Many Progressive organizations are flooding inboxes with messages of dire straits post and pre Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh. All the bad things these emails allude to are probably correct.
Unfortunately, Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court is likely as bad if not worse than what they stated in all those emails you have been receiving. Offering false hope that Democrats or Progressives have options to prevent his ascent to the court is dangerous.
America is living through a nightmare that did not have to be. Those who stayed home because in their view they could not stomach the vote for the lesser of two evils or voted out of spite have forever changed the country’s history. They have ensured that the liberalization of American laws and policies are frozen in the present at best but likely slipped back into the past.
But this is where we find ourselves. The reality is that it is unlikely that anything can be done to stop Trump and the Republicans from installing anyone they so choose to place on the Supreme Court. Democrats do not have the numbers to stop anything.
We can fire up Progressives and hit the streets. We can pretend that pro-choice Republican Senators will potentially vote against their party. We can raise a lot of money temporarily on the Progressive side with this tale until the charade is over and Republicans ultimately install their corporate and ideological shill to the Supreme Court.
But what then? We run the risk of demoralizing those to whom we have given false hope, those who believe that we have options we don’t have.
Isn’t it time that we stop going through the same old playbook, the same old paradigm? Isn’t it time that we speak to all Americans as the intelligent people we are even if at times ill-informed and governed by our fears? Yes, it is.
Many are in despair because they finally understand that Trump’s evil legacy will live on in the stacking of the courts with Right Wing ideologues that could overturn women’s rights, civil rights, and much more.
Yes, we must encourage protest and continue the resistance. Progressive activists must lay the groundwork, the modus operandi, assuming Trump will get his desired Supreme Court Justice. We have not lost yet. The Constitution does give us options.
During the 2016 election, Trump made it clear he was going to nominate judges based on a litmus test. We must deem Trump’s utterances along with judges overturning the will of the people on dubious constitutional grounds, are impeachable offenses. But impeachment is a complicated political process that requires a consensus of much more than a bare majority.
Much research leads us to the notion that when we ask Americans about their wants, about their desires, that most are progressives. Theo Anderson at BillMoyers.com points this out with various reputable polls. Likewise, a substantive article by Peter Dreier similarly titled “Most Americans Are Liberal, Even If They Don’t Know It” does a great job enumerating that reality for consumption. Why then, does the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives and the presidency does not reflect that reality? Deep inside we know the answer. Many of us for various reasons including purity tests, inflexibility, among many others allowed the powerful to use our weaknesses against us.
Progressive activists must activate Americans to elect candidates that are ready to challenge judges objectively. They must concurrently educate Americans, from sea to shining sea, from the coasts to Appalachia, from the barrios to the ghettos. They must sell Progressive values through their narrative as opposed to that of the Plutocracy.
It is not idealistic to believe that we can get to a time where the will of the people supersedes the will of the plutocracy. It does, however, take a lot of work and time that Progressive activists must be willing to invest in, day in and day out. We must remember that that is what the other side does. And that is what we must do.
So, yes, we may have lost the Supreme Court for a generation. But just the threat of people power will ensure that they watch that they are careful with their rulings. After all, the Constitution still gives us options.