On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.
“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.
Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.
yeah! Let’s just not vote at all and hand trump and the federalist society the election!
Biden has done a FUCK TON of stuff for the average american, especially in the face of the do-nothing MAGA congress. You’re mad because Biden isn’t immediately whipping his dick out to fuck over the supreme court with the insane amount of power they just handed him? Grow the fuck up, jesus christ. The LAST thing we need are knee-jerk emotional reactions instead of calculated tactics.
I don’t immediately disagree with this. Reactionary decisions breed instability and progress requires a foundation. Though with the Nation’s already flawed fundaments being actively bulldozed I am compelled to ask: what calculated tactics may we reasonably trust are in play?
Biden has played politics well enough. I’ll grant that. Especially while navigating the obscenely successful obstructionist Republican strategies which strangle the Legislature. The fact he’s accomplished anything of note in this climate could reasonably be spun as impressive.
Is the bar for America’s “left-wing” set so low, and the expectation they’ll cow to corporate interest so common (and rightly so), that this spin, these accomplishments, are honestly lauded as the laurels on which the Biden administration may ride to a second term? Forgiving student debt. Ensuring fairer access to home loans. Expanding healthcare coverage for veterans. All good things! No doubt. Is it fair to expect the American people to think this is enough? While higher education, homes, and healthcare become increasingly inaccessible?
Addressing symptoms in this way placates the agitated while maintaining the status quo and setting precedent to, ostensibly, address root cause at a later time. It assumes that the wheel of progress turns slowly. That progress will win out if it is patient and persistent and noble.
The past twelve years have proven this is not so.
The religious right-wing has worked diligently over the last ~70 years to create the current theocratic zeitgeist on which the MAGA parasite is parading to victory. It is not a sudden and surprising uncoordinated incidental movement preying on the Bible belt’s misguided moral anxieties. Haphazardly funneling the reactionary rhetoric of today into a Four Years Hate to seize power and further the ideology of Paul Weyrich. No. It is a dedicated effort. A calculated tactic. Others are replicating it and fascism is on the rise world 'round.
Successful opposition to the oligarchy-backed, well organized, long-planned, and now popular out and proud American fascist hate campaign will not be found in treating symptoms or placating concerned citizens or maintaining the status quo. What, then, is the Progressive answer? What tactic is the Biden Administration, or the Democratic Party, or anyone anywhere deploying that we should “grow the fuck up” and wait to see the impact of? Why should I, or any concerned citizen, trust that this is so?