Correct: if you're worried about backlash to expanding the courts, just do it early. Remember how 90% of the earth-shattering events of the Trump administration seemed to be forgotten a couple months later? The public has a short memory.
Usually, despite the pundit/Democratic obsession with polls, public opinion just doesn't matter in politics. Most political events simply don't end up affecting elections. Outcomes are a product of elite decisions, not nebulous public sentiment.
Republicans do incredibly unpopular things all the time - like, things that poll -30 or -40 against. It doesn't matter! The public only gets to weigh in periodically, indirectly, and a lot of other factors affect that decision. For the most part, it's fine to ignore the public.
A whole lot of liberals and moderates act as if, should anyone make a political choice that polls even slightly underwater, the American Voter Hivemind will manifest itself and just, like, smite that person down.
The GOP understands this won't happen, and proceeds accordingly.
It's not enough to ask if a political decision or policy is unpopular. You also have to ask about the exact MECHANISM that will translate unpopularity into negative outcomes. (Vague handwaving over elections doesn't count.)
And usually, there isn't one!
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I think one of the worst pathologies of our time is the conviction among so many powerful people that "being reasonable" and "acting powerless" are the same thing - that reacting to events in any way, or attempt to effect change on the world, is inherently unserious.
It's a huge part of what has left our politics so paralyzed in response to things like Trump. "Wow, Trump's bad," some of the most powerful people on earth say. "It's crazy that he's running for reelection after attempting to overthrow the government. Hope he doesn't win!"
Something about the endless bubble of screens and news we live in has trained our society's leaders to believe they're not really part of the world, just observers of it. They've absorbed the passivity of the cable TV watcher or Twitter commenter.
Reorienting the legal system to protect white people, regardless of whether it’s done under the guise of anti-anti-racism or whatever, is effectively the restoration of formal white supremacy. It was always inevitable that Trump’s far right would end up here.
This is the beating heart of Trump’s politics: taking the inchoate resentment of reactionary white people terrified that they are losing their racial privileges and using it to create a regime where those people can endlessly exact revenge on groups they believe subordinate.
“White reactionaries incorrectly believe they have been discriminated against and simply want to compete on level ground” - given that they ALREADY are competing with an advantage, what would a legal regime privileging this group look like?
Biden has been the most progressive policy president in 50 years or more. He's enacted massive stimulus and climate bills, he's governed with a full-employment mindset that has created a booming economy for workers, he's appointed progressives across the federal government.
He's made great court appointments, stood up for labor unions like no president in history, and stood by an anti-monopoly FTC chair that has big business howling in anger. He's cancelled tons of student and tried to cancel more. He's done SO MUCH.
It is ALSO true that his opponent is undisguised fascist and rapist who previously tried to overthrow the government, campaigning on a platform of, quite literally, dictatorship, bloody revenge, and concentration camps for immigrants and other perceived undesirables.
Again, this is not complicated: the fringe of people who are going to sit out this election to punish Biden from the left is quite small. But those people are noisy and contribute to a larger sense of apathy, that both parties are the same. And there are a LOT of apathetic voters
"Both parties are the same, this election doesn't matter, I won't vote or will just vote third party" is a very stupid idea that nonetheless seems to have some intrinsic appeal to a lot of people, and has repeatedly caused catastrophic election results (Bush 2000, Trump 2016)
We were able to beat Trump in 2020 in large part because there was widespread recognition of the stakes of the election (that's why turnout was the highest in history). But right now the public discourse is full of very loud voices playing DOWN the stakes
It’s forgotten now but Dems spent the first 2.5 years of the Biden presidency intentionally slow-walking or closing down investigations of Trump while sternly declaring that they were “looking forward, not back”
The problem here was incredibly obvious at the time: if no one actually did the work of targeting Trump for his many outrageous acts, none of them would stick to him.
Remember that Mueller handed Garland an open-and-shut case against Trump, and instead of taking action, he simply let it expire. Dems didn’t investigate Trump and Russia. Only Jack Smith finally moved forward on an ACTUAL COUP ATTEMPT.