Forget that parade of ignorant bozos asking stupid questions of progressives…there are genuine social problems that need to be dealt with, rather than more coddling of us lucky white men. Start with this excellent discussion of identity politics and the left.
That sexism and racism exist cannot seriously be in doubt for any progressive person in the year 2016. Everyone has an identity; every identity is political, whether because it is marginalized or because it benefits from the marginalization of others. It is not “enlightening” or fresh or radical to ignore identity-based oppressions, or minimize them, or demand marginalized people stop talking about them. Oppression is not a “debate” or a “discussion.” It’s a fact. You can “debate” gravity all day, but that won’t change what happens when you drop a bowling ball on your foot. You can “debate” sexism all day, too. The outcome of sexist behaviors remains the same.
Viewpoints which attack “identity politics” directly attack marginalized people. Viewpoints which do not take racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or transphobia into account are not “universal” or “pure” — they are biased in favor of white, male, straight, Christian or cisgender people.
Too often complaints about politics are fundamentally not about politics, but that questioning the status quo upsets their political views. Similarly, right now people are upset about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about our orange fascist, Donald Trump, and she’s being accused of “politicizing” the Supreme Court, which is simply absurd. The Republicans are extremely annoyed.
How can a #SCOTUS justice involved in partisan attacks during campaign be impartial in any cases involving a Trump administration?
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 13, 2016
But the Supreme Court is extremely political! Every election year, everyone fusses over the importance of which political party captures the presidency, because it will affect appointments to the court. We all know this. Yet somehow we’re supposed to just close our eyes and pretend that these people have no political views? Roberts and Thomas and Alito and goddamned Scalia were pure political ciphers, completely neutral on everything?
We only do that when the political actor reflects the dominant, majority view, which we’re told is simply the default, and anyone who disagrees with it must be some kind of radical weirdo who is “politicizing” the process.
If you’re really in the reality-based community, you have to acknowledge that the Republican nominee for president is an incompetent bigot. Keep it up, RBG.
I’m glad that Ginsburg had the courage to say what the media is scared to. I’m tired of the big 3 networks and the big three cable news networks treating Trump as a legit candidate.
I’m ultimately OK with Ginsburg saying what she said given the 1) precedent of other justices going back to the founding, and 2) just how far outside the consensus Trump is.
But yes, court justices should not be be partisan. ideological sure but not partisan.
I just did some googling and cannot find it, but didn’t Scalia appear, multiple times, and give speeches at right wing political fundraisers?
What is Rubio implying?
The SCOTUS will be trying the Trump Administration for charges brought by Rubio?
Another round of hypocritical political grandstanding – Democrats condemned and Republicans defended Scalia for partisan behavior for years. This is worse than Scalia (I believe the closest recent precedent is O’Conner’s comment about Goe on election night), but most people aren’t going to let their past beliefs about judicial ethics slow them down for a second.
RBG has now apologized.
I think that’s a shame. A Supreme Court justice should be able to criticize a candidate whose entire schtick is a hot mess of unconstitutional proposals.
a judge making a judgement call about a candidate? What does she think she is, a judge?? horrors!!11!! /s
RGB’s comments about Trump crossed a line of supposed judicial impartiality, and her apology is just for that, and isn’t some sort of awful caving in on her part.
Regarding PZ’s comment about the relation of Presidential politics and appointment of judges, remember how in the 2012 elections there was all this drama over how important it was to elect the right candidate because the next president would be likely appointing more than a couple of Supreme Court justices? Yeah, we all wrung our hands over that then, and then we elected Barack Obama to be that President. So, the vile Mitch McConnell of Kentucky should not be holding up the President’s appointment and saying the next President should get to fill the vacancy. What an ingenuous toad.
A little off topic, but I hate what McConnell is doing and what he stands for.
re 8:
so judges are required to be impartial about everything? Can never express opinions about a hate-filled-turd-wallop?
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
And here I was hoping for a carefully worded notpology.
@3 Brother Ogvorbis — absolutely, Scalia should have recused himself from dozens of cases, after having stated at his various speaking engagements his contempt for certain principles, that soon after came before him on the bench. Most particularly, he and Sandra Day O’Connor should have recused themselves from Bush v. Gore, since both were on record as not wanting Gore to be president. In front of hundreds of people, on November 3rd, 2000, at 11pm, when one of the networks projected Gore as the winner, Justice O’Connor howled, loudly, and exclaimed “oh not, that’s just terrible!” Days later she staged a coup d’état, hand in hand with Scalia, who had trashed Gore several times during the campaign,
Can we stop calling Trump fascist? Historically fascists made enemies of the business class as well as aristocrats. Seward Collins was a fascist, Diana Mitford was a fascist. Trump is an oligarch with delusions of royalty.
Wash Post had a Trump article recently where they put fascism in the headline. It just comes across as ignorant and google-illiterate. Please please stop doing this. Fascists are racist, but not all racists are fascist.
They’re both disgusting things to be, but culture and history being what it is, Americans should have a healthier fear of oligarchs than the fascism they’ve never really had to deal with. That’s probably why they keep mixing up the terms.
One major consequence of calling Trump fascist, is it makes people think this is somehow new or extra-threatening. Oligarchs are everywhere, have threatened democracy in the US longer, and that’s what he’s tapping into. Misusing these terms will hurt the left’s long term goals against corporate power and influence in this country.
He is a horrible candidate, but he is in fact legit, the presumptive nominee of one of the only two parties that matter. What about that is not legit? Did he violate the rules to obtain the nomination? To say he is not legit is to say that in some sense he does not represent the views of a majority of Republicans, when he clearly does.
So true.
So…
Who thinks is the more trustworthy?
A duly Constitutionally appointed Supreme Court Justice who studied the Constitution to penetrating degree and understands the law and the bases upon which they are formed and who has served with distinction in a position of trust most of her career…
or,
An ignorant real-estate mogul and fraudster con-man obsessed with promoting a ‘brand name’, who knows nothing whatsoever about the law (past what his money can buy in terms of attorneys to flout it), with delusions of grandeur and a level of narcissism that would shame Narcissus, who has never held official office of any kind, who reveled in firing characters he HIRES on his ‘Reality TV’ show in order to demonstrate his savvy genius without ever explaining why he is incapable of vetting them in the first place, and who can’t open his face without promoting hatred, bigotry, intolerance, disharmony, and generally insulting the very bases the United States of America is supposed to have been founded on?
Why, the scoundrels that are the GOP and its wealthy puppet masters, of course.
Anyone who doesn’t like Clinton enough not to help ensure that megalomaniacal knuckleheaded lout is elected is a teeny weeny bit less selfish than the Drumpfster…and just hasn’t sufficiently thought the consequences through. There is at least the possibility of a future that can allow change with only ONE of these candidates – which is all we’ve got to work with for the moment. If it helps any, help promote and employ that fanatic Sandersonian energy to play its major role in contributing to the Dem platform, get the fuck on with the hard work, and hold them to it.
I was a Sanders person too. I don’t like what happened either (though I expected it would with the way things are currently rigged. But if you promoted Sanders, and if Sanders understands the danger, why the freaking hell aren’t you listening to him now?
Who ever told you guys that this shit ‘should’ be easy? we’re dealing with a choice between monsters capable of inflicting unlimited and permanent damage versus a compromising alternative which hurts, but ain’t nowhere near as show-stopping as what the GOP has hatched out on us. Haven’t any of you been paying attention over the last 36 years? Get smart. Deal with it.
#6PZ Myers – agree completely. If she is entitled to speak out against what she considers a threat to the Constitution, who is?
#14taraskan — “One major consequence of calling Trump fascist, is it makes people think this is somehow new or extra-threatening. Oligarchs are everywhere, have threatened democracy in the US longer, and that’s what he’s tapping into. Misusing these terms will hurt the left’s long term goals against corporate power and influence in this country.”
That may be so, but if he’s competent at anything, its his ability to distract people in his shell shuffling. He puts out a mish-mosh of anything that gets him attention, and demonstrates skills to selectively exploit the wreckage that ensues. Overall, he’s a distraction-artist, a con-artist, AND, he’s all those other nasty things because he floats them. The predicament that once afflicted politicians to their complete detriment – the ‘flip-flop – has in the Drumpf now demonstrated to the political establishment that it doesn’t matter a whit what you say – you can spin and flip-flop faster than the Crab Pulsar, and people will be more likely to admire that the con ‘speaks his mind’ without any social norms or rules like ‘political correctness’ to wrinkle his suit instead of bothering to determine whether the candidate exhibits coherent principles based on adamantine integrity.
The truth is, he is a con-man who IS a fascist and every other thing he promotes in the people who admire him. None of the conned will be dissuaded by abstract category arguments.
But there is a fairly potent history of conned people discovering they’ve been had, and they got pretty pissed about it, tar-and-feathering-wise.
That is, at @17, “If she ISN’T entitled to speak out against what she considers a threat to the Constitution, who is?”
For those who haven’t been following it, the linked open letter has had a lot of issues today – including the authors account retweeting a TERF even after correcting the misgendering and adding a Black activists signature without her permission.
Whatever you feel about what she should be able to say about a candidate that is a hot mess, it was very clearly a violation of the judicial code of conduct. It was wrong for her to say, and it was right for her to appologize.
http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges#f
20. I feel p.bad about the folks who signed into that letter; they got used by a bunch of angry clintonite harassers who were angry that minority bernie followers wouldn’t bow and scrape.