Fun fact: The President can do whatever the fuck he wants. It's up to the courts to tell him to knock it off and traditionally they don't do that even when they really, really should.
Everyone thinks they can, and by the magic of imagination it becomes true.
Courts grant state officials and private citizens license to disobey or obstruct the Executive leadership. So if your bureaucrats aren't on board, a court ruling can let them throw up their hands in helplessness when you tell them to comply.
Similarly, it can enable them to act fearlessly when they are enthusiastic advocates of the ruling. Abolishing Roe gives the local pig brigade license to assault and arrest pregnant women with abandon. It grants private groups license to engage in domestic terrorism under the guise of enforcing the law. And it mutes public criticism of the above, as you're now advocating criminality in opposition to the law.
For a society dead set against a decision, the SCOTUS is powerless. But consider how Eisenhower unleashed the power of the state after Brown v. Board, as it granted him license to persecute opposition party rivals. The real underlying power of the courts is to grant credible public legitimacy. That goes a long way towards empowering radicals and reactionaries in turn.
Listen Jack, I can't violate the sovereignty of a sacred document authored hundreds of years ago in order to fix an issue that cropped up in the last couple decades
So I'm just going to appear on talk shows with liberal hosts who fellate me while you all keep getting shot and losing rights
Dems have a great strategy of hiding behind civility while Republicans continue to drag the US into ultra-conservatism. It's as if they're ok with it.
What really gets me is the rank and file liberals who must, to some extent, realize that things have gone horrifically, horrifically wrong. But they act like some idiot British toff in the first days of World War I, honorably marching in to certain death because it's their duty as an officer. "The President can't just wield the power vested in his office! It would be uncivil!"
Exactly. I know it's kind of an overused term at this point but it's total West Wing brain. They're convinced that if they continue to do things by the book the greatness of the country and its system will prevail. They don't realize that it's rotting from the inside and they're just going down with the ship.
But they act like some idiot British toff in the first days of World War I, honorably marching in to certain death because it’s their duty as an officer.
At the start of the war, people simply didn't understand the pain they were going to be subjected to. They got a ton of pomp and circumstance, a bunch of commanders bloviating about how this was going to be a quick glorious victory for their side, and a bunch of hype about this or that latest military widget to awe the plebiscite into compliance.
It was only when people started coming back in body bags and rationing set in and the sounds the government made didn't line up with the experiences the people endured, they grew more radical. And even then, the immediate impulse of the liberals in their various states was to beg leadership to slow down and make the pain less acute.
Subsequent governments have learned their lesson. In the modern era, we don't do anything like the mobilization we had in WW1/2. We spend a great deal of time and energy insulating people from the consequences of idiots in leadership, or deflecting blame such that no major institution ever suffers the kind of hate or distrust that would bring it down.
rank and file liberals who must, to some extent, realize that things have gone horrifically, horrifically wrong
They see it on paper, but they still haven't really seen it in person. Bad economic news doesn't carry any more or less weight than any state issued propaganda.
Until you actually have a city destroyed by a hurricane or a local economy collapse in the face of de-industrialization or a state-wide power grid fail, there's no real recognition that we've fucked up. And even when these events do happen, there is no consensus as to how to fix it because we're all hooked up to the propaganda machines that fill our heads with crap.
As long as they passively benefit from the abuse, they'll let it happen.
Republicans spent years calling Obama a tyrant for using EOs, any EOs. Here is Obama's VP agreeing that the use of EOs is unconstitutional. Amazing.
I want back all the time I wasted paying attention to the electoralist puppet show
Amazing message of "I care about dead kids but I don't care THAT much" to run on.
In bad countries, people die because their leaders are too busy going on Jimmy Kimmel
listen, uncle Biden loves us all and is doing a good job, but he can't simply violate cobbled together angry compromises made between slave owners 250 years ago. That stuff is sacred
Just like conservatives doesn't realize how absolutely deranged most of the things they said are, dems also doesn't realize how disgustingly pathetic their attempt to be "civil" is.
the president exercising constitutionally or legislatively delegated powers is trumpism, actually
these are the dumbest and most unjustifiably smug people on the earth
Haha hey remember how under Trump we were constantly 1 executive order away from full fascism?
