Extreme Court

By Patrick Hanley, NTD President

I'm not a lawyer - farthest thing from it - but even I can tell how today's Supreme Court has fumbled its constitutional and traditional responsibilities. From taking up hypothetical (fictional) cases to striking down norms backed up by decades of legal precedent, the MAGA era of the Roberts Court will be remembered as revisionist, ethically-compromised, grasping, and woefully unserious.

Ending Roe and putting lives and families in jeopardy; expanding Heller and hobbling law enforcement from protecting us; curtailing the EPA's ability to combat climate change; ending affirmative action; restricting public accommodation for protected classes; striking down the President's student debt relief plan - the list goes on and on.

Put bluntly, the unelected Supreme Court should not be in the position of making our policies. If Justice Thomas or Alito wanted to transform American society, they should have run for Congress (in the words of the President, 'lots of luck').

Of course, it's not entirely the Court's fault to be in this awkward position, even as they make the most of it. The Court is powerful in the absence of clear laws. The Court steps in when partisan gridlock prevents Congress from doing its job.

There is a remedy. We are not hopeless. We are energized and - as are the majority of Americans - frustrated by the self-dealing, corruption, and fringe rightwing radicalism of the GOP, the MAGA movement, and the 6-3 Court.

The answer - our answer - must be to organize. The only party with a serious, cohesive, compassionate forward-looking policy agenda is the Democratic Party. We must retake the House, expand our Senate majority, and - of course - defend the White House.

P.S. For a judicial pick-me-up, take a gander at these smoldering dissents by justices Sotomayor and Jackson