Yes, I'm quite concerned that we will spiral into a civil war. Especially if either side decides to pack the Supreme Court, and/or if the Supreme Court gives us a neo-Lochner Era.
Can your average American tell you what the Lochner Era was? Or even what the Court decided in Lochner? RBG is the most prominent SCOTUS Justice with 25% name recognition. Americans do not care about the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is important as the final arbiter of issues that aren't/can't be settled by elections. It's also important in a symbolic way as the top court in the land in that it represents the legitimacy of our entire legal system. Popular knowledge of the Lochner Era and the names of individual justices is irrelevant. What matters is that people have some confidence that the court will at least attempt to rule in a fair manner. Perhaps suprisingly to some on this forum, polling shows that people do have confidence in the Court.
If the Supreme Court loses its legitimacy with large portions of the public, we're going to be in real trouble. For example, imagine a scenario where the Supreme Court struck down Obamacare in 2012, and then decided the election for Romney in a Bush v. Gore-style decision. Or imagine a scenario where Democrats pack the Supreme Court, and the court rules adversely against a future Republican president in impeachment proceedings.
I suspect this is why Roberts voted to uphold Obamacare, and why I don't think he (or potentially Gorsuch or Alito) would vote to allow blatant Republican election rigging, such as if Wisconsin votes for Warren or Sanders but the legislature refuses to certify their electors.
Yeah, I don't have much in common with him ideologically, but I really respect Roberts for upholding Obamacare even while his four conservative colleagues voted to strike it down. Him being on the bench gives me a lot more faith in the Court than I would probably have otherwise.
Don't embrace the useful idiot fetal position! What Roberts fears more than more than anything else is a majority party that categorical rejects the minority rule of racist white Christians. But he's a Republican first, an impartial jurist, a distant second. All of these Trumpist, fascist rodents want to persuade you that they're reasonable; that they're capable of principled, independent thought when the chips are on the line. But they're lying — all of them. Remember: Roberts neutered the VRA because he thought it would offer his party an electoral advantage. He's a PoS, just like the rest of them.
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