Nailing down a legacy for generations
‘W
hen you have the votes, you can sort of do what you want.” United States President Donald Trump is being clear the country could be stomping towards a democratic cliff over the Supreme Court vacancy and November’s election. His comment to Fox News reflects trends that have been building for years.
Trump is attempting to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the election, with just over five weeks to go.
He claims there could be widespread voter fraud. More people are expected to vote by mail because of the pandemic and polls show far more Democrats intend to vote that way than Republicans.
His comments received pushback from his party but the Republicancontrolled Senate still wants to seat a replacement for the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg even as early voting is underway, despite refusing to in 2016 after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia when Democrat Barack Obama was president.
Doing so now would cement the conservative tilt of the court by six to three, with it soon to consider the healthcare coverage of millions.
Polls show 50 to 60 per cent of people want the president elected in November to make the choice.
Trump said: “I think this [election] will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”
People may wonder why the party which controls the presidency, Senate and highest court is tossing the hardball around when it could jolt the opposition into action.
There are various factors but a crucial background is that the majority white party is under pressure as the country becomes more ethnically and racially diverse. There are signs this could be the year that historic shifts in the country’s demographics prove politically decisive.
According to RealClearPolitics. com, former Democratic VicePresident Joe Biden is ahead by about 7 per cent on average nationally and about 4 per cent in top swing states. Some of them are tight, but Biden also has more states in play than he needs to win.
Trump holds an important edge on who people think can best reboot the economy.
Biden has struggled to inspire enthusiasm among sections of his party’s base.
It has been a long time since a Republican won the popular vote in a presidential election — George W. Bush in 2004 — and it has only happened once in the past 32 years.
Under Bush, it appeared the Republicans might begin to compete more for diverse voters, but under Trump the party has doubled down on its largely white identity.
A loser of the popular vote — Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 — has appointed four of the current five conservative Supreme Court justices, who are life-time appointees.
Under Bush, it appeared the Republicans might begin to compete more for diverse voters, but under Trump the party has doubled down on its largely white identity.
The Republican majority in the Senate was elected by about 14 million fewer people than the Democratic minority.
This has meant a mounting democratic conundrum where the minority can periodically thwart the majority.
For the Republicans, the fear is that the country may be at an irreversible tipping point where there are enough diverse voters in the Sun Belt region to give the Democrats far more options to win presidential elections than the old Blue Wall in the Rust Belt.
In that light, the court fight is an attempt to nail down a conservative legacy for generations.