Meme Monday

I’m so distraught about the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was an amazing woman, a gift to our country.

But of course, the more difficult thing is how we go forward without her. Trump is going to appoint someone seriously right wing, I am sure, and McConnell is going to push them through the Senate. A few Republicans are promising to not vote on a Justice before the next Inauguration, should he lose, but I don’t believe them because they will be pressured and will cave, as they always do.

So then what…then we go from a 5-4 Court to a 6-3 Court, and we are truly screwed. What can we do about it? Well, if we get Biden and a Democratic Senate, Biden could increase the number of justices on the Court. There’s no rule that says it has to be 9 Justices. But to balance it out, he would have to appoint 3, and to have a majority, he would have to appoint 4. That would be a huge battle, and of course the concern is that it opens the door for other Presidents in the future to do the same thing.

Speaking of which, I see people talking about getting rid of the filibuster. And of course that would work for the group in power, but not for the minority group. So any time your group is in the minority, none of your agenda will get considered. I fear it would be the end of compromise. Checks and balances were put in place for a reason, and I worry about decisions we make that whittle those away.

So perhaps we need to trust those checks and balances, understand that the Supreme Court is but one branch of our government. We have the Executive and the Legislature, and they are elected. We need to remind them that we are their bosses. We have to vote. We have to participate in the census. We have to get out and protest, or at least call and write to our elected officials. Make sure they know what issues are important to us, and how we want them to vote on these issues. If we fully participate, we can get through this.