1. I've noticed this too. And I have no doubt that A.C.B. both as a woman & devout Catholic felt pressured to have a large family. But I am grateful that she lived in an era where that obligation didn't deprive her "top of the class" brain the opp. to reach its full potential.
https://twitter.com/JillFilipovic/status/1315656369211572224
2. And I always wonder if women in her position ever stop to realize that "activist courts" that aren't "designed to right every wrong in our public life" are the KEY tool that allowed her to do it. That w/o the very type of jurisprudence she hates, she almost certainly couldn't
3. have achieved the remarkable achievements she has wrought from her life. And so, that means, if she brings a different kind of jurisprudence to the bench, that other people, other groups, and frankly, women, will be denied future opportunities. One of the GOP senators noted
4. that Barrett's will be just the 5th of 180 or so SCOTUS nominations that'll be of a woman. Men who decry "activist courts" decry them because over the last 70 years these courts, piece by piece, have used the law to dismantle the stranglehold on power that men, that WHITE men
5. have held on American society since its inception as a colony, its codification as a country, and indeed, since western human civilization began. In the book version of my forecasting work I argue that polarization is caused by the collapse of this power paradigm & the caste
6. system it perpetuated into a new paradigm, what I call the Egalitarian Power Paradigm. Indeed, the White Male Power Paradigm is in collapse everywhere in western civilization & has produced backlash everywhere. In the U.S. though, due to our unique system of govn't (S.O.P)
7. within a presidential rather than a parliamentary system which also builds in enhanced power of rural states (white states) in two major institutions (the Senate and the Electoral College), our backlash is manifesting in polarization and hyperpartisanship, and I write about it
8. now, here, bc it may be that the book will come too late. It may be that the collapse of the power paradigm in the U.S. is going to lead to polarization & hyperpartisanship which led to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 & then to an anti-democratic power grab in the 2020
9. election, which-just to be clear- would mean the end of real democracy in the United States of America. If Trump & Bill Barr are able to disrupt the counting of mailed-in ballots/ or disqualify them, that, my friends is NOT Trump "winning an election." So again, this threat
10. must be treated with utmost seriousness- and when you look at the litigation the RNC is putting up in the swing states- it is clear they are engaged in a shameless, full out assault on democracy. I mean, some of these lawsuits? So, one might ask why? Why is the GOP willing to
11. let it all hang out this way? I mean, suing to prevent a county from using more than one ballot drop off box? That doesn't make you look very good. So why is the Rep Party willing to go all-in on strategies they should be mortified to run? Its bc they see this as the last
12. gasp of the old paradigm, and thus, they are willing to put it all on the line. Some, like Mike Lee, are even working on convincing themselves that democracy is overrated. They have built this massive propaganda system that is now so powerful & all-encompassing that they've
13. built a rationale for supporting Trump & Barr even when they KNOW that the former is batshit nuts. But I digress: when men, when white men think "activist courts" here is what they are thinking. They are thinking about courts that said multiple Amendments to the Constitution
14. created a "penumbra of rights" that creates a "zone of protection" between the individual & the government. Yes, that's right, my little Libertarian friends, it protects YOU from the state. That meant the state couldn't prevent you from using birth control, or even, if sadly
15. you needed to, end a pregnancy. In more judicial activism, the Court interpreted the 4th Amendment as the state not being able to arrest you w evidence they found in your house while looking for something else, or refusing to inform you of your rights remain silent during
16. questioning, or the idea that if you were facing jail time for your charges and a prosecutor representing the state, the 5th and 6th Amendments probably meant that you should have an attorney too, even if you were too poor to afford one. These are just a few of the terrible
17. indignities wrought on America by "liberal activist courts" which helped spur the conservative judicial reform social movements which have now reached their zeniths- having sat about a 3rd of the federal bench with very ideological judges & our 3rd in 3 yrs like-minded SCOTUS
18. appointee. Now they will enjoy the fruits of their labors, and it should be a good and ready harvest starting off w the Obamacare elimination. Assuming democracy survives Trump & GOP short-sighted shamelessness (and it WILL if turnout hits 70%- they can only pull off their
19. coup attempt if the election is tight. If Biden wins Florida, and that will be counted election night, then its game over for Trump & Barr. Between a giant turnout surge and the heavy swing of pure Is from Trump to Biden, its just not possible for Trump to "win" the election.
20. And that is one reason I push back so hard at the idea that the polls/data was wrong in 2016. There were some polls that were wrongish, but mostly, the polls were only totaling to 85% of the two-party vote- leaving 15% of the vote unexplained. 15% T.B.A. means anything can
21. happen, NOT Clinton has a high probability of winning. Forecasting models were not designed to account for this and pundits/experts were not talking/noticing the high number of undecideds- at least not in the way that would define the election narrative appropriately.
22. If you were to poll voters about "liberal activist courts"- one of the most effective GOP talking points ever, it would poll terribly. Virtually no one would be able to tell you anything close to what it means- even the disingenuous definition floated by Reps. And Americans
23. would be shocked to find out that what it means to senators like Lindsey Graham are the very things that have taken America from a society dominated by white men (and cruelly, I might add) to the beginning of the Egalitarian Power paradigm- one that benefits everyone and
24. and still allows white men A LOT of power (and up till today, 75% of Congress and 95% of election twitter). Just not ALL OF IT. Many white men have embraced shared power & have worked to end the old paradigm and create the Egalitarian Power Paradigm. Many have fought it
25. every step of the way. The reason we see the big education divide isn't bc of economic pressure- you can see high income/low edu white men w high levels of sexism & racism in studies testing the effects of economic factors versus racism/sexism on Trump support, for ex.
26. so no, the reason is education increases tolerance for diversity and gender equality and multiculturalism (which is why right-wingers say that going to college amounts to left-wing indoctrination. Of course, racial tolerance, support for diversity/gender equality, THOSE
27. didn't use to be "liberal" positions and the fact that people on the right now say they are kind of underscores why the modern GOP is such a shit show.
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