Coop Scoop: Something's Gotta Give!

As the political system peters out, the Supremes take over government

July 7, 2020

By Marc Cooper

Many authoritarian states have one thing in common, apart from a phobia about democracy.  They like to set up some sort of unelected supervisory council that at any time can over rule or modify any decision made by other government authorities.  This body is usually called a National Security Council.  Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet created one when he imposed a military-written “constitution” on Chile more than 40 years ago.  The Council, comprised of high ranking military and top civilian officials was empowered to intervene in any government decision it pleases.  Fortunately, this Council was disarmed in 2005.

We’ve seen the same sort of machinery set up in other  anti-democratic regimes.  The Ethiopian military regime of the 70”s and 80’s also had a committee they called the DERG that had absolute power.  In Iran, it’s the council of Mullahs who oversees the government – and the population.

Here at home, we have a National Security Council but of a different cut.  This body is fairly large and acts as a full time consultant on mostly foreign affairs to the President. It has no power per se.

However, we also have one of those unelected, dictatorial committees that oversees us and our government and that has started making some very radical decisions as of late. I refer, of course, to the Republican majority on the Supreme Court. 

I am not trying to be cute here but the dead honest truth is that is very hard to distinguish between them and the Mullahs.  Of those 6 folks in the majority, five of them were appointed by a president elected with a popular minority.  They, themselves, are unelected. Like the Mullahs, the Supremes are all devoutly religious.  Hell, Alito could grow a beard tomorrow and he could slide easily onto a seat on the Council of Mullahs.

With Congress now a black hole, the Supremes have gone completely rogue and though they claim to be textualists who don’t want to create new law, that is exactly what they are doing.  Just as the country came together to pass some weak but needed gun legislation, the Court swooped in and lifted the power of the states to tightly regulate hand guns. Their ruling on this issue now permits unfettered concealed carry in every state of the union.  More guns. More guns on the street. More bodies in the morgue.  You have to pinch yourself to believe the Court would do this.

Next the abomination of trashing Roe V Wade and overnight banning abortion in just about half the states.  The other half will be up for grabs when the Republicans attempt a national ban after the mid terms (that IS coming).

Alito wrote in his execrable opinion, in which he quotes admiringly 17th Century witch hunters, that the overturning of Roe should now ”settle” this question that has lurked for 50 years.  Oh really?  Alito’s decision has already provoked widespread chaos and a nagging uncertainty – both of which are bound to escalate.  There will now be warring legislation between blue and red states over out of state abortions, likewise there will be battles between blue cities (Atlanta) and the red states in which they are embedded.  Prosecutors have also split into two factions – those who will and who will not charge women and doctors.

And just when you thought things could not get worse, on its final day of the session last week, the Supreme announced they had also ruled in a long awaited case on the FDA with the court severely cutting its regulatory powers as well of those of other government agencies. It’s a hammer blow against plans to rein in global warming.

But there’s more.  The Court ended with a grand finale saying next year it will take up the Independent State Legislature Doctrine, a fringe, extreme right wing proposal that would fully empower state legislatures to run and oversee federal elections.  This is the case that could simply unlock the doors preventing Republican-led states from over-ruling its own voters and send its own “electors” to decide who wins what.  It’s a frightening, sweeping case that could end elections as we know them before 2024. And this is on top of yet another ruling this session that knocked a big hole in the wall separating Church and State.

We need to stop glorifying the Court. We need to abstain from all the ritual obfuscation about its grand mission, its majestic history and its democratic mystique. Let’s can the Gerber’s and speak like adults.  The US Supreme Court is a wholly political and partisan and unaccountable body whose members are selected by the President based on their ideological loyalty.  Its current composition reflects the 50 year campaign by the Republican Party and its satellites like The Federalist Society to take over and capture the court.  That mission is accomplished.

The six member right-wing and religious minority has a clear and discernible agenda. Defeat abortion.  Go after same sex marriage.  Maybe go after contraceptives.  Strengthen the Church in relation to the government.  Defend fossil fuels.  Defend the “rights” of large corporations.  Keep labor and consumers weak.  Gnaw away at the administrative state and resist all regulatory regimes.  Strengthen the executive. Weaken congress.

And make no mistake. This Court will be in place for at least another 20 years. Possibly more.  Indeed, the future holds an unlimited opportunity for court conservatives and there is absolutely no guarantee as to when and if they can be supplanted.  Bottom line:  Our future as a county is now being defined for at least another generation by these six religious zealots.

And don’t believe Biden and Pelosi.  This is really important to understand.  There will be NO legal or political recovery of abortion in the short or mi-term. There might be workarounds like telemedicine and abortion pills sent in the mail, but what you see is what you get.  The Democratic mumblings about electing two more Senators or using reconciliation to pass codification of Roe are just that… mumblings.

The Democrats had a full two months after the leaked Supreme Court ruling to come up with a plan when Rose would be formally struck down. But apparently they did nothing. As the court announced its shocking ruling, Nancy Pelosi read us a poem.  Joe Biden told us we had to go out and elect two more Democratic Senators (though he did not complete the rest of the sentence which would have read You have to elect more Democratic Senators because at least two of our current one, Manchin and Sinema, are voting on the other side).

Of course, it ain’t like Joe to say anything nasty about anybody.  He’s still talking about the greatness of the Supreme Court.

I have a little game for us to play for a minute:  Imagine this.  Joe Biden comes on live from the Oval Office the night of the decision. He strongly denounces the court. He tells us that 75% of the country oppose this move. That it will not stand.  He declares a national emergency. He orders the immediate construction of 30 military-run abortion clinics to be erected on federal territory in every state that has restricted abortion. He further establishes a $1 billlion emergency fund to support women and girls who need to travel out of state to exercise their rights.  Maybe a fixed $500 grant?

It doesn’t even matter if this would be feasible. The key point would be to take that leadership position and motivate millions to line up with you in a righteous fight.  Instead, we got a bunch of hot air. Actually, tepid air.  There was no heat. And among the population you currently have only despair.

We are not just at a bump in the road. We are not experiencing a temporary bad phase.  The political system and now the courts are crumbling before our eyes. This is going to be very hard times for liberals and progressives.  They had a moment of opportunity in 2020 but that has come and very much gone now.

I strongly believe the left has absolutely no chance of going forward from this point unless it first is willing to assess what went wrong.  And plenty did.  It was only two years ago that some were actually talking about socialism taking root here. Not now as we face the prospect of a Republican congress and a pretty uncertain Democratic field for 2024.  This is crunch time, baby. This is do or die time. We are on the edge of the abyss and we have no time or margin for the usual kind of fucking around that the American Left is so skilled at.

You know, after Romney was defeated in 2012, even the Republicans conducted a post-mortem to figure what they were doing wrong and how they could fix things. They never followed through but at least they did the study. 

So, when is the American Left gonna do the same? Is there gonna be any analysis of the failures of the Sanders campaign (beyond blaming the DNC). Any analysis of why we see great upsurges like Occupy and Black Lives Matter only to see them vanish without leaving anything behind (though BLM has left behind a couple of mansions bought by its leadership as they became darlings of the Foundations).  Any calm analysis of the role of the Squad and the value or perhaps lack thereof in electing progressives where possible.

We are in this predicament because as the Republicans served Wall Street over the last 50 years, the Democrats cut in on their action and in doing so abandoned the working class. As globalization and corporate inequality sank blue collar America, Democrats stood by idly and allowed demagogues like Trump to galvanize the working class. And today, we see a new generation of activists (I hesitate to call them leftists) whose primary goal in life seems to be driving away whatever remnant of the white working class they can find and demonizing them for speaking differently than they “should.”  Somebody has to remind these folks that politics is the art of combining and building forces. Not diminishing them.

The next six months, the next two years promise to be greatly accelerated and greatly turbulent. It’s sort of hard to imagine things remaining as they are as there is a sensation that something has gotta give. Let’s hope it’s them and not us.++

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