THREE ODD TRAITS OF THE LEAST- KNOWN BRANCH OF OUR GOVERNMENT

 

…It has taken decades for the GOP to get the Supreme Court in its current position

 

The response of the America public to the leaked Roe v. Wade overturn is nationwide

 

The Supreme Court’s job approval today is the lowest it has ever been.  The approval in the U.S. is currently at 40%.  Only twice has it been in the 40’s, but it has never been this low.

This low approval is based on the reaction across the nation to the leaked prospect of the court’s expected results as to the over-turning of Roe v. Wade.

The following are three things that are what we Americans have accepted from our highest court.

ONE:

The court is inordinately powerful.

Nine individuals in a nation of 332 million periodically emerge Oz-like from behind the courtroom’s deep red curtain to issue life-altering rulings.

There are no appeals allowed to their proclamations.  With no public scrutiny or accountability, they can conspire on cases of their choosing, and a bare majority of only 5 can arbitrarily overrule presidents, congresses, governors, legislatures, other courts, voters, science, and even the most intimate personal choices of ordinary, supposedly self-governing people.

TWO:

With only rare exceptions, the court’s makeup bears no resemblance to a government OF, BY, and FOR the people.

The justices are practically unknown to the public.  Most have little in common with regular people, and no real contact with grass-roots America.

They are dangerously ignorant about the struggles of the working class, and poor families.  They tend to be products of exclusive law schools, (eight of today’s members are Harvard or Yale graduates.)  They’ve typically had highly paid careers as lawyers, lobbyists, or trusted staffers for right-wing political interests.  Their separation from workaday Americans is normal for these judges:

• They are Justices for Life.
• They make-up their own rules.
• They are not subject to any performance reviews.
• They operate almost entirely behind closed doors.

No wonder, then, that this little group, with truly awesome power over our lives, is so frequently out of touch with our experiences, needs, and beliefs.

THREE

(and most surprising)

Despite its prominence, pomp, and presumption of power, the Supreme Court is a very weak, political entity.

The aloof honorables can make all the pronouncements they want, but as Alexander Hamilton had noted, “they have neither the power of sword, nor the purse.” Nor do they have any army to enforce their rulings or compel the people to comply with the people & to comply with what they say.  Their only real authority, the sole source of their legitimacy, is the one virtue the present bunch is so stupidly squandering; their judicial integrity.  In the long haul, We the People will accept their judgements as the law of the land, only to the degree that their rulings appear to be fair.  (i.e. based on honest legal procedures, the Common Good, and fundamental principles of justice.)

A court with no judicial integrity is: “an emperor without clothes”.

Therefore, The People Be Damned!

Today’s six-member supermajority has surrendered all their claims to being an impartial force for justice.  Instead the GOP’s small network of corporate and right-wing operatives has painstakingly fabricated and weaponized the high court as its own political oligarchy.  In only a couple of decades, backed by a few billionaires, these anti-democracy zealots have been imposing on America an extremist political agenda that they could never win at the ballot box.

Therefore, let us hope that that we aren’t stuck with: “Only God can help us now.”

Copyright G. Ater 2022