YoBuckStopsHereWisconsin Supreme Court flips liberal, creating a ‘seismic shift’
spezWhy are judges in america politically aligned? Can anyone tell me about the election process of judges? In my country, we have the collegium system, which causes a lot of nepotism but keeps the government out of courts.
Because they are generally appointed by politicians, making them inherently political appointees.
GrayI don’t necessarily agree with this. I think any process to appoint justices is going to be vulnerable to politicization. Even the best case scenario, an independent body appointing them, is vulnerable to political capture or pressure from a polarized public. No, I think the reason America’s courts have become political is merely a byproduct of extreme polarization. Politicians don’t need to be polarized. In our country since the 80’s this has been the case, but there was a time when opposing views were able to cooperate and find more common ground. This polarization is new and it bleeding over into the courts was all but inevitable.
PeepinGoodArgsI had a long, researched response to that was ruined by the back button.
The gist of it was Republicans do need polarization to be politically effective. In 1995, they took the House and stayed there. But before that, it was 4 decades since they’d been in control of the House. The story is kinda similar for the Senate, as you’ll see.
In any case, Newt Gingrich in 1995 showed up with his Language: A Key Mechanism of Control. And it’s effectiveness has proven itself over and over and over. Now you you headlines like The Biden Clan’s Con Is Coming to an End coming from a longstanding prestigious conservative think tank:
I think Republicans only “need” polarization because they decided they needed it. There’s a world out there where Republicans took a more sincere path since the 80’s and didn’t create the “culture wars” and divisive rhetorical approach to politics that people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh invented. I don’t believe that they would in fact need to feed on polarization to succeed if they actually chose to address issues by suggesting actual solutions to problems instead of scaring their base on non-issues with hate and fear.
There’s a world out there where Republicans took a more sincere path since the 80’s and didn’t create the “culture wars” and divisive rhetorical approach to politics that people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh invented.
Then why didn’t they take it?
I know that’s an easy question to ask and hard to answer, but this was the time when Democrats and the working class were solid. What issues do you think Republicans could have been sincere about in that political climate and gained political power on a less divisive platform? That’s mostly a rhetorical question.
Their views have proven quite unpopular. To quote David Frum:
“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
And so they have.