I woke up this morning encouraged by the news. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat the Clintonite machine politician Joe Crowley, which should not have been so amazing – she’s right on the issues and about a thousand times more charismatic – but he did outspend her 10-1, he’d been in the office 20 years, and he had the full backing of all the usual DNC hacks. So, it was a pretty big deal.
Also, and this garnered a lot less publicity, Ben Jealous won the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland. He still has to get through the general election but I think he can do it, and a governorship is a pretty big deal. There are only 50 of them.
So, I was jazzed. Of course, this was only two victories and there were about 5 states had primaries, so we’re not exactly sweeping them aside the way I would like. The corruption is deeply entrenched, they do have all the money, all the party backing, most of the media attention and the inside track, but we’re chipping away, we’re making a difference, and the next congress will have more progressives than the current one.
Then, I hear that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is resigning. This is not good. This is not good at all. This is, in fact, really fucking bad. Of course, Kennedy is, kind of, a conservative justice. He was appointed by Reagan and sided with Republicans often as not. But, he was not like Scalia, or Thomas, or Alito. He was a judge, not a right wing nut case, and he occasionally sided with Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsberg and Breyer, keeping the country on an even keel.
That’s going to end with whoever Trump nominates. Sure, if it’s somebody too extreme or weird, congress could refuse to confirm. But, we’re talking about a congress which had no problem confirming Scott Pruitt for head of the EPA, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.
This is a congress which isn’t even talking about impeachment, despite Trump’s numerous crimes. So, I’m pretty sure he’ll get his pick and I’m pretty sure his pick will be a Fascist, and that will mean a Fascist majority Supreme Court.
I hope that doesn’t happen, but I don’t see what’s going to stop it.
Good News, Bad News
Filed under Blogs' Archive