- cross-posted to:
- politics
- cross-posted to:
- politics
Biden’s and Trump’s records show sharp differences in what types of judges they would choose. And the winner of the fall election could appoint more Supreme Court justices.
The Democratic-led Senate is poised to confirm President Joe Biden’s 200th federal judge Wednesday, a milestone that highlights a sharp contrast with his election rival, Republican former President Donald Trump, as they seek to shape the courts over the next four years.
It’s unclear whether Biden will catch up to the 234 judges Trump secured in his presidential term. But the winners of the presidency and the Senate majority will have the power to shape the courts for the next few years, and the two men have dramatically different criteria in choosing nominees.
Whoever occupies the White House in the next term could even pick one or more new Supreme Court justices, which could shift or entrench the current 6-3 conservative majority. By the time the winner is sworn in, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas will be 76 and conservative Justice Samuel Alito will be 74. The next oldest member of the court is liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who will be 70. Chief Justice John Roberts will turn 70 a week after the swearing-in.
Yes, I know. What I’m pointing out is that more than half of those 250m+ people are in effect ideologically disenfranchised by the Dem leadership actively preventing candidates that better represent their views from being nominated, often from even running for office.
I’m aware of that too. It’s part of the ratchet effect:
ar It’s about casting the widest possible net though, not lasering in on any particular subset and trying to make them happy.
Tell that to the Dem leadership. What I’ve been complaining about this whole time is that the Dem leadership snatches defeat from the jaws of easy victory by refusing to actively appeal or even LISTEN to anyone except that tiny group and the “vote blue no matter who” crowd who’s almost literally incapable of not supporting the party no matter what.
Expanding the net leftward would make it possible for them to win most major elections, including every presidential election, in a landslide from now and until the GOP either change their politics back to something sane or manage to manipulate elections so much that voting has no effect.
The owner donors and whomever else profit from the status quo probably are.
Progressive and further left policies are already much more popular with voters than the center right to right wing ones of the Dem leadership.
You’ve got it backwards: most of the actual Left has become an outside faction due to the party apparatus’ refusal to listen and demands for blind obedience causing resentment and alienation.
I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m saying that listening to the left like they used to before the Clintonites took over would gain them many times more voters than it would cost.
Except for stubbornly gluing his tongue to the boots of a genocidal apartheid regime even as the majority of the people of the world and indeed the country are condemning it. Doing so is an enormous risk, one that I fear has already cost him the election and by extension the country its democracy.
I think your feelings of resentment are clouding your judgement.
The essence of your argument seems to be that progressive policies will strengthen the hand of dems in a large number of elections. Can you back that up with data? Because when I look at electoral maps of the country I just don’t see it. It would strengthen their hand in progressive regions, no question, but those aren’t where the battle is being fought.
I would love it if you were right, but having lived in middle America often enough through my life, I just don’t see it reflected in the attitudes of locals.