Some parasitic insects lay their eggs in other living things. The larvae hatch and eat the live host from the inside out, leaving an empty shell behind.
The Supreme Court is doing the same with the Voting Rights Act, state/church separation, and, coming soon, abortion rights.
The Supreme Court is doing the same with the Voting Rights Act, state/church separation, and, coming soon, abortion rights.
SCOTUS is leaving behind the empty shells of the Voting Rights Act, the First Amendment, and reproductive rights, while not actually striking down any statutes or overturning any precedent. This one weird trick suggests incremental change, not massive legal rewrites.
It's dishonest, but also political. Directly striking down or overruling, for instance, the VRA would build more popular support to #ExpandTheCourt. So instead we get the Shelby County and Brnovich cases, which gut the VRA and leave us with an empty husk. 
SCOTUS has done the same thing with religious freedom and state/church separation, rewriting the Constitution so that the latter is now hostile to the former, instead of protecting the principle that there is no freedom OF religion without a government that is free FROM religion.
It's very clearly going to do the same thing with abortion rights—has been doing so already. The justices have accepted a case to end Roe, but, if recent history repeats itself, they won't deliver a clear coup de gras, they'll leave Roe an empty hulk.
We tend to describe this caustic work as eating away at the edges of precedent, of our rights, but it's not. McConnell and the GOP have been laying eggs on the Supreme Court for decades and were furiously fecund under Trump.
These justices are eviscerating our most basic rights in a way that deliberately disguises the threat. They're on the court for a lifetime and will leave behind, not rights, but empty facades, empty shells, empty promises. It's time to #ExpandTheCourt.
#FixTheCourt now.
#FixTheCourt now.
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