THIS MUST BE STOPPED, by any means necessary. As a lawyer who knows the law and its (sometimes enlightened, but sometimes ruinous) history, as one who respects the law but also knows its blemishes, I say: this CANNOT be allowed to happen, PERIOD, no qualifications. Reasons:
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First: we are 100% justified in blocking any nominee by ANY means: political, personal, lawful, unlawful (see Thoreau, MLK, Gandhi). If Garland had had a hearing, it would be different. But to let Trump/McConnell ILLEGALLY steal Garland's seat AND name Kennedy's successor? NO.
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If we don't keep this seat EMPTY, say goodbye to Roe v Wade. Say goodbye to to CONTRACEPTION, ffs! Say goodbye to the Voting Rights Act. Say goodbye to the entire Warren Court legacy -- and more. For those who don't fully understand what that actually means, here's a primer:
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(Sorry, got interrupted. Resuming massive thread on the Kennedy vacancy shortly.)
In my lifetime, not only was abortion illegal, but states were allowed to ban CONDOMS, even to married couples (because condoms promote sex for pleasure rather than enjoyment, and therefore by definition obscene). The Warren Court changed that. 4/
In my lifetime, "sodomy" -- which includes oral sex -- was a crime in many jurisdictions, even between married hetero couples. Men were prosecuted for going down on their wives (usu. based on an accusation made during a divorce proceeding). LGBT people? Do Not Collect $200. 5/
But the Warren Court found that marital reproductive and intimate marital relations were a private matter that the government had no right regulating -- setting the stage for later women's rights and LGBT rights victories, including same-sex marriage. 6/
The year my wife was born, the Warren Court reversed Plessy v Ferguson, which had held since 1896 that segregation was constitutional. White Flight followed, but for a while, Black children finally had access to the same schools as white children (and in many places still do). 7/
Too cynical to think that Brown v. Board mattered? Don't be. I woke IMMENSELY from attending an integrated elementary school in Oakland in the 1960s. Many in my generation did the same. No Warren Court, no [insert list of Black writers/thinkers/artists/scientists here]. /8
In my lifetime, sex with someone of another race was a crime in many states. And fugeddabout interracial MARRIAGE: Black men traveling across state lines and then sleeping with their own (white) wives were jailed under federal anti-sex trafficking laws. IN MY OWN LIFETIME. 9/
In my lifetime, uneducated poor defendants had to defend themselves pro se against MURDER charges because they couldn't afford to pay an attorney out of their own pocket. There was no right to publicly-funded counsel. Public defenders exist because of the Warren Court. 10/
In my lifetime, evidence obtained during an illegal search could still be used in court. In my lifetime, prosecutors had no obligation to tell the defense about exculpatory evidence. In my lifetime, prosecutors could choose jurors openly based on race. Warren changed that. 11/
Here's a great list of Warren Court decisions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U…. It's a fascinating read. Imagine a world without these decisions. If we let Trump fill Kennedy's seat, we will be living in such a world. 12/
The Right has fantasized about returning to a pre-Warren Court America for decades. And I've read Alito's and Thomas's and the other conservatives' jurisprudence. A pre-Warren Court world is where they're headed. They just need a solid majority to do so. 13/
And it's worse than that. Forget returning to the '50s if we let Trump fill Kennedy's seat. No: we'll be returning in many ways to the '20s -- and even earlier. In a ruling just today, Alito used language clearly hinting he'd like to return to the "Lochner Era." 14/
The "Lochner Era" Supreme Court was a pro-Wall Street mess that believed the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect the rights of former slaves, secretly contains an oxymoronic "substantive due process" provision embedding capitalism in the Constitution. Yeah, seriously. #wypipo 15/
From 1897 to 1937, the Lochner-era Court issued a string of rulings finding that laws protecting workers (workplace safety, max working hours, child labor) violated both the Constitution's secret "capitalism" clause and workers' Constitutional right to freedom of contract. 16/
So under Lochner, children have a constitutional right to work 12/7/365 in a coal mine if they want to, because: Freedom!
Think today's capitalists won't gut worker protection that same way if Supreme Court rulings let them? (Think the GOP cares at ALL about children?) 17/
Think today's capitalists won't gut worker protection that same way if Supreme Court rulings let them? (Think the GOP cares at ALL about children?) 17/
And even worse: if we let Trump fill Kennedy's seat, we may return to the days of the 1883 "Civil Rights Cases" (holding that federal civil rights laws are unconstitutional because "private acts" of racial discrimination like lynching are none of the fed. govt's business). 18/
Am I overreacting? We already know the conservative minority wants to reinterpret the 10th Amendment to undo half the federal laws enacted from FDR on. They're DYING to hobble the fed. govt. so red states + corps can roam free. You KNOW that. Only Roberts might balk. Maybe. 19/
Just 2 wks ago, a narrow majority ruled against voting rights. Thomas + Gorsuch went further, saying the VRA doesn't apply AT ALL to political machinations affecting the OUTCOME of an election, so long as the darkies are allowed to play at putting ballots in little boxes. 20/
Critical point to understand: the change we'll see if Trump gets this seat (and therefore a solid conservative majority) is in the dominant theory of the Constitution itself. And the Constitution trumps everything else. 21/
It won't MATTER then if Dems win Congress, bec the new conservative Court majority will find that the [newly emasculated] Constitution trumps any law Congress passes that they don't like. They'll always win. 22/
The Progressive Movement existed for decades prior to FDR, + passed lots of good laws -- most of which the Lochner court shut down. That's where we'll be: powerless until more justices croak (or until Dems win back Congress + WH AND increase the Court's size to 11 or 13). 23/
(And yeah, yeah, FDR/Court-packing/etc. But FDR hadn't had a seat stolen from him, like Obama did. Anyway, that's a different convo.) 24/
POINT IS, the new majority's "sorry, the Constitution no longer lets you do that” approach will both vaporize the past century's progress AND block whatever fixes even a solidly Democratic Congress and WH may enact to fight back. Game over, until another retirement or death. 25/
If you look closely at the legal foundations of the past century's progress, you'll see it all crumbles under the Court's conservatives' theory of what the Constitution is. There's no way to indulge Alito's worldview AND preserve the Civil Rights + Voting Rights Acts, ... 26/
... or abortion or contraception, or even the right to a non-racist jury and a public defender in a state murder trial. If we let Trump fill Kennedy's seat, it ALL falls. It has to. 27/
When a building's foundation goes, the whole thing goes. And it goes whether you EXPECT it to or not, bec. it's a structural thing, + the law, believe it or not, is a structure; it builds on itself. Precedent is its genius. Remove a century's worth of foundation, it'll topple. 28
Let Trump fill this seat, and the entire edifice of modern rights law -- every inadequate-but-OMG-better-than-Jim-Crow protection minorities have, every right of women to reproductive health and choice, workers' few remaining protections -- will tumble like the WTC on 9/11. 29/
And people will say "wow, I didn't realize THAT could happen!" exactly as we all did on 9/11. And that's understandable! Who the hell thought it could be THAT bad? But because no one expected them to fall, people who might have been saved are dead. 30/
The massive ideological swing a truly conservative Court majority would enact will COST ACTUAL LIVES. Women's lives, Black lives, immigrant lives, children's lives. This vacancy isn't just one more battle; it's the endgame. It's where we either hold, or where we lose it all. 31/
(And if all of the above isn't enough, ask this: should a Trump-picked justice be the swing vote in deciding whether or not sitting presidents can be indicted?) 32/
If we do not protest and rally -- and swarm, and invade, and obstruct, and overwhelm, and occupy, and burn some things figuratively AND literally to the ground if necessary -- to keep this seat vacant, these evils WILL happen, and our rights WILL be lost, and people WILL die. 33/
We CANNOT let this seat be filled. We must stop it by any means necessary, bec. if we don't, modern US society literally unravels. Everything depends on THIS fight. Civility, comity, possibly even legality? Unaffordable luxuries.
This is the endgame. Let's act like it. 34/34
This is the endgame. Let's act like it. 34/34
