Thread by @teddipasketty

My rant: I’m a 52 year-old white guy who would, on paper, have no beef with what happened today or happened on January 6, or what has happened since the Supreme Court shut down ballot counting and put George W. Bush in power. All of it retains my power. But…

I grew up in a poor part of Ohio where large corporations came in and sold off jobs for the sake of profit. And I watched the powers that be decimate lives. For money. And I have never forgotten the families tossed aside for a dollar. So as I got older I became interested in law.

I came up truly believing that institutions would temper the basest instincts of our nature. I studied institutions of our nation, the three branches, and I made a life in law. I believed in checks and balances. We had bad Presidents, and good. Bad politicians, and good.

I think it was after Bush v. Gore, and then 9/11 and the war in Iraq — which had nothing to do with the attacks — that my foundation was truly shaken. We were a nation at war with people for no reason. We were a nation at war with itself over politics.

I never thought that an authoritarian could Happen Here. And then in November 2016 I was proven wrong. I knew then that we were truly in a slide. And I hoped that my first intellectual love, the Law, would save us. It sort of did, but barely. The President tried a coup.

Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating. The President attempted a coup. Full stop. Think about that. The President attempted a coup. But, before those days, he did something almost as damaging.

His party, led by Mitch McConnell, utterly subverted the Constitution’s advise and consent clause by denying Garland a vote. And then, when Ginsburg died, they rammed through Coney Barrett. And before that Kavanaugh, tainted and damaged.

So suddenly, after some really dirty fucking pool, we suddenly had a 6-3 majority comprised of some really ideological politicos. Not elected officials, but appointed, lifetime appointed, Justices.

I’ll confess this: we have had majority Republican-appointed Justices before. Blackmun, who wrote Roe? Republican appointee. O’Connor and Kennedy. Same. I never fully agreed with them, but they kept the evolution of the Law in a lane. The Court was always more sensitive to change

I guess that’s why — and here’s the confession — I never got worked up about a Kennedy or O’Connor or Rehnquist. Or others. Because there was a lane they stayed in. Conservative? Sure. Agree with them? Rarely. But stare decisis meant something to them. They wouldn’t burn it down.

So after 2000 and 9/11 and Trump, where we are now is nowhere I thought we would be. Where the Supreme Court would *openly* (Thomas’s concurrence today) invite challenges to longstanding rights. And overturn one. Look, and this is fact:

Today the Supreme Court, for the first time ever, chose to no longer recognize a right it conferred 50 years ago. It took away a right. For millions. I can see how we got here, but I never believed it could happen.

Here’s the sad thing for me as a lawyer. I can never again view the Court as an institution for reasoned, independent, apolitical — at least quietly apolitical— judgment. Today the veil was ripped away, and willingly. Brazenly.

The Court announced its decision, and in doing so loudly announced its open hostility to any interpretation of the Constitution that Is Not Theirs. Theirs. Not yours, not mine. Theirs. Their party’s, their party’s donors, their allies in the quest for more power.

So here we are. A nation where the laws are precisely what those in power say it is. And, brothers and sisters, that spells Doom upon our nation. It is as awful as you can imagine. One Justice today, in writing, openly invited cases to overturn a host of rights.

I am a man of the law. I became a non-sectarian cleric — a lawyer — in a time where that meant something. I was proud to be that. Because it meant fealty to a life outside of sway, and dedicated to reason. Regardless of party.

That is no more. I’m sure people of color or of minority status would rightly tell me the Law has never been this way. And I see that. But I always believed that at its core the Law could be a sword for the oppressed, as well as a shield for the privileged. And that in the end…

Right would prevail. I still think — well, I hope — right will prevail. But boy howdy does that tunnel to the other side look long and dark and full of terrors.

I’ve been a lawyer 26 years. And today I’ve never felt more impotent in the belief that the Law is what saves us. I am consumed by the view that the Law will not. The currency is power, regardless of the barriers of institution and commonality. Those barriers are fine now.

I’ll add one final warning: To the extent you think the forces at work on January 6 and hard at work today in the Supreme Court are sated and not a threat, you are wrong. Dead wrong. In no point in history have those with power seceded power. They will not rest.

And the next in line is you, and you, and you. Step by step. Slice by slice.

I’m a 52 year-old white dude who, on paper, has no reason to fear.

But I’m a lawyer. And a damned good one.

And I’m scared as Hell.

*”done” not “fine.”