Elie Mystal: This Supreme Court Term, Conservatives Have One Aim: Stop Progress

[babylonsister]

October 18/25, 2021, Issue
This Supreme Court Term, Conservatives Have One Aim: Stop Progress
During the next nine months, conservatives justices will use their power to attack abortion rights, weaken gun regulations, and rewind the clock to a darker age.
By Elie Mystal
September 30, 2021


On the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court, the most powerful government body controlled by conservatives, returns to work. Democrats have the White House and both chambers of Congress; Republicans, who have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, are currently confined to the unelected, unaccountable branch of government.

However, because that one branch claims sole authority to nullify the actions of the other two, Republicans can do a lot of damage. Indeed, the ability to stop the actions of branches that Republicans cannot control without voter suppression is a big reason Senator Mitch McConnell spent so much energy stacking the Supreme Court. From stealing a seat from Barack Obama in 2016 to giving a third appointment to Donald Trump in 2020, McConnell has been playing the long game: wresting control of the one institution that is immune to the popular will. The former Senate majority leader never needed the MAGA coup to succeed. Instead, he had the court, which is now poised to do what a mob of white terrorists never could: Stop progress.

This term, we will see conservatives celebrate the achievement of two long-sought goals they could not accomplish through electoral politics. We will see broad conservative agreement that women should be treated as second-class citizens, reduced to the status of incubators with mouth parts, when the court hears the most direct challenge to abortion rights in a generation. And we will see broad conservative agreement that guns have more rights than children.

There will also be a bunch of cases that we don’t know about yet, conducted as part of the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket.” This consists of cases that are decided through an emergency process that allows the court to avoid holding full public hearings and issuing detailed opinions. No surprise, the conservatives have frequently employed it to decide the most controversial and partisan cases. The court is now fully owned by these conservatives—six justices to three—and they aren’t about to pass up this opportunity to win the culture wars they were sent to fight.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-2021/