tw: politics
Today I learned that, since April, the Supreme Court of the United States has sided with Trump in all 15 rulings it has issued on the President’s emergency requests. Of those 15 rulings, the court has only written 3 majority opinions. 7 have come with no explanation at all.
I don’t have to convince anyone here of what’s going on in America, obvs. I just wanted to share because this fact surprised me. I didn’t realize that they weren’t even justifying their decisions, which normally they do.
I was frankly shocked how many justices Trump was allowed to appoint. And bewildered how little pushback came from the Dems. The decisions being made now were already set in motion in Trump’s first term appointments imo, but so little was made of it then.
I recall Obama having to compromise on his appointments, and then literally giving up his last one to Trump.
And that’s how you get a completely compromised Judicial branch I guess.
I think much was based on one side believing in a democracy and respecting being on the loser side of an election cycle and being naive about the other side being so willing to lie cheat and steal the seats of power.
it’s probably broken fo the rest of our lives
all for fuckin Trump
i fucking hate this
It’s also contingent on them realizing that if they call out all the abuses and corruption, when it comes time for them to be held to account, they won’t see any more mercy than they show their “compatriots” across the aisle.
Less so, often, as the “team” they play for tends to forgive and forget much less.
It seems really weird you let the president pick the supreme court justices in the first place really. It’s also odd that you vote for judges in some places, because that makes the process overtly political, but even that would be better than just letting the president pick them.
In England and Wales, judges are essentially appointed by the Judicial Appointments Commission.
Here in Switzerland, the parties in power choose the judges. That works because we have like 10 strong parties and many small ones.
After researching, I found, that the choice of judges isn’t that good in Switzerland either and even too complex to understand for me 😂 guess I had that wrong in mind… It seems to ultimately work on trust, empathy and ethics of individual people 🧐🤔
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-appointing-judges-by-lot/47030624
If I’m understanding this right, your judges are selected by the Judicial Appointments Commission, and the commissioners of the JAC are chosen by senior judges?
That seems like an extremely effective way of keeping the court independent. It may turn one direction or another over a long period of time, but it isn’t beholden to the whims of whatever fat orange fascist is holding elected office at the time.
It would be effective at keeping the court independent, but if corruption or an unpopular ideological movement took hold in the courts it could metastasize rapidly and be very hard to root out.
I think a few of the commissioners are appointed by a body of judges, but most of them appointed to the commission by the commission after open job application.
Push back would have unfortunately been performative. For decades national Democrats and their supporters have been hyperfocused on the presidency. Ceding many lower offices to Republican fascists without a fight. Democrats haven’t held a solid legislative/judicial majority in nearly 50 years. Republicans have. Which has allowed them to neuter and negate everything Democrats have tried. Which wasn’t much.
While I would have liked to have seen Obama speak out more. The fact that he would have only been speaking out with nothing being done wouldn’t have been that positive for them and cost them a lot of political Capital they could use for other things. And indeed, in 2028 if Democrats somehow managed to win the presidency again. Without having a solid control of the legislature etc. It will be the same as them not winning. They really need to start focusing on the state level heavily. And winning back areas they’ve long since given up on. Only then will they be able to do more than just bitch and whine.
Republicans had control of the Senate when Obama’s last appointment came up and they refused to even allow for an appointment hearing to happen.
Republicans used the excuse that it was too close to the election, then when the next spot opened up they rushed through their own pick even closer to that election.
Cheating hypocrites.
Do you think that would have stopped a republican president?
Obama didn’t give up anything.
He was just doing what he was paid to do.