this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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The supreme court even as a concept is one of the most asinine yet accepted institutions in the world. On par with the Catholic church, but so much worse because it actually has enormous and direct power over 330+ million people. I am dreaming and pining for the day that someone in power, most likely a president, just legitimately tells them to fuck off. They have no enforcement power and they fucking know it. I'm yearning for someone to have the courage, but it's as clear as it possibly can be that it certainly won't be a Democrat.
The thing is that the court only has so much power right now because Congress is so fucking broken. If Congress where in working order it could just legislate all the shit that the court is blocking the executive on.
Is there any sense when Congress went off the rails? Some folks I have listened to say it was around the 90s but there were obviously very contentious times before then.
The Congress has never consistently functioned well, I'm not entirely convinced it's designed to. For the current mess, both in Congress and American politics in general, probably the most influential source is Newt Gingrich's electioneering policy of attacking wedges and saying anything you have to to get headlines without regards to the truthfulness of your statements. That's what reshaped the Republican party to be particularly welcoming to extremists, popularized science denial, and led to the modern wave of Christian Nationalism.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/07/07/newt-gingrich-republican-party