No, the title isn’t sarcastic. It’s dead serious. And just like any other interpretive decision, the long term outcome of the decision totally depends on your point of view.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, because it was Donald Trump who had appointed the three conservative judges who tipped the scale, in the aftermath, those three Trump judges immediately married the conservative Trump court to the GOP at the hip. But I’m not so sure that’s accurate.
If the Supreme Court was a wholly owned subsidiary of MAGA, would the SCOTUS have ruled that Trump’s tax records and accounting data had to be turned over from his former accounting firm Mazar’s to the Manhattan DA’s office, which was investigating Trump? Would they have blown Trump’s claims of unlimited immunity out of the water, forcing individuals and departments to turn over documents and testify before grand juries? Would they have either shot down or refused to hear any of the myriad of desperate appeals the Trump legal team sent up in conjunction with the 2020 voter fraud cases?
I look at it as the crimes of the father being visited on the son. While Trump appointed three of the judges, despite what his fevered brain may think, and what he may spout off, he didn’t appoint three Trump judges, he appointed three conservative judges. Conservatism is their ideology and philosophy. Trump’s MAGA party has no coherent ideology. Trump appointed three pro life judges to the court. You don’t have to be a MAGAt to be pro life.
Since the decision was announced, and in both the protest backlash as well as the legislative and electoral backlash, the mainstream media has gleefully proclaimed that the decision was an unmitigated disaster for the Supreme Court and the GOP. Well, to paraphrase an old Meat Loaf song, One out of three ain’t bad.
There is no doubt about it. For the GOP the Roe decision has been an unmitigated disaster. Because the GOP morons went on a feeding frenzy to try to outdo each other to impose new abortion restrictions. This led to an incredible grassroots uprising to start petition drives to get citizen initiatives on the ballot to enshrine abortion rights in state constitutions. And wadda ya know? So far every ballot initiative to enshrine abortion has passed in a landslide, and every GOP sponsored initiative to prohibit or restrict it has gone down in flames.
Which leads the mainstream media to consider this a universal repudiation of the SCOTUS decision. Why? After all, it’s not like the Supreme Court banned abortion or placed any new widespread restrictions on it. In their minds all they did was to correct a previous judicial error.
Until the Roe v Wade decision, abortion rights were handled exclusively by the states, leading to a patchwork quilt of abortion laws. The Roe decision nationalized abortion, legalizing it nationwide until the 24 week mark. And from that day forward, every conservative immediately subscribed to the non negotiable belief that the Supreme Court had overreached. It had nationalized an issue that belonged under the protection of states rights.
And if you talk to any of the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court, that’s exactly what they’ll tell you. They didn’t rule on the national legal status of abortion at all. What they ruled on was what they sincerely felt was a judicial overreach in 1973 when that Supreme Court nationalized the abortion issue. They simply returned the issue to the states, where it belonged.
And if you ask them, they’ll tell you that, to the contrary, their decision was a resounding judicial success. After all, since they returned the issue to the states, at least 1their 0 states have had citizens rise up to propose and pass legislation that enshrines abortion in the state’s constitution, and voted down every initiative that tried to restrict it. No skin off of their noses, they returned the issue to the states, and allowed the citizens to have their say. Just what they intended.
Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in our country, and has been for more than a half a century. You can agree with me, or you can think I’, full of sh*t, but either way you must admit that the Supreme Court reached a decision with that most precious gift, plausible deniability. Mainly because the citizens bailed their stupid, ideological asses out of the sling.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Interesting take. I think three or four of them and perhaps even five figured there’s be an outcry and then people would “get over it” and learn to live like it was pre 1972 and things were back to the days of back-alley abortions. Oh, and that with their newfound political power red states would really clamp down on it. Roberts was I truly believe the only one who was pretty sure the backlash would be huge and there was no way it would be forgotten at the ballot box. Maybe Gorsuch and Kavanagh had some of the same worries, but Roberts who wanted to take his typical incremental approach and roll things back from 24 to 15 weeks was overruled.
Then the law of unintended consequences kicked in. Rather than get wide support starting with red states to ban abortion even freaking RED states started objecting, or at least their voters did. Legislators fell all over themselves to ban abortions but try as they might they couldn’t keep ballot initiatives guaranteeing the right to abortion off the ballot and voters protected abortion rights. Or, when legislators in tried measures to amend their state constitutions to restrict or ban abortion the voters told them to fuck off!
The issue has cost the GOP dearly ever since Dobbs was handed down. As Roberts (I think) feared voters weren’t going to “get over it and move on” and the other GOPer Justices have been genuinely surprised that their little “let the states handle it” trick has backfired. GOP legislators are trying but the VOTERS are telling them to get stuffed.
For all that I think that you’re entirely correct that with the exceptions of Alito and Thomas (and maybe but not at all sure) Barrett there was a general effort to ensure the “plausible deniability” you mentioned. Just in case the whole thing DID blow up in conservative’s faces. I wonder how many (except for Alito and Thomas) wish to hell they’d listened to Roberts?
To denis elliott…. I agree completely. I think that not only the conservative justices who overturned Roe are surprised at the support for abortion rights across America & even in RED states, but the entire GOP have been stunned by the people’s reaction to overturning Roe. They thought they were have no problems rolling back abortion rights in RED states at least. Instead even those conservative populations are rejecting bans.
The GOP party members who are still bound & determined to enact abortion bans, like the new RELIGIOUS FANATIC, MAGA EXTREMIST, INSURRECTIONIST TRAITOR Speaker of the House are simply living in DENIAL OF REALITY… which let’s face it, is not unusual for GOPs or MAGAs. They don’t live in reality concerning a lot of issues, like who won the 2020 Presidential election.
I think it was especially appropriate & revealing of how wrong both the conservatives on the SCOTUS & the GOP are, is that one of the first states to demonstrate the over-whelming support of abortion rights happened in the state of Kansas with the people’s majority vote to prohibit an abortion ban being added to their state Constitution.
The GOP’s DOG just can’t seem to catch that TRUCK!