Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
Then maybe he should have packed the court with some good judges
Would have had to nuke the filibuster to make it where they could pack the court. That required yes votes from all Democratic senators (only because not a single fucking Republican would vote for it), and Manchin and Sinema refused to do it.
Nothing Biden could have done. We needed more Democrats in Senate seats. That’s the game though. Republicans do their best to make us feel like voting doesn’t matter, then we don’t turn up - making it easier for Republicans to say the government doesn’t work.
He could have attacked them. Called on their constituents to protest outside their offices. Politics is more than just filing papers and casting votes.
Machin’s constituents are heavily Red.
Manchin’s constituents are heavily red, but his voters are mostly blue.
How do you figure? Biden received 29.69% of the vote in 2020 vs 68.62%.
Joe Manchin won his last election with 49.6% of the vote. Presumably Biden voters all vote for him. 29.7% is more than half of 49.6%.
Ok, but what’s your point?
Biden has influence over whether Democrats (even red state ones) can win primaries and/or reelection.
It’s just that easy ™️
I don’t think he’s exactly even capable of doing so. SCOTUS judges have to retire or die, and then vacant seats have to get confirmed by the Senate, and no self-respecting Republican Supreme Court justice would die while in office. Expanding the number of justices is also extremely unlikely to happen, and also, relevantly, not really in Joe’s hands.
The notable historical threat to pack the courts previously (which succeeded in moderating the court without packing) was done by a president. They don’t have unilateral authority, but they are the leader of the party. Stuff doesn’t happen unless leaders lead.
When has Joe Biden had the opportunity to replace a ring wing judge?
I’m talking about Roosevelt as a model for Biden threatening to pack the court. This reply doesn’t make sense.
Those threats only worked because the party was sane. These days we have nothing more the terrorists calling themselves the gop.
What? There were like 16 Senate Republicans total in Roosevelt’s time. It had nothing to do with sane Republicans coming around. The threats worked because Roosevelt and his policies were incredibly popular and if the court didn’t stop blocking them the court packing bill likely would have passed.
I’m saying the opposing party. And yes fdr used the bully pulpit well. But there were still rational people in office. Today we have a party that thinks the election was stolen because… Reasons.
There’s no limit to how many supreme Court justices can be active at a time. Biden could have nominated more. Getting them approved is the hard part.
Then you end up with the next president doing it again. We don’t need that race today.
So we just give up without trying?
Not give up. Seeing a single solution as bad doesn’t mean we give up.
That didn’t stop FDR from trying and indirectly succeeding.