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Though he likely won't hold public attention, I suspect that Roberts will, in the analyses of professional historians and political scientists, be judged second only to Trump in responsibility for the coming collapse of the US.
Can we judge him now and hold him accountable?
Like if the Dems get past Republican election meddling can they just fucking impeachment him and do something? I'm sick of horrible people getting to make everyone else suffer while they live a life of luxury until they finally die of old age.
They could - Congress has the exact same authority to impeach a supreme court justice as they do a president (or any other federal office-holder for that matter).
But they won't.
A Dem majority wouldn't be enough, because Schumer and Jeffries and all the rest of their neolib hack allies would still be there, and they're owned by most of the same big money donors that own the Republicans.
The only way there's any chance that Congress would actually exercise its authority is if all of the corrupt shitweasels are primaried and the Dems end up not just with a majority, but a majority of actual leftists with actual principles and integrity.
And that's terribly unlikely, since both the Republicans and the Democrats would fight it tooth and toenail.
Impeachment requires 2/3 of the senate voting to convict. The only way that will happen is for one party to have 67 senate seats, or for members of both parties to vote to convict.
For the Dems to get to 67 senate seats in the next midterm election would require winning every single race, The odds of that are just slightly more than 0, you'd be better off playing the lottery.
It's slightly less implausible that the Democrats could win most of the seats up for election in a large backlash against Trump and the Republicans, and that in that scenario you could get the remaining votes from Republicans who view the Trump administration as a sinking ship that they don't want to go down with. Trump's second impeachment was as close as we've seen to that kind of scenario.
Even then, it's a lot easier to imagine Republicans going along with an impeachment of Trump (who will almost certainly be gone soon anyway) than it is for them to remove members of the Supreme Court whose positions could affect the balance of power for decades. About the only way I can see it happening (even in this extreme scenario) is if they went after Thomas and/or Alito, because they are the oldest members currently on the court and that would give Trump the opportunity to appoint two new justices.
So, realistically, any (legal) accountability is at least two elections away. And even then, it's more plausible that it would come from a new administration pursuing criminal charges against the fascists and their enablers than it would be through impeachment.
Yeah how are we a decade in and still most Democrats are still on the whole "well, you know, it's better to let democracy die on the high road than to stoop to their level" shit???? I'd rather not live the rest of my life in the coming and present nightmare in the service of some abstract, holier-than-thou nonsense, tyvm. Go lower, Jesus Christ.
Huh. Guess those rich white guys from the 1700s COULDN'T anticipate everything that could possibly threaten a nation. Imagine that!
They set up a system that could be amended over time to address this kind of thing.
Yet the combination of hyperpartisanship, congressional gridlock, and a politics divorced from objective reality had made that remedy functionally unavailable
Just some of the many things that they couldn't anticipate hundreds of years ago at a time where there was nine or so states.
How's that going?
It isn't a perfect system, but they did acknowledge that they couldn't foresee everything and included a system that would allow for addressing these kinds of issues.
Even if they foresaw this very specific way of running the country into the ground it wouldn't matter because the administration and the conservative members of SCOTUS and the Republicans in congress are all blatantly ignoring the law and the constitution and every other part of the system they want to ignore. No system would be able to stop a hostile takeover that ignores the safeguards of the system.
The test of whether a system is worth anything is can it better prevent this type of thing from happening
He used to be moderated at least somewhat by concern for his legacy. I think that the abortion ruling ended that. He knows that that ruling is going to be talked about in a similar manner to Dredd Scott and that it alone would nullify anything that could be argued as a restained and responsible exercise of judicial power. When you sign on to a partisan ruling that strips fundamental rights you give up on legacy. Now that that's not a concern anymore what he's protecting is his position in the conservative movement. He wants to make sure he stays in a position of power when the Nazis take over.
Huh... that sounds about right.
Alito, for instance, was always a demagogic piece of shit, and Thomas was always a corrupt piece of shit, but for a while there, Roberts was a relatively decent justice, all things considered. But no more - now he's at least as corrupt/compromised as the rest of them. But I was never quite sure how that happened, and that's a plausible explanation.
Roberts and McConnell are pretty neck and neck for that distinction. I’d personally choose McConnell for his decades of sabotage, but you know, it’s horses for courses.
Reagan's gotta be on that list somewhere
100% agree. It was one of the many (but arguably the most important) check and balance that failed