The resignation of Associate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has thrown our lefty friends into a tizzy. And no wonder.
Their problem is that a change in the Supreme Court puts their whole bookshelf of pro-progressive Supreme Court decisions up for grabs. Abortion! Gay Marriage! Oh no! Fill the streets with rage! Remind the world, as Sen. Diane Feinstein did a while back, that Amy Coney Barrett belongs to a weird cultish Catholic group called People of Praise. Hey Diane! Can you spell anti-Catholic bigotry, kiddo?
I don't suppose a single liberal will get this, but here it is anyway.
It is really not a good strategic idea to implement your agenda through 5-4 Supreme Court decisions. Or regulatory decisions of the administrative state. Because there is no ballast there. There is no drag, no big political effort needed to overturn it. Because another president, another decision.
Take Obama. After the House of Representatives turned Republican in 2010 Obama began "legislating" with a phone and a pen. Great going, Barry! Only now Trump appointees have swept away bushels of administrative decisions with their own phones and pens. Including this week a reversal of all the administrative diversity and inclusion "Dear Colleague" letters in the Obama years that were happily kicking men out of college on the mere accusation of a woman. Because "rape culture."
But when an issue, your issue, is encoded in a Congress-approved law, then the Other Guys have a real problem overturning it.
But just about every liberal in the US believes in activism, using street action and pressure groups to force administrative action on the liberal agenda. Because? Because that is what good little girls are taught in college.
The problem is that when you do that you do not achieve a "deal," in the words of President Trump where all parties get a piece of the action. You surprise the opposition and roll over them. And people on the receiving end don't like that.
So I believe that government shouldn't be able to do regulatory quick fixes, and the Supreme Court shouldn't be able to decide social questions like abortion and gay marriage. That is what we have elections and legislatures for.
Yes but! Justice! And my reply is that, if we are talking about a question of justice then we need to change the hearts and minds of Americans; we need to debate the issue fairly and squarely, and we need to come to a decision by the elected representatives of the people. Then, and only then, in the words of Calvin Coolidge, "it is final." Let me tell you how this works.
In Washington State, back in the 1980s, the newly energized Religious Right put Initiative 471 on the ballot to ban public funding of abortion. It went down 53-47. Since then, abortion has not really been an issue in Washington State. The people had voted, and that was final.
Here is another idea. We need alternation in office. In other words, at the presidential level, we need a couple of terms of a Democrat in the White House followed by a couple of terms of a Republican. Rinse and repeat. I learned this incandescent truth from a Greek-American, who schooled me about the Greek colonels leaving office in 1974 for a democratic government. What Greece needed, said my friend, was for the newly elected center-right government to get defeated in the next election and surrender power to the lefties. Then what was needed was for the elected center-left government to get defeated in its turn and surrender power to the righties.
Do you see the incandescent importance of this? Every time there is a peaceable transfer of power it defuses, for a while, the deep dark suspicion in the heart of every partisan that the other guys will just kick over the election results and say, you're outta here. The other deep dark suspicion in the heart of every partisan is that when our side loses an election, then we was robbed!
Let me illustrate. Back in Febuary 1950, one Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) began what we now call "McCarthyism" with the accusation that there were Communist spies in the State Department. It turned into the notorious witch hunt for Communists in government about which liberals remind us to this very day. But do you know the key thing to remember? It was that in 1950, in the year of the 1950 midterms, Republicans had lost the presidential election five times in a row. Imagine what Republicans were feeling back then!
Now imagine for a moment, that our liberal friends, here in the midterm year of 2018 two years after losing a presidential election after winning two in a row, had not won a presidential election since 1992. How do you think they would feel? They would feel that the system was rigged. That the Russians were colluding with the Republicans, that right wing hate groups were everywhere, that the only thing to do was to Resist.
Do you see what I am saying? I am saying that even if Trump stole the election, even if the Russians were colluding, never mind. The Dems had won two in a row, and now it was time for a change. Because what is more important than election trickery and Russian collusion is that the opposition party gets its turn in power and the governing party goes quietly into opposition. And says "wait until next time."
The trouble with the activism culture is that this profound truth about government gets completely lost and forgotten, because in the activism culture politics becomes all about the Issue and the Peaceful Protest, and the Arc of History, and Justice. The idea that the Other Guys might have a right to exist gets completely lost in the rightness of our cause.
Well, sure. But there is something more important that having your way, and forcing your moral code upon other people, what liberals used to call "legislating morality." It is that we avoid civil war. And that is what elections are all about. Elections are a sham fight, a civil war by other means. Without killing, without rape, without plunder, without Marches Through Georgia. Without a generation of young men sent to their deaths.
You tell me which is more important.
Anyway, my Greek friend persuaded me. Starting in 1992, voting for Clinton, I have always voted for the party that has been out of power for two terms. Thus I voted for Clinton, for Bush, for Obama, and for Trump. And I am utterly convinced it was the right thing to do.
And if Trump wins reelection in 2020 this racist sexist homophobe will hold his nose and vote for the Democrat in 2024. So there.
Their problem is that a change in the Supreme Court puts their whole bookshelf of pro-progressive Supreme Court decisions up for grabs. Abortion! Gay Marriage! Oh no! Fill the streets with rage! Remind the world, as Sen. Diane Feinstein did a while back, that Amy Coney Barrett belongs to a weird cultish Catholic group called People of Praise. Hey Diane! Can you spell anti-Catholic bigotry, kiddo?
I don't suppose a single liberal will get this, but here it is anyway.
It is really not a good strategic idea to implement your agenda through 5-4 Supreme Court decisions. Or regulatory decisions of the administrative state. Because there is no ballast there. There is no drag, no big political effort needed to overturn it. Because another president, another decision.
Take Obama. After the House of Representatives turned Republican in 2010 Obama began "legislating" with a phone and a pen. Great going, Barry! Only now Trump appointees have swept away bushels of administrative decisions with their own phones and pens. Including this week a reversal of all the administrative diversity and inclusion "Dear Colleague" letters in the Obama years that were happily kicking men out of college on the mere accusation of a woman. Because "rape culture."
But when an issue, your issue, is encoded in a Congress-approved law, then the Other Guys have a real problem overturning it.
But just about every liberal in the US believes in activism, using street action and pressure groups to force administrative action on the liberal agenda. Because? Because that is what good little girls are taught in college.
The problem is that when you do that you do not achieve a "deal," in the words of President Trump where all parties get a piece of the action. You surprise the opposition and roll over them. And people on the receiving end don't like that.
So I believe that government shouldn't be able to do regulatory quick fixes, and the Supreme Court shouldn't be able to decide social questions like abortion and gay marriage. That is what we have elections and legislatures for.
Yes but! Justice! And my reply is that, if we are talking about a question of justice then we need to change the hearts and minds of Americans; we need to debate the issue fairly and squarely, and we need to come to a decision by the elected representatives of the people. Then, and only then, in the words of Calvin Coolidge, "it is final." Let me tell you how this works.
In Washington State, back in the 1980s, the newly energized Religious Right put Initiative 471 on the ballot to ban public funding of abortion. It went down 53-47. Since then, abortion has not really been an issue in Washington State. The people had voted, and that was final.
Here is another idea. We need alternation in office. In other words, at the presidential level, we need a couple of terms of a Democrat in the White House followed by a couple of terms of a Republican. Rinse and repeat. I learned this incandescent truth from a Greek-American, who schooled me about the Greek colonels leaving office in 1974 for a democratic government. What Greece needed, said my friend, was for the newly elected center-right government to get defeated in the next election and surrender power to the lefties. Then what was needed was for the elected center-left government to get defeated in its turn and surrender power to the righties.
Do you see the incandescent importance of this? Every time there is a peaceable transfer of power it defuses, for a while, the deep dark suspicion in the heart of every partisan that the other guys will just kick over the election results and say, you're outta here. The other deep dark suspicion in the heart of every partisan is that when our side loses an election, then we was robbed!
Let me illustrate. Back in Febuary 1950, one Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) began what we now call "McCarthyism" with the accusation that there were Communist spies in the State Department. It turned into the notorious witch hunt for Communists in government about which liberals remind us to this very day. But do you know the key thing to remember? It was that in 1950, in the year of the 1950 midterms, Republicans had lost the presidential election five times in a row. Imagine what Republicans were feeling back then!
Now imagine for a moment, that our liberal friends, here in the midterm year of 2018 two years after losing a presidential election after winning two in a row, had not won a presidential election since 1992. How do you think they would feel? They would feel that the system was rigged. That the Russians were colluding with the Republicans, that right wing hate groups were everywhere, that the only thing to do was to Resist.
Do you see what I am saying? I am saying that even if Trump stole the election, even if the Russians were colluding, never mind. The Dems had won two in a row, and now it was time for a change. Because what is more important than election trickery and Russian collusion is that the opposition party gets its turn in power and the governing party goes quietly into opposition. And says "wait until next time."
The trouble with the activism culture is that this profound truth about government gets completely lost and forgotten, because in the activism culture politics becomes all about the Issue and the Peaceful Protest, and the Arc of History, and Justice. The idea that the Other Guys might have a right to exist gets completely lost in the rightness of our cause.
Well, sure. But there is something more important that having your way, and forcing your moral code upon other people, what liberals used to call "legislating morality." It is that we avoid civil war. And that is what elections are all about. Elections are a sham fight, a civil war by other means. Without killing, without rape, without plunder, without Marches Through Georgia. Without a generation of young men sent to their deaths.
You tell me which is more important.
Anyway, my Greek friend persuaded me. Starting in 1992, voting for Clinton, I have always voted for the party that has been out of power for two terms. Thus I voted for Clinton, for Bush, for Obama, and for Trump. And I am utterly convinced it was the right thing to do.
And if Trump wins reelection in 2020 this racist sexist homophobe will hold his nose and vote for the Democrat in 2024. So there.
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