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I can't see this being a good idea at all. Legolas Send a noteboard - 24/09/2020 09:27:43 PM

Even if it works for a year or two, which is already dubious enough, the Republicans would just retaliate further and possibly make things even worse.

In the mid to long term, the Democrats' real problem is not that there will almost certainly be a 6-3 conservative majority on the SC very soon. Their real problem is that, firstly, they need a liberal majority or at least a balanced court in order to preserve the constitutionally dubious SC decisions that legalized abortion, same-sex marriage and so on - when in fact those are things that should just have been settled by the legislative, like they were in almost all other countries. In decisions like Roe v Wade or Obergefell, 'conservative justices' weren't trying to push their own policy preferences in decisions, they just tried to block liberal justices from pushing theirs through far-fetched interpretations of the constitution. I don't see much reason for concern that they would try to invalidate, for instance, validly passed state or federal laws providing for reproductive rights.

And secondly, the Dems problem is that the Senate's bias in favour of small states has lately created a significant partisan advantage for Republicans, due to the increasingly urban-rural split between Dems and Reps which currently looks like it may become a long-term discrepancy. It's not that long ago that the Democrats held 60 seats in the Senate, but now they'd be unlikely to get beyond 52 or so even if this election would turn into a landslide in their favour.

Supposing that such a 6-3 conservative majority does in fact overturn Roe v Wade, we'd get to the point where every state would democratically decide about its own laws on reproductive rights. While that would be disastrous to millions of women in red states and I really wouldn't want that to happen, there's still something to be said for it because it would finally take the toxic abortion debate out of American federal politics. It's really not normal or healthy to what extent that one topic has dominated American national politics for decades.

Of course, Republicans should be careful what they wish for, because there are a number of potential negative consequences for them as well if Roe gets overturned - businesses or highly educated inhabitants abandoning red states for blue ones in large numbers, the Republican evangelical base having a lot less incentive to reliably vote Republican, the country becoming even more separated and even more at risk of eventually breaking apart. That last one is also a risk if this Senate discrepancy becomes too blatant or lasts too long.

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