they take their cues, wittingly or not, from Carl Schmitt, for whom politics was all about and only about defeating and "owning" your enemies. The Democrats do not know how to deal with that, and this is not a complete put-down: Schmittian politics is anti-liberal and anti-democratic, nasty and unprincipled. But it's a real dilemma for the Democrats, who generally have been sticklers for fair-play and observing both explicit rules and implicit norms, to have to deal with the orcs and Harkonnens of the GOP. Will Rogers once quipped "I belong to no organized political party: I am a Democrat." Still true today.
On the other hand, the deal is that the appointment was for a lifetime, and she has proven more than competent. She was indeed very good at being the thorn in Trump's and McConnell's sides on the court. She was doing a fine job, and had the respect of even the most conservative justices. So this IS a dilemma.
But the dilemma exists only because of the utter absurdity of our political system. It is ridiculous that the fate of the nation rested on an 87-year-old cancer patient not dying, especially not 6 weeks before the election. If SCOTUS is supposed to be non-partisan, and by definition a president represents ONE party, why does the President get to choose and then strong-arm the Senate? Why not a bipartisan Senate commission sworn to achieve a consensus? Since one's legal philosophy reflects, at least to some extent, one's political philosophy, then shouldn't a democratically-committed court be constructed to achieve some sort of balance between legal/political philosophies? If not, then why aren't Federal justices elected, as are State judges? Is it possible for our elected officials to stop acting as if politics isn't just civil war by other means? And why 9 SCOTUS justices? Nothing in the Constitution about that. Why lifetime? Why is the composition of a supposedly impartial SCOTUS so utterly dependent on the partiality of the party in power? The questions go on and on.
The ultimate point here is that Madison's structure of the federal government is simply not working anymore -- if it ever really did except as a matter of good luck. It is part-and-parcel of the irrational Founding Fathers worship that has befuddled Americans from day one. It is no longer a functioning vehicle for Liberal Democratic Republican (all 3 are necessary) values anymore. Cornel West recently said "The USA is a failed social experiment." Which is perhaps a bit extravagant, but plausible. But it's also a failed POLITICAL experiment at this point as well. Lincoln tried to salvage it, but the failure of Reconstruction kept chipping away, and, well, here we are. I am not sure what the solution should be, but as things stand, well, look at it this way -- any nation where 35% -- 40% of the population has a positive or neutral view of the Trump administration is not one where Democracy is safe.
Rest in peace, RBG: may her memory be a blessing.