Frida Ghitis: ‘Justice Barrett Could Now Be Part of Trump’s Firewall’

 

From CNN.com:

...Trump made it clear he wanted to fill the empty [Supreme Court] seat before Election Day, presumably because he expects his nominee to side with him if the election ends up being decided by the court. If that was not enough to place [Amy Coney] Barrett in an awkward position from the start, the [confirmation] ceremony [at the White House] on Monday night went a long way toward politicizing the one institution that is meant to remain above politics. 

The Supreme Court derives much of its power from the perception that it is largely independent of politics. The over-the-top event had the look of a Trumpian campaign stunt more than a Supreme Court swearing in. Barrett, Trump and their spouses waved from the balcony, evoking the image of Trump's dramatic face mask removal on a White House balcony upon returning from the hospital. 

That resonance to Trump's campaign grandiosity, the partisanship that marked Barrett's appointment and Trump's own statements about the role of the court in the upcoming election, are evidence of the blatant politicization of the Barrett nomination, undercutting the court's credibility. America stands on a knife's edge; the President is sharpening that knife. 

 

Read the full article.

Ezra Klein: ‘The Fight Is for Democracy’

Cartoon by Bruce Plante for the Tulsa World

 From Vox:

In American politics in 2020, both sides doubt that abiding by loss is the surest path back to power. This is an election — and more than an election, it is a politics — increasingly defined by a fight over what the rules of the game should be.

Democrats see a political system increasingly rigged against them and the voters they represent, and they are right. They are facing an Electoral College where a 2- to 3-point win in the popular vote still means Republicans are favored to take the presidency. They are vying to win back control of a Senate where Republicans have a 6- to 7-point advantage. The simple truth of American politics right now is this: Republicans can lose voters, sometimes badly, and still win power. Democrats need landslides to win power.

It gets worse. Democrats fear a doom loop. They are faced with the reality that when they lose power, Republicans will draw districts and change rules and hand down Supreme Court decisions that further weaken their voters, that pull America further from anything resembling democracy. Democrats have watched it happen in recent years again and again.... Losing begets losing, because in the American political system, electoral winners have the power to rewrite electoral rules.

But Republicans also see their position as desperate. They know their coalition is shrinking. They know that they are winning power but losing voters. They see a younger, more diverse, and more liberal generation building against them. They fear that Democratic efforts to expand the franchise and make voting an easily exercised right rather than a politically metered privilege will spell their long-term demise. They believe that mass democracy is inimical to their interests, and they state that fact baldly....

America is not a democracy, and Republicans want to keep it that way. America is not a democracy, and Democrats want to make it one, or at least more of one. 

 

Read the full article.

 

 

 

It’s International Lesbian Day!

  

It’s International Lesbian Day (no, really)! As an observance, it’s worth noting that until very, very recently, being a fictional sapphic (non-100%-heterosexually identified) woman on a TV series brought with it an extremely short life expectancy. If a character on a TV show was a sapphic woman, the chances of her being ultimately killed off — by sometimes offhanded means — were enormous. Among cultural critics, this came to be known as “the dead-lesbian trope.” The frequency of this stereotype reached a tipping point a few years ago, and after LGBT+ viewer outrage, TV creators (some of whom are sapphic women themselves) are now making a more concerted effort to see that their lesbian/bisexual/trans characters survive beyond the series finale. 

Still, it’s worth looking back on the U-Haul load of fictional sapphic characters who met untimely ends and brought public dissatisfaction with the dead-lesbian trope to a head.  Starting in 2016 and expanded over the years, the website Autostraddle came up with a list of 212 such sapphic characters who shuffled off their cathode-ray coils too soon.  The article is worth a browse.