Democrats hold the White House, Senate and House of Representatives. But much to Biden’s consternation, they are outnumbered on the Supreme Court. While the Rational Enlightenment construct of “checks and balances” is specifically designed to prevent any individual or party from gaining a dictatorial stranglehold on any given country, it is precisely that that Herr Biden would seem to covet. Last week he signed an executive order creating a commission to study the possibility of expanding the 9 member court to 13. The 4 new justices, of course, selected by Democrats, would give him almost absolute control over the immediate future of the States.
As with disdain for the Rule of Law, so disdain for the integrity of Democracy’s fundamental Institutions opens the door to chaos, to discord, indeed perhaps to civil war. While complete impartiality is of course impossible, Supreme Court Justices are first and foremost charged with defending the Law rather than their particular biases. For the simple-minded Biden, however, his biases would seem to be all that matter. So many have stepped forward expressing their concern with his intent to “pack” the Supreme Court with those who share his mind-set, a good number of them members of his own party. Most damaging of all, perhaps, was his candid insistence when still a Senator that court packing was an utterly “boneheaded” idea! As we saw in his denunciation of Trump’s limited use of the very Executive Orders which he has used dozens of times in just a few months, dishonesty and hypocrisy come easily to Joe Biden.
The now deceased and very “liberal” Ruth Bader Ginsburg was decidedly against either party packing the Supreme Court.
Justice Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, said in a recent address to the members of Harvard’s Law School, that Biden’s stratagem would seriously erode public trust in an institution that is supposed to be politically neutral.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, hardly a devotee of “conservatism,” warned that if the Democrats pack the Supreme Court, “the next time the Republicans are in power they will do the same thing.” He was basically affirming my oft invoked Principle that violating the Rule of Law only incites others to do the same!
Former Democratic Senator Harry Reid is of a similar mind, saying: “I think that we better be very, very careful in saying that we need to expand the Supreme Court. I think we better be very, very careful.” Clearly he sees Biden’s initiative as a dire threat to Democracy itself.
A multitude of Republicans are of course in agreement, Mitch McConnell accusing Biden of fabricating a “non-existent problem” in a brazen attempt to “politicize the court.”
Perhaps the most passionate denunciation of the President’s power play came from Mike Davis of the “conservative” Article 3 Project who warned that Biden’s stratagem was “alarming” and must “be met with the harshest of denunciations from both sides of the aisle” inasmuch as it would “destroy centuries of hard work” designed “to insulate the high court from partisan politics.”
Just imagine the hand wringing, the outrage, the virulent torrent of condemnations from the hypocritical simpletons at CNN and MSNBC had Trump tried to alter a major political Institution to further his agenda! While his “style” opened the door to countless accusations that he was a tyrant, there is a vast difference between his scornful denunciations of what he saw as a crassly biased media and an actual attempt to deprive his political opponents all access to power by changing the very structure of the U.S. Government!
That Trump fomented the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen has been the subject of dozens of mainstream editorials, the implication being that he was trying to hi-jack the U.S. Government. But as far as I can see, he used the proper legal means available to him in making his case, a case which has of course been generally dismissed. The incredible irony of those who mock him for the apparent arrogance of his claim, and that includes those Big Tech platforms which have banned any mention that the results of the 2020 election may have fraudulent, is that Democrats made the very same accusations in 2000 regarding the election of George W. Bush, accusations readily, indeed massively available on those very same Big Tech platforms.
So the sophisticated Ethos of “progressives” would seem to entail the assumption that they are Right and everyone else is Wrong, that only those who agree are entitled to the benefits of Free-Speech, indeed that they are perfectly justified in violating the basic Principles and Institutions of Democracy in the pursuit of their sacred cause. Joe and Kamala would no doubt agree. As would Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. To each of them I extend my right arm and a fervent Zeig Heil!