Democrats loved the Supreme Court until they didn’t.
There is a broader lesson to learn from their falling out of love with the branch of government that in Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton predicted would be the "least dangerous branch" of government, since it has "no influence over either the sword or the purse."
Boy, did ole Alex miss the boat on that one or what?
When there was a left leaning majority (or a seemingly even split but with Anthony Kennedy as a wild card), the highest court in the land was revered as the most holy arbiter of justice in the land – but that reverence had no basis in principle, it was not rooted in a love of logic, reason, or the Constitution. No, this was a respect born of the functional utility of getting a majority of unelected black robed politicians to perform the duties of a “super legislature” to implement interventionist, activist, left-wing policies that could never be implemented through the Congress.
Not a surprise, it is much easier to get a majority of five out of nine justices to go your way than it is to get a veto-proof majority out of 435 representatives in the House or 100 members of the Senate (often a 60-vote majority needed).
Democrats valued SCOTUS, not because it fairly and impartially interpreted constitutionality and dispensed blind justice, but because it was useful.
I chuckle every time the vile creatures who inhabit the American left take the name of “democracy” in vain, because real democracy is the LAST thing they want.
There is no question that any system of governance designed to protect the maximum in individual freedom will also be especially susceptible to being hijacked by powerful or influential minorities. Our constitutionally ordained representative republic is certainly no exception.
One might say that reducing decisions of the affairs of a nation if 350,000,000 people to 535 members of Congress, 9 justices on the Supreme Court and a single executive guarantees such a tyranny, but the miracle of our Constitution is that it protects the rights of the minority and the majority without allowing one to destroy the other – until that balance is upset by, as John Adams wrote, “avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry” prosecuted by immoral and irreligious people.
It has a name, it is called the tyranny of the minority, a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority group of a population has a distinct degree of primacy in that population's decision making.
During my six and a half decades on the planet, I have observed something I believe should be an accepted truth and it is this: civilizations and societies are made up of the common beliefs, mores, and actions of majorities. I have witnessed, over and over, that most (and I would roughly gage “most” as almost all) people live their lives in a far more conservative manner than they admit.
Hypocritically, those who advocate for higher taxes, never voluntarily pay them, the same goes for reparations, “equity”, defeating racism (they are just focus their racism on unfavored classes). The old saying is true, slice open a progressive and you will find a Marxist. I’ve also noticed that if you slice open Marxists, nine out of ten times, you will find a hypocrite.
What I have also observed in every single organization, church, and business in which I have participated is that powerful minorities will find ways to implement their agendas without majority support. They capitalize on the manipulation of rules, regulations, and procedures to their advantage in ways that disenfranchise the majority view – often taking advantage of the apathy of the majority in the process.
Free societies are open to the same kind of corruption. While governments codify rules and regulations on paper, societies are governed by informal laws – social mores, shared beliefs, and common principles – which are adopted and enforced through the acceptance and practice by most of the members of that society.
Any government constituted of hypocritical and corrupt people is first preceded by a hypocritical and corrupt society, and this is exactly what we are seeing today when radical minority movements in our society occupy positions of power and influence clearly out of proportion to their actual strength of numbers. This concocted, outsized presence is designed to do one thing – to sow doubt in the majority that they aren’t the majority.
There are minorities seeking to achieve societal (and civilizational) dominance and control through tactics and methods (lawfare with a corrupt government as an ally) other than majority acceptance or unanimous consent, something they know they can never achieve. Their “power” is a mirage.
Sure, representative governments and free societies are easier to corrupt – but they are also the easiest to correct.
All it takes is for the majority to stand up and say, “No more”.
Just ask Bud Light and Target.
The breaking point, in this story, can get ugly as was seen in the 1775 and 1860. Perhaps that's what they want but they need to be careful what they wish for. 😕
"What I have also observed in every single organization, church, and business in which I have participated is that powerful minorities will find ways to implement their agendas without majority support."
This seems to be a feature of life we are going to have to come to terms with and combat. A tiny fraction of the population is now engaged in active human species suicide, quite literally turning off the "stuff of life" from stopping the production of fuel and energy, to and even food and water that makes civilization possible. And we are allowing them to do it because the vast majority of people just want to be left alone and live their lives. To these people, however, this is a fundamentalist religion. We can never be as passionate and engaged about saving our culture and civilization as they are about destroying it. Its the same concept that led to the largest, most advanced and sophisticated military in the history of humanity being stymied and repelled by tribal goat herders in Afghanistan. It simply meant more to them. Not to be too fatalistic, but this is why ultimately we cannot win. We will never care as much as these cultists, which allowed them to start from the ground up taking over our school boards and our local panels and commissions until we end up in 2023 where they control all the levers of power in the government, corporations and society.