The American public no longer believes the Supreme Court is impartial
“Never in recent history, perhaps, have so many Americans viewed the Supreme Court as fundamentally partisan.”
Ummm, I’d guess the author of this rant never talked to anybody from the right in “recent history”. We had Sotomayor and Kagan appointed to the Supreme Court with some of the worse credentials and court history. We saw Kagan(?) refuse to recuse herself when ruling on ObamaCare when the state brought the arguments she wrote to the court.
We had the “notorious RGB” how was freaking awesome at finding a reason to go with her political choices in almost every major ruling.
For decades the question was never “Which leftist justice will side with the conservatives?” it was always “Which ‘conservative’ justice will cave this time?”
The number of decisions made by the Supreme Court while under leftist control that were unmoored from the constitution is absolutely amazing to consider.
Yes, many Americans view the Supreme Court as partisan, they have for decades, the difference is that it is now the left that is feeling it rather than rejoicing in it.
“In one recent poll, a majority of Americans opined that Supreme Court justices let partisan views influence major rulings.”
A true statement, I do believe that the leftist justices let their partisan views influence them. While I might not like some of the rulings that come out because they didn’t give me the results I want, I respect those conservative judges that follow the law, rather than their partisan views.
“But Democrats’ support has plummeted to 13 percent,…”
Of course, because they weren’t getting their way. Leftist love to cry when the lose, hoping mommy will come save them. For years “mommy” was SCOTUS.
Just look at the number of times that they run to the courts to overturn some conservative law, regulation or order. Yet they are always upset if a conservative asks for the same.
“Public support for the high court sank swiftly last summer in response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a landmark ruling that revoked a constitutional right to abortion. The decision delighted many conservatives but defied a large majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal.”
Oh my, look at how they twist the language. “revoked a constitutional right” is their way of saying “abortion is a states issue”. As a conservative I approve of this. It didn’t outright ban abortion nor did it make abortion legal in all 50 states. It said that the states get to say.
This is because our country was designed to allow the different states to experiment within the bounds of the constitution. The people can then vote with their feet if it gets bad.
The big kicker is that they are conflating “abortion should be legal” with “should have a federally protected ability to legally get an abortion”. And the results are in the details. There are a number of conservatives that believe that all elective abortions should be illegal. There are others that have some other limit on when elective abortions should be illegal.
This means that “large majority” includes all those shadings of “should be legal”.
“Yet, partisan anger runs deeper than Dobbs. Liberals are fuming about a confluence of lucky timing and political maneuvering that enabled a Republican-controlled Senate to approve three conservative justices in four years, knocking the panel out of synch with the American public.”
It shouldn’t matter if the court, not panel, is “out of sync” with the American public. That is something for the legislature. The court is suppose to be honoring the Constitution by applying it faithfully as it was written, within the history and tradition of the Constitution.
The court is not suppose to be about winning popularity contests.
The term now being used is “legitimacy”.
“James L. Gibson, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, defines it[legitimacy] as ‘loyalty to the institution. It is willingness to support the institution even when it’s doing things with which you disagree.'”
Ok. That’s a reasonable definition. Not sure what Webster has to say, but I can work with this.
“But then, with Dobbs, the high court suffered ‘the largest decline in legitimacy that’s ever been registered, through dozens and dozens of surveys using the same indicators,’ Gibson said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.'”
Wait a moment, is legitimacy being loyal to the institution or is it something you get by polling? The court didn’t suffer a decline in legitimacy, it suffered an attack by the left questioning the Justice’s loyalty to the institution which the left defined as loyal to the laws, regulations, and rules they wanted to see upheld.
This is always the same game played by the left. Something is illegal for years and years and years. They finally get ONE decision to go their way. From that time forward it is evil to question that decision. From that point forward is the status quo and nobody should question it.
“‘The idea that you have the spouse of a Supreme Court justice advocating for overthrowing the government — sui generis, I think,’ said Caroline Fredrickson, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University, invoking the Latin term for ‘unique.'”
Except this is a lie. Ginni Thomas didn’t advocate for the overthrowing the government. Nobody did. And what difference does it make what Ginni does? She’s not a Supreme Court Justice. Just listen to the left screaming that there is no conflict of interest when there are spouses in the media of Democrats in the White House.
“‘[Roberts]’s the justice who twice saved Obamacare,” Malcolm said. Roberts joined the court’s liberals in rejecting legal challenges to health care reform by a popular president.”
Did Roberts save it by finding the law as written was Constitutional? Nope, he had to redefine a penalty as a tax. He gave the government the ability to tax people for not doing something. That’s a new tax for sure.
Roberts is the darling of the left right now because he can’t be trusted to follow the Constitution. He is much more likely to be swayed by political concerns.
“In its first term with a six-person conservative bloc, the high court overturned Roe, posited a Second Amendment right to carry guns in public and restricted the government’s role in combating climate change, among other rulings. ”
Interesting word there “posited”. According to Oxford Languages it means “assume as fact; put forward as a basis of argument.” In other words it wasn’t that Bruen reaffirmed the guarantees of the second amendment belongs to the people for all lawful purposes, it was just “assumed” to be a fact, for argument’s sake.
This is all because the Supreme Court is no longer an extremist left-wing institution.
“In previous decades, by contrast, ‘the U.S. Supreme Court has rarely been out of step with the preferences of its constituents, the people,’ Gibson said. ‘Throughout history, the court has ratified the views of the majority, not opposed them.'”
Again we have this professor arguing that the court is suppose to be siding with the mob, not applying the law, as written.
“In the months to come, President Biden and congressional Democrats could restore the court’s ideological balance by packing it with liberals, or hobble it by narrowing its jurisdiction. But they probably won’t, legal observers say, because the Republicans could one day weaponize the same tools against the Democrats.”
It amazes me how often the left wants to change the rules when they win but don’t want the new rules to apply to them when the lose. Yes, Trump appointed 3 Justices. All of the noise about should or should not allowed a vote on Garland or Amy Coney Barrett was because the right was using the rules against the left. The left screamed for a do over or a change in rules. Something they would never do if the shoe was on the other foot.
Since they lost the battle of court packing, the left is now arguing for term limits for Supreme Court Justices. One has to ask “How would the left have responded to RBG being kicked off the court?”
It comes down to this- if democrats dont like it, call it fascist, scream about it, its GOOD for America, if democrats luv it, its very very BAD for America. The hate democrats have for America will never change until they get the America they want- total control and No Americans…
So you’re saying Nathaniel Grigsby was right?
Great article awa, but I have one thought when I read this, “…because the Republicans could one day weaponize the same tools against the Democrats”. When have the Republicans ever taken the opportunity to weaponize anything in government which the Democrats weaponized first? If the Republicans did weaponize anything, it was rarely and minor in comparison to their political foes’ weaponry accomplishments. It seems if memory serves me correctly, that the republicans a majority of the time, made claims of ‘taking the high moral road’ instead of stooping down to the moral low road of their opposition, as the reason they didn’t weaponize when they should have–Moral Superiority Party.
The line about “which conservative justice will cave” was a sadly truthful kick in the teeth this morning.
I remember in US History class in aaarrrooouunnnddd the 5th grade perhaps being given an assignment where we were to act as a member of the supreme court and write an opinion on whether a list of laws was constitutional or not and cite our reasoning. Our only reference material was the Constitution in our textbooks and the school library to look up state and federal law. Took barely any time at all, most of which was us hooligans jockeying for the books.
Amazing how it can be so difficult now.
This is the Leftist bias, it’s in everything.
Democrats in lockstep are always “putting country over party.” Republicans doing anything that obstructs the Democrats are “putting party over country.”
The default assumption is that the Left is always right and noble and operating in the most selfless best interests of the country and the Right is always acting selfishly against the interests of the people.
I wonder how this country would be if we didn’t have that as the default assumption of political reporting.
I wonder how this country will be, after the war that the leftists are pushing so hard.
Reminder, everyone alive is a hypocrite in some way, to some extent.
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But, the average leftist (please do not call them liberals, there is nothing liberal about leftists.) is raising hypocrisy to an art form. When the SCOTUS issues a ruling a conservative does not like, sure complaints happen, but the conservative will not call for altering the court to ensure they get “it right” in the future. On the other hand, law to a leftist is whatever the leftist wants, when the leftist wants it.
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It is amazing to me that this leftist is perfectly OK with the court when it rules in their favor, but the court is illegitimate when it does not rule in their favor.
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Childish reaction. But, leftists are children, toddlers really, in their thinking and logic.
Children? No, mental midgets. And I’m posting about really small midgets.
‘The idea that you have the spouse of a Supreme Court justice advocating for overthrowing the government…
I imagine the first justices on the US Supreme Court were involved in some way with overthrowing Britain’s governance.