That’s why I’ve been pounding the table on the ERA for the past two years. It’s a motivating issue for many voters (especially young people), who are going to need more than “help us defeat Trump” come the 2022 midterms. In some ways, a hard-right turn by the Court might be a long-term blessing in disguise, as losing their rights will awaken people to the reality that they need to fight for them. Given that very little is going to get done economically with a Republican-led Senate to actually give the working class reasons to vote for Democrats, social issues are going to likely jump back to the forefront in the midterms.

Alito, on the other hand, should step down. His comments are, IMHO, disqualifying. He’s basically endorsing the idea that Christianity should be a shield behind which one can justify devaluing those with whom they disagree, and the First Amendment should be the sword. He truly scares me.

 

We are going to have to push like hell to keep the house and take the senate. If we do that would be great. Also when I say take the senate I mean take it by like 2 seats so we don’t have to care what Mr West Virginia thinks

 

That's why I've been saying, "2022, make it blue". We have to push for a blue wave then. We cannot get complacent now, even though Biden is the next president. And this is coming from someone who doesn't really consider himself a Democrat these days.

 

Exactly. From a purely psychological standpoint, obstructionism from Mitch McConnell combined with hard-right decisions from the US Supreme Court might be a motivating factor for Democrats to get off their butts and vote in 2022.

 

I think it totally depends on how stupid the Supreme Court will be. If they go as far as to overturn abortion or get rid of gay marriage there will most likely be a blue wave

 

That would be my hope. However, for that to happen, the Court would have to openly declare that both are dead. If they engage in a “death by 1000 cuts“ approach that has been the hallmark of the Roberts court, the public will be too sleepy and unmotivated to notice.

 

Are there any other major social issues that the court might rule on?

Killing the ACA would probably also motivate the Democrats but I think ACA abortion and gay marriage are the major things I can think of that Democrats more less agree on

 

Maybe more on guns, or voting rights. But you named the big ones.

 

With a federal judge ruling Chad Wolf's DACA suspension invalid, I suspect the Trump administration might try and get that fast tracked to the Court before Biden takes over.

 

Even if the court invalidates DACA, Biden could create a new program by executive order and tweak it to be just different enough from the original program that it doesn’t run afoul of the Court.

 

The issue is, it is always incredibly more difficult for Democrats during midterms due to lower voter turnout. I hope that this year's excitement has changed people's opinions on this and made them more inclined to vote even in non-presidential years. However, I fear that many will see that Trump is gone and relax. Far fewer realize that Mitch McConnell is almost as bad, if not worse, than Trump.

 

That’s why I hope Trump runs on 2024 or at least says he will. Nothing gets democrats like Donald Trump. Against any other candidate Biden would have lost almost certainly. Hell I think all of the democrats would have lost against an incumbent Republican who wasn’t trump.

 

I disagree slightly.

Let's play it out for a second. Trump gets impeached and removed. Pence or Haley run on the ticket. There goes Joe Biden's electable argument.

Now, you have Bernie running against Pence or Haley. You likely still have Kamala as VP because we know Bernie was looking at her too.

So now it's Bernie vs Pence in the middle of a pandemic. The ultimate question really is how much would Pence have botched it. If he ended on the same trajectory as Trump, which is hard to believe, he'd likely lose to Bernie. The fact Bernie would have run entirely on M4A and helping the middle class probably would have bolstered his argument. The different between Pence and Trump is the diehard Trump fans likely would have stayed home with Trump not on the ticket (see 2018). Therefore, Pence might have lost to Bernie. Because liberals would have been energized (and especially independents) while Republicans would have had Mr. Sliced Bread as their candidate and he'd be received about as well as expected.

The truth is, Joe Biden was correct in that he was the only one able to beat Trump. Bernie, Warren, etc. would have played into his socialist boogieman argument and that would likely have been the difference. Both Bernie and Warren wanted to ban fracking so good luck with Pennsylvania. Not sure how Wisconsin or Michigan would have faired and no clue of Arizona or Georgia would have flipped. It would likely have been an even tighter race and likely ended with a Trump win.

But yeah, if it had been Pence, Haley, or Ted Cruz against Bernie or Warren or even Mayor Pete, I think the Democrat still would have won. The x factor for Trump are his followers and their fanatic devotion to him and him alone.

 

Hell I think the socialism argument won him Florida anyway. Not that it mattered in the end.

Anyway I agree with what was said earlier especially if we take Georgia. Breyer should step down. Definitely not worth it to risk Breyer being on the bench in 2024

 

Justice Alito becoming even more political, in speech to the Federalist Society that liberals threaten liberty
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious-liberty-free-speech.html

 

How much you wanna bet he'll soon be calling for the arrest of liberals I give him a week.

 

Nah.

Justice Alito views everything through the lens of the 1960 political arena -- the ones who were seriously concerned about electing JFK President because he was a devout Catholic and therefore would be beholden to the Pope first and the US second. He's that kind of Catholic -- the one who sees oppression of his religion everywhere, but who is in a legal position to enshrine Catholic doctrine as law.

 

He also reminds me of Grumpy Cat. They’re literally cut from the same cloth.

 

That’s exactly what happened, all the Cuban Americans bought Trump’s ridiculous socialist attacks due to fear of Castro.

 

I don't think Cuban Americans are that dumb. They just like being so important, and many come from and still feel they deserve the power of rich families and hold fascistic views. It is not an accident that so many just so happen to have continued to work with the CIA and NATO after having worked for or benefited from Batista

 

Well if you want to kill old people this is how you do it

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-relieves-religious-organizations-from-some-covid-related-restrictions/2020/11/26/305f0094-2fa6-11eb-860d-f7999599cbc2_story.html?outputType=amp

Supreme Court has ruled against New York when it comes to religious organizations during Covid

 

Don't assume that every single Cuban American that dislikes socialism and Castro was a plantation owner, any moreso than majority of the "Lost Cause" champions in the post-Civil War era were once rich slaveowners.
An Albanian couple at work that defected towards the end of the 1980s - which grew up completely under the communist government there - reflexively voted for Trump in 2016 because they automatically loathed anything they felt was associated with communism/socialism. That they thought Hillary Clinton was a leftist should tell you all you need to know about how successful right-wing propaganda is.

 

Yeah, thanks Trump voters. It's a really bad time when John Roberts is the voice of reason on the court and still in a minority...

 

"Life-saving evidence-based public health measures are no match for the spiritual healing power of large faith-based gatherings. It's time we had a Supreme Court that understood this fundamental truth."

- probably said someone else. Not me. Not anyone I know or respect.

 

In reading an article on it, the ruling doesn't seem nearly as bad as it could be, as it seems to be more that churches were under the restrictions and other businesses were not.

https://apnews.com/article/ruth-bad...john-roberts-d0de27dbb3e16f49d1e73718bd56448d