In the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade we’ve heard the usual, predictable cries from liberals and Democrats. You know it because you’ve heard it before. “By god, we’re going to fight!”
“Fight” being a standard, and I would say treadworn cry from every politician desperate to rally supporters after some miserable defeat. It sounds fierce … but I’m sorry, it’s lame. It’s been rendered as stale as “thoughts and prayers” after each day’s mass shooting.
Nancy Pelosi’s “fight song” is calling for Democrats to, you know, get out and “vote” in November, and presumably throw out the current bunch of rat bastards. To which I say, “Yeah, great. By all means. Vote Democrat. That’ll slow them down for a while … maybe. Or at least until the next election when the bastards surge back, promising to restore $2 gas, close the borders and slap down the silly, woke mob.”
But let’s get real. Voting in fresh liberal troops is utterly transitory.
Post the Roe decision, we liberals can see our dilemna clearly and without any credible disputing evidence. We are dealing with an emboldened Supreme Court packed (via naked connivery) with conservative ideologues. These are partisan zealots with life appointments. And they’ve proven beyond any doubt that they are willing to override any legislation and any will of the people, no matter how long established and no matter how deep and vocal the reaction from the substantial majority of citizens.
Point being … unless “the Supreme Court problem” is resolved, no hard-fought legislative action or lower court victories ever mean anything. Literally everything is negatable, even after 50 years of being established law with the constant support of 70% of voting-age adults.
Which brings us to the one “fight” liberals must focus on with the intensity, focus and connivery, if necessary, that conservatives used to bring down Roe.
And that is … the elimination of the electoral college.
As many have noted, not one, not two, not three, but five of the votes against Roe were delivered from justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Alito and Roberts by George W. and of course, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett by that incorruptible conservative intellectual powerhouse, Donald Trump, (a guy who we have no reason to suspect has ever been personally involved in an abortion.)
Here’s a breakdown of the serious obstacles to neutering the electoral college by constitutional amendment and … and … an explanation of how the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could achieve the same end. Basically, once enough states pass the NPVIC into law to reach 270 electoral votes, the archaic Electoral College, created 250 years before 80% of the American population was living in cities, would be rendered moot.
(In Minnesota the Democrat-led House passed the NPVC in 2019, but it has been blocked by Senate-controlled Republicans ever since.)
It goes without saying that the current Supreme Court ideologues, driven by Sam Alito, will search high and low for another “novel legal argument” to overturn an NPVIC law. And can we say that after ramrodding both the Citizens United decision (all the dark money any politician could ever want) and the defeat of Roe, Alito is now a far, far more consequential figure than the hapless John Roberts?
And this is where the white hot focus of liberal legal scholars, big donors and activists becomes essential. They/we have to accept as brutal fact that all their “fighting” for, you name it, gay rights, climate legislation, gun control, immigration reform and on and on … and on and on … is for nought as long as the Electoral College keeps sending popular vote losers to the White House.
Given the other brutal fact, namely that the liberal coalition is a sprawling mash-up of hundreds of interest groups, many with little to no overlap, such a white hot focus strikes me … at this moment … as futile. Where conservative ideologues can coalesce behind a handful of issues — i.e. anything smacking of white Christian rights, more guns, lower taxes for the wealthy and resistance to silly woke liberalism — the progressive agenda is a longer read than your average Stephen King novel, and in some ways just as scary.
But you tell me, can you point to any other single “fight” promising as much deep and pervasive reform as putting an axe to the neck of the Electoral College?