I can’t believe how little attention this is getting. I’ve had the TV on most of the day and not a peep. There might be other articles out there I have seen yet but I did see one that I still can’t believe is for real. However it is. Among six SCOTUS decisions a long established GOP group has cited, their resolution on why Kamala Harris can’t be President cites the infamous Dred Scott v Sandford (more commonly referred to as simply Dred Scott) in its “reasoning.” No, this isn’t sick, twisted parody.
Dred Scott is almost universally regarded as THE worst SCOTUS decision in history. If Trump somehow makes it back into the WH a hundred years from now SCOTUS’ immunity decision might give Dred Scott a run for its money but that will all play out (if Trump wins) long after I’m dead and forgotten. However, since like Dred Scott the immunity decision could lead to another full Civil War it’s going to be on the table for discussion. For the moment, Dred Scott holds the distinction not only of being the worst SCOTUS decision ever, but as far as historians and legal scholars are concerned nothing else is even close. THAT’s how bad it was, and this group of GOP asshats has done and dug it up to wave around in a ‘See? No less than SCOTUS says she can’t be President cause she’s not even a PERSON under our law!‘
I don’t take much comfort in their not having come right out and letting their racist freak flag fly with something like ‘We aren’t about to have some uppity n****r WOMAN as President.’
However according to my local paper, the Raleigh News & Observer that’s what the National Federation of Republican Assemblies is saying. The author of the op-ed sums up their missive about ‘precedent setting’ SCOTUS cases saying Harris, nor Haley or Ramaswamy for that matter (at least their racism is consistent) being ineligible for the WH:
Among the six cases in the document attributed to the NFRA was the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857.
Dred Scott? Are you kidding me? Dred Scott is widely regarded as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. It’s so bad, I wish we called it something else, as to not disparage the Black man whose name it uses.
The problem with old laws that have been repealed or invalidated, including by Constitutional Amendment is they are still on the books, even if they no longer apply. Not for nothing but it’s actually startling how many old laws that no one follows are still there. I don’t know if it changed in the decades after I left my hometown for the Marines back in the 1980s but at the time neighboring Franklin County was still all white. And one town I know of (West Frankfort) still had a law on the books saying black people couldn’t be within the city limits after sundown! (and this was in Illinois) Across the river in Missouri it was only two years after the 1967 Loving v Virginia they struck down their ban on interracial marriage. And this:
There are many state laws that have been overturned by Supreme Court rulings here in Kansas and Missouri, but look at the ones here in Missouri that the state itself repealed:
Racial covenants limiting Black people’s property rights were still on the books as of 2021. But in 2022, Gov. Mike Parson signed the Missouri Human Rights Act into law that dictates old housing restrictions based on race, national origin or religion be removed in all newly-recorded deeds.
That’s why the author explains we can’t just say that old crap no longer applies. People will pull those old laws out, and in the case of citizenship for non-whites say the Reconstruction Amendments (including the 13th that outlawed slavery and wiped out the Dred Scott decision) don’t count. Also, don’t forget good ole Project 2025. It says a President Trump doesn’t need Congress or even SCOTUS to completely outlaw ALL abortion for ANY reason and birth control too. Because of the Comstock Act!
Yes, these people are serious. And also racist as hell. Even some conservative Republicans had thought with the election and re-election of Obama we might be at a point where we could actually make some decent progress on dealing with racism in this country. I know I thought so. Trump and the rise of MAGA proves that was hopelessly naive thinking. As with any great struggle making progress on racism (and sexism too – with Harris we are dealing with both) is usually a process where setbacks are bound to happen. Trump/MAGA has turned out to be a worse setback than we originally thought.
So now we have THIS kind of racist nonsense breaking out. A decades old group that not many of us have heard of but was known in political circles has morphed. It was I gather hard core but not crazy conservative. Now it’s just batsh*t RACIST insane. We can be sure things will get even uglier, because Trump is stone cold racist himself.
These racist assholes have seen the projections for future demographics in the USA (and elsewhere) which predict that lily-white folks will be a minority within something like a mere 30 years. Not that any one non-white group will be a majority; all the non-whites will comprise the majority … and that terrifies the wriggly shit out of the gringos. So they’re lashing out in all possible directions, just as they did pre-, during- and post-Obama. Trumpism is that backlash made public. And it’s even more threatening this time, ’cause the dreaded Kamala’s a woman as well as being unwhite. Oooo-eee, that sure scares them holler-dwellers.
It’s not worth any attention because anyone with any brains knows that both the Dred-Scot aspects, slavery and citizenship, were overturned subsequently by the 13th and 14th amendments. Only the most ignorant racists are still quoting the Dred Scott decision.
Are you aware there’s an entire line of political and legal thought (up to SCOTUS) that views the reconstruction amendments as invalid? The 14th amendment draws their ire and weaking its protections and the rights it provided for has been found to influence numerous key cases since The Federalist Society got its hooks deep into the federal judiciary and even SCOTUS. I’d suggest you take a look at the work of the Roberts Court more closely.
The basis for these people’s thinking is that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were passed with the new post Civil War Congress and the southern states in the DEFEATED confederacy weren’t fully represented. Ergo those amendments don’t “count” in their minds.
I wouldn’t be so dismissive of people who try to use these old decisions and laws we sometimes call zombie laws that no one ever got around to rescinding. Just as many states were poised to strike when the Dobbs decision was handed down there are those out there, and cases Leonard Leo’s groups have percolating in the system just waiting for SCOTUS to get a crack at further taking us back to the days of while male property owners being the only ones with full rights.
Well, if they think these amendments to the constitution don’t count, they are out of luck because the supreme court can’t rescind them, and it would require that congress do it. And with the percentage vote required for that, it ain’t going to happen. So, they can beef all they want about it, but they are doing nothing but showing their ignorance and stupidity.
I am not a lawer, so if I am wrong about how an amendment is rescinded, feel welcome to correct me.
You’re correct that the amendments can’t be rescinded without another Constitutional amendment revoking them. I think the only instance of this happening was the amendment for prohibition and then another one revoking it and letting people consume alcoholic beverages legally again. However SCOTUS can and in fact HAS been at work whittling away at the protections, and the 14th amendment being a favorite target. It’s a more subtle way of doing things but over time a LOT of damage can be done to the freedoms enshrined in various amendments. Hell, look at what’s happened with the first ten, the Bill of Rights. Slowly but surely freedom of speech and freedom of the press is being whittled away as is the separation of church and state although conservatives, even some on SCOTUS aren’t really shy anymore about advertising their intent. Privacy of course. Take a look at the expansion of search and seizure and efforts to indeminfy police from accountability for their actions.
I could go on but I’m certain you get the point. I like how you are actually thinking about all this. And I don’t mind being challenged because it forces me to reexamine my own take on things. Sometimes I’ve realized that I’ve needed to adjust my thinking on something, either because someone raised a point I hadn’t properly considered or didn’t even know, or because circumstances have changed. The point is that respectful discussion and debate, even arguing is a good thing. In this back and forth you’ve started by indicating you don’t see as much of a threat as I do. Not dismissive of the possibility but not worried much about it. I hope you’ve adjusted some. Because we need to know our stuff to be able to convince people to both vote and vote for our candidates to try and contain the increasing attacks on our rights/freedoms because the other side has been engaged in a decades long, orchestrated strategy that with the new SCOTUS they are far closer to achieving than people realize.
I have two grown legal daughters. Having gone through years of infertility with my ex, we did donor for years and were improbably blessed with a beautiful blond haired child now grown with a daughter the same. Since my ex almost died several times during pregnancy and delivery, we adopted a bi-racial baby girl who is now also a stunning grown woman. My lady of 18 years is a dark skinned woman from Tuskegee Alabama. I have become the surrogate father figure to her daughter and her niece, now both black and now grown. I have also been the father figure for her niece’s daughter, whom I’ve helped raise for the last eight years. I was there this am to put her on the bus for the 3rd grade. Her biological father was killed when she was three. One thing these racists don’t seem to grasp is NOT ALL of us white folks are on their side or will tolerate the potential evil they plan to bring to people of color. I would gladly take a bullet for my girls. If they push us into some type of nazi/supremacist Hell, I would fight to the death to protect my girls…ALL OF THEM. So assholes…I ask You…are you willing to die for your evil? If not, I’d advise you to change your phucking ways. My commitment is TOTAL AND PERMANENT! You phuck with my children you better be prepared for it to cost you. I’m not just talking assholes…you know…like your idol.
I’m with you, Scott, I have Bi-racial Great-grandchildren (Black and Hispanic) from my White Grandchildren, and I’ll be damned if ANYONE tries to harm them in any way! Doesn’t matter that I’m a 77-year-old granny!
I don’t even need to have relatives to be with you – colleaagues over are a liftime put me therre
SMH at how these white idiots think those of us white folks who are pro-diversity are “race traitors” – as if that meant something
I’m sure a lot of us, possibly all of us, still have some Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA somewhere. But the fact is, the only existing race of humans is homo sapiens, and it’s they who are being traitors to it by relecting other members of it for differences which are utterly irrelevant, such as color and gender.
Today’s choice for the Stupidest Mother Fucker of the Year Award goes to an entire group of stupid mother fuckers: the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. Some days there are a lot of contenders who are pretty close in their level of stupidity but not today: these idiots really shine-they beat everyone else by a mile. That’s hard to do when you have von shitzi and hillbilly boy giving real competition every single day. Let’s hear it for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies and their rampant ignorance.
Dead right Spike. It’s like they decided misogyny wasn’t working for them, so they’ll try racism as well.
Moronic idiots, too stupid to see how stupid they are.
“These racist assholes have seen the projections for future demographics in the USA (and elsewhere) which predict that lily-white folks will be a minority within something like a mere 30 years.” King Canute showed c1027 you can’t hold back the tide; the Republican Party (as was in 2012, though not as was pre-Reagan and certainly not as is) itself recognised the need to change. Demographic logic dictates the necessity to reach out for allies and move on. Apologies for suggesting there might be brain cells to apply logic uch less ability to look at the world around them rather than backwards.
I’ve read about this flap and cracked up! These idiots are around 16 years too late with their “resolution”. Obama had 8 years of (mostly) successful presidency—-sort of a major precedent, and one that SCOTUS can’t ignore.
Y’all want to know the BIGGEST irony in this little story?
I did a search on the group (must not be the first as I’d just typed in “national federation” and the group’s name autofilled the box) and here’s what the first entry says in the little highlight blurb: “The Republican wing of the Republican Party. We are the home of the Frederick Douglass Republicans.” As in BLACK MAN, Frederick Douglass.
Oh, by the way, that first entry in the search was the “National Federation of Republican Assemblies” own website.
So, Kamala Harris can’t be President because of the Dred Scott decision but they can “idolize” Frederick Douglass, the same man who had this in reaction to that decision:
“You will readily ask me how I am affected by this devilish decision — this judicial incarnation of wolfishness? My answer is, and no thanks to the slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court, my hopes were never brighter than now. I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous tissue of lies as that decision is, and has been, over and over, shown to be.” (from the Famous Trials website at https://famous-trials.com/dredscott/2551-frederick-douglass-lincoln-and-others-react-to-the-dred-scott-decision–full text is there too)
Perhaps this “Federation” might want to (or should) ask themselves how they can claim to be the “home of Frederick Douglass Republicans” while essentially spitting on the man’s very memory with this drivel that Douglass himself would pay no heed, aside from condemning it AND the group. Clarence Thomas might want to weigh in on this opinion since his current marriage would be rendered just as invalid if Dred Scott were suddenly to become “law” once again.
Well, lots of GOPers still try to call themselves the Party of Lincoln.