Quote (excellence @ 17 Jul 2024 05:20)
I think Democrats are only now starting to realize the magnitude of the judicial hole they dug themselves into. If Trump returns to the WH, which is looking increasingly likely right now, then he can replace Alito and Thomas with two new, young justices and thus enshrine a conservative majority on the highest court in the country for the next 25++ years. And if Sotomayor or Kagan have a health issue, the SCOTUS could even go to a ridiculous 7-2 conservative majority.
Essentially, the only way out for Democrats is to hope that they can achieve a federal trifecta at some point, abolish the filibuster and pack the court.
Similar story with the federal judiciary below the SCOTUS level: Trump was able to appoint an unusual amount of judges to the circuit courts, left office with an unusually low amount of vacancies for Biden to fill, and might now get another term to shape the judiciary in his image. Obama had appointed a ton of liberal, activist and/or woke judges to the federal courts and Trump's first term was mostly about undoing that. His second term would be a chance to give the federal courts a decidedly conservative bent.
Quite the astonishing case of a butterfly effect when you think about it. Had Hillary won in 2016, we would have a liberal majority on the supreme court and the liberal takeover of the federal judiciary which Obama started would be completed by now. And since 2016 came down to the wire, one can argue that the entire direction of the United States from 2016 through the 2030s would be fundamentally different if only Hillary had shut her mouth about free trade and open borders instead of virtue signalling to coastal elites. Heck, one could even argue that if Merkel hadn't lost her fucking mind in 2015, then the entire trajectory of the US would be different.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 17 2024 10:13am