What can be done about the Supreme Court of the United States?
I'm pitching this question out to Tildes because I'm drawing a blank. It feels like we have seen an absolute stripping of our rights and unbridled support for large, private capital in the past week; and I'm unsure of how to respond. Considering the scale of impact these rulings will have on every US citizen's day to day life, things are surprisingly quiet. I'm wondering how other folks are thinking about mobilizing - be it through protest, outreach to representatives, or civil disobedience. It doesn't feel like there is a wave of ire. At least in my circles, there are no protests like the Women's March or BLM. There has been no response from my local representatives in congress or state senators. It's just eerie radio silence.
Is anyone else feeling this way? Has anyone joined or developed some sort of response to what is happening?
The most immediate and consequential thing that could be done is for the Democrats to win the House, Senate, and White House with a modicum of political will for packing the courts. Technically speaking this is not even that difficult, at least compared to other options like amending the constitution. I personally think that if they started campaigning on this and explaining their case to the public that this would not even be unpopular.
Things like mandatory retirement ages and enforceable judicial ethics guidelines would be nice too. But honestly at this point, they just need to pack the court.
It was clear this had to happen as soon as Biden was in office, but for whatever reason they just didn't do it. Maybe it was just so they could scare people into giving them money with all the URGENT SUPREME COURT DISASTER DONATE NOW texts. Not giving you a dime until you take action to fix things, darling.
There was and is a negative percentage chance Manchin would ever agree to a court packing law, let alone having to remove the filibuster to do so.
If Roosevelt couldn’t court pack with a supermajority + universal support from the US public, Biden with a slim majority and half of the populace at his throat is absolutely not going to be able to.
I agree with the first part, absolutely.
As for the second, the context of the push for reform and public opinion of the SC differs dramatically between FDR's attempt and the current context. Despite having a supermajority and broad support from the public in general, FDR's reform attempts did not even have full part support, and the public reaction was mixed but generally negative. People at the time did not view the court as corrupt and so the push for reform did not enjoy the same support that FDR's other initiatives did. I don't think you can draw a line from that to the present time when opinion of the court is at its lowest in at least recent history.
I'm under no impression that it would be easy, but if it proved popular and Democrats ran on it, it is absolutely doable and again, the shortest route through this mess. Only way out is through, after all.
Maybe, but you’ll need a lot of setup for it. The hypothetical of Biden winning in 2020 with the slimmest margin possible (literally a 0 person senate majority) and immediately going “alrighty, time to eliminate one of the three pillars of government” is insane.
People don’t think that highly of the US, but half the populace thinks very poorly of the Democratic Party.
Oh I completely agree with that. However, if the case is properly made and public support is built, it can absolutely be done. It was needed earlier and it is needed now — but it was not feasible earlier, but it is becoming more feasible now.
They didn't even try. It is clear it is more beneficial to them to leave the state of things how it is for now. Certainly the longer this goes on, the more they can point to it as an issue that needs solving. The two party system has stronger incentives to maintain the status quo than to actually solve problems.
I think trying would be politically disastrous. It was a disaster, again, for Roosevelt - a blemish on an otherwise modern legend.
So in that respect you’re right it’s beneficial for them to not try, but I don’t think it would have been beneficial for anyone except Republicans for them to try.
Not hypothesizing on why they didn't, just pointing out it was obviously more beneficial to not try. I'm not convinced that even if they had the political will that they would have tried - mostly just pointing out that it was and perhaps still is (although that tide may slowly be turning the more cases the SC decides) largely in their favor to maintain the status quo. The SC is a convenient boogeyman right now, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
The Japanese internment is a larger blemish on the "legend" of FDR. In modern day, we look at his accomplishments and cast him as a liberal lion. But FDR was ultimately a racist scumbag that makes Trump look like Martin Luther King in a straight comparison.
Fuck Donald Trump, but as a Japanese American, let's not romanticize FDR. In a hypothetical situation where Donald Trump was running against FDR, I'd likely vote for Trump and let that fucking cripple rot in his wheelchair.
Trying something that would burn an immense amount of political capital and which is almost sure to fail (as it would have been had they tried without first appropriately making the case to the public and having a consensus within the party) makes no political sense. Our political system absolutely has perverse incentives, but there have been many, many times where one of the two parties actively seeks to upend the political status quo. If Democrats thought that packing the courts was a move that would win them elections and allow them to further implement their preferred policy, they would do it. My recollection from the time (2021-2022) is that the public by and large opposed court packing and it did not have a consensus within the party. What good would trying and failing have done?
It sounds like the court would also accept if Biden also assassinated all of the conservative supreme court members as an official act.
It was clear to me, it was clear to you, I agree. Whether it was clear to Joe Schmoe on the street is really unclear. In any case, the fact that it didn't happen is an indication that, despite being needed, the political will simply was not there — or else it would have happened. But all I'm saying is that as a practical matter generating that will and winning this next election is the only option to unfucking things slightly that does not involve waiting 15+ years.
I hate how cavalier everyone is about this stance. I get why people feel that way, but from my point of view it yet another step closer to "well why don't we just hang the people who are wrong".
Packing the courts is such a nuclear decision that will damage our democracy far beyond this coming administration. I'm not saying it's worse than Trump, but I do think it's the worst thing the dems could do should they win.
Maybe my comment seems cavalier but I don't believe my actual stance is. The Supreme Court has already been fundamentally reshaped by a decades long political project aimed at installing Federalist Society judges on the bench. This is more or less a well known fact at this point. The number of SC justices is totally up to Congress and has been changed in the past with no issue. Congress's ability to determine the make up of the court is one of the checks that the legislative has on the judicial branch.
You're acting like these are totally normal times and that the public opinion and perception of the SC is what it was last century. In the present context, when 1-3 of the current justices' appointments are viewed as illegitimate by large portions of the country, 2 refuse to recuse themselves despite clear public perception that they cannot be impartial, and case after case of overturning decades long established precedent, I really don't see why court reform via packing the court should be viewed as a nuclear option. It's really the mildest remedy that we have available at this point, and the only one that stands any chance of coming to pass. If you're worried about retaliation from the GOP a) the Dems not doing something has never, in my memory, prevented the GOP from doing so should the opportunity arise and b) ultimately, if they want to do it too, it needs to be popular, and GOP policies are typically actually quite unpopular. What I'm suggesting is that the Dems build public support for this move and then do it. If the GOP can do the same then fair game, but I just doubt they would be able to.
This is absurdly reductionist. I don't like the courts current makeup or how it got there, but no it is far from a fact that one plot is the sole reason we're in this situation.
This is not true. It has been challenged in the past with LOTS of issues as another poster has already gone over. Yes there were times when everyone agreed and it was changed, there were others where everyone disagreed and it wasn't. This would absolutely not be the first case, should the dems do so.
You might interpret it that way but I'm very much not. I'm acting like we have been sprinting as fast as we can to blowing up various rules and protections that are there for the longevity of the system, not just the current debacle. Standardizing "fuck it pack the court" is another step in that direction, ESPECIALLY for what are absolutely going to be partisan political reasons.
So first off, I'd argue you're on shaky as hell ground with 3 justices are illegitimate, and even shakier to say it's "large portions of the country" feels that way.
I'm well aware that most democrats do not like the current court, and they're right to.
Some of it, sadly, is very much their fault in my eyes. Namely the reaction to the reps stonewalling of the appointment under obama, largely due to overconfidence in the upcoming election imo, and a completely insane decision to applaud RBG for staying on the court rather than dragging her over the coals every day until she stepped down.
Either way you know what's a great way to have people feel like justices are illegitimate? To just say "fuck it we'll pack the court with our team".
Let me ask you this. What would your newly packed court do if created? Because a lot of the times, the answer to that starts with Roe v Wade (we now have more recent decisions to focus on, but this packing idea has bee around since before that). Roe has always been notorious for being on extremely weak legal ground, and for decades people have pointed out that passing proper state level laws would be the correct remedy. Flipping the decision (arguably one of the more sound ones from the currently court decisions), would be objectively disastrous, and arguably not even the correct approach.
But obviously this extends farther than that. What else are we nuking? Sure we could start by just overturning everything you personally don't like about the current court, but hell lets hit past courts too. In fact, fuck it, we all know the legislative branch is useless and we legislate from the bench now, what other things can we go ahead and enshrine into law that will only last until the next candidate takes office and does the same?
The entire point of the court is that it's not supposed to whiplash with each election cycle, and this will absolutely standardize that as well, to the detriment of the country.
I heavily disagree with this. There are many milder remedies that are possible to occur. A lot of them involve people getting active at their local level, like they should have been for the past 10 years. Saying packing the court to undo decisions you don't like is "mild" strikes me as absurd.
So why didn't they pack the court earlier? Your memory is either quite short or awfully selective. Even 10+ years ago things were a hell of a lot more reasonable than they are now. Again should we just start hanging GOP members? It won't stop them from hanging "us".
This argument is atrocious from an ethical standpoint and not even great from a logical or pragmatic one. What if the dems win, pack the court, and a different dem wins, and packs it differently after that? What if the republican party implodes and no longer exists? There are plenty of outcomes to consider that don't just revolve around beating the bad guys (which, yes, a disturbing large % of republican politicians now objectively qualify as imo).
And again, this is extremely narrow. Plenty of GOP policies, especially in the last say, 30 years, have been popular. You are acting as if one very small, but admittedly significant, portion of time applies to everything. It just doesn't. If the dems pack the court to re-overturn roe v wade, you'd better believe there's enough people with positions on abortion that the GOP could feasibly get the same results.
This seems like a lot of institutionalist rhetoric. Advocating that packing the court to align with the majority opinion will "break" the institution is a wild thing and implies that it's not already broken. Roe is a wildly popular opinion with something like 60% to 70% of Americans agreeing with it. It's also wild that Presidents who have not won the popular vote have dictated the political make up of the highest judiciary branch in the nation (5 appointees):
Calling the political mission to reshape the court in this fashion "reductionist" seems... disingenuous?
The thing I want to focus on here is the narrative that packing the court is somehow bad or a slippery slope. I think this is such a weird lib/institutionalist take because the whole system is already fundamentally broken by the fact that this current court makeup has effectively executed in such a way that there is no longer any legitimacy in any past or present ruling they've made or might make in the future.
Let's get away from the more obvious/publicized rulings like Roe v. Wade or Presidential Immunity. Let's talk about Cheveron Deference for a second. Cheveron Deference is basically the doctrine that allows the administrative state (Executive Branch based departments like the EPA, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to determine the intent of legislation made by Congress. It allows the EPA to say the Clean Air Act means that corporation X cannot pollute more than Y tons of carbon per year without a permit. It allows the FAA to say that plane doors shouldn't fly off when the cabin is pressurized. It allows the SEC to determine what can and can't happen on the stock market. This is probably a good thing because law makers and justices are unlikely to be subject matter experts on the impacts of carbon in the atmosphere, avionics and flight safety, and stock market economics. Executive departments hire experts to execute on laws.
Republicans used to fucking LOVE Cheveron Deference. As far as I understand it, Cheveron Deference came about in the 80s when Anne Gorsuch (yes... related) headed up the EPA under Reagan. Reagan put a bunch of people in charge of agencies with the explicit purpose to focus on deregulation to the favor of corporations. Don't argue about this... it's fact. More plainly speaking... he doesn't want these agencies to succeed he wants them to fail ("most terrifying phrase 'I'm from the government, I'm here to help'"). This goes back to Anne Gorsuch. She is placed into the EPA with the instructions to destroy it from the inside out. One of the things she does is change the rule that in order to pollute the air, you have to obtain a permit. She walks that back and creates a special rule that says some corporations can pollute the air without needing a permit. This results in her being sued as the head of the EPA because she's going against the will of Congress and what it meant with the Clean Air Act. So this case goes all the way up to the Supreme court and they rule in a unanimous decision (yes... unanimous decision) that the experts at the executive agencies are the ones who determine the intent of the legislation built by congress. For better or for worse, this determination is effectively what gives executive branch agencies some of their power to enforce legislation. Reagan weaponized this to absolutely eviscerate regulation.
So fast forward from the 80s to the last decade or two. Republicans now fucking HATE Cheveron Deference. The executive branch has now become a toss up for them and not as much of a sure thing. With the inability to win a popular vote, they have to rely on the electoral college to even get into the executive branch and even that mechanism is proving less and less reliable to get them what they need. This means that liberal/left leaning presidents that install liberal/left leaning cabinet positions wield a sizable amount of power due to the fact that these executive agencies DO have leverage to enact policy as interpreted by the current administration based in congressional legislation. So what does the right do?
Invalidate Cheveron Deference of course... a unanimously agreed upon decision. This ultimately handicaps executive agencies moving forward. While it may not totally take away the power of the executive branch agencies, it will hamstring their abilities to enforce or act upon legislation because any action they take that someone doesn't agree with can go right to court and be tied up for god knows how long further.
To circle this back around to my main point, the institution is fundamentally broken. Law has no meaning when it can just be changed at the whim of whoever is currently sitting on the bench. The arguments against packing the court are absurd to say the least especially when one side of the aisle doesn't give a shit about institutions and has demonstrated time and time again that they will break them when it serves their purposes and the other side of the aisle tries to hold some kind of moral high ground sticking to institutions even when they are broken. Republicans and the right don't give a shit about optics of breaking institutions. Democrats and the liberals (I am purposely leaving out the left because it's a fundamentally different thing) will try to still maneuver inside the confines of these institutions like it matters.
So pack the court with new liberal justices that represents a more realistic representation of the American public. Systems broken to begin with. Do politics better from the liberal side. Alito and Thomas have already indicated that if Trump wins in 2024, they are probably going to retire. That means he (Trump if elected) gets to pick 2 new justices. 5 justices selected by one massively unpopular President doesn't seem very democratic to me.
I don’t see how overturning the Chevron defense is illegitimate in principle. It’s about how judges should interpret laws that are ambiguous. Interpreting the law is what courts do. They could still find other ways to side with regulators sometimes.
The Chevron defense seems like more of a fudge so that regulators didn’t need to go back to Congress to get things in writing. It’s pragmatic because Congress is pretty dysfunctional, but ideally Congress would write laws that are clearer about what powers it gives the regulators.
Overturning it now seems like unfortunate timing, but it doesn’t mean regulatory agencies lose all their power or always lose in court.
On the other hand, here's an argument for why it will be hard for the SEC to make rules and they will have to resort to rule-making by enforcement:
It’s Hard to Make Rules Now - Matt Levine
...
This is what makes the whole conversation exhausting.
There is no doubt, especially after the immunity ruling, that the court has basically thrown the book out the window and is acting much like any other crony government branch. However they are, mostly, targeting rulings that have ALWAYS been shaky from a legal position. Roe and Chevron are both famous for that, so it's not surprising to see them start there.
The popularity of decisions has never mattered to the court, nor was it intended to. Just about every worthwhile legal mind since and even during Roe advocated for getting congress to actually pass laws regarding abortion because it was a very shaky decision in which the court was arguably going outside its bounds to begin with. The state and federal congresses have had literal decades to do something about this, but it's instead been ignored or used as a bargaining chip for votes.
The popular vote is not an important metric in the legitimacy of US elections as the constitution intends. You might personally feel otherwise, but the short answer is "feature not a bug". It's a whole other topic that gets heavy into the weeds of states vs population but claiming the court is broken because presidents who didn't win the popular vote picked them is just outright pointless.
Even IF that mattered more, you seem to be ignoring that every single justice was also confirmed by the Senate. At least one of those you mentioned with mostly bipartisian support and another with a rather famous Democrat basically saying "i don't agree with them but that doesn't mean we should filibuster and prevent him from being on the court".
Comparing the Bush appointments to the Trump is borderline dishonest and certainly doesn't actually help your position. There is a whole slew of reasons those last 3 justices fall in a much different pile of problems.
As my "rhetoric" was written in response to pointing out that you can't just reduce the courts makeup to one simple plan, you're also, like them, ignoring the many chances anyone attempting to oppose this federalist plan had to actually do something about it. I've already mentioned the lackluster attempt by the dems to do anything about garland being blocked, and you've also got RBG refusing to step down. Had EITHER of those things not happened, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
Finally I don't have the time or really the will to go through the rest of your comment as it's not only not nearly as correct as you think it is, but blatantly insulting. If you're typing
Don't argue about this... it's fact.in sincerity as an adult, you're clearly not trying to have a discussion about anything and that's on something I would've probably mostly agreed upon.This action by the Republicans still boils my blood. But what recourse did the Dems have? Asking honestly because I'm not an expert by any means. What do you do when a large chunk of the government is vocally committing to blocking established process?
The issue is that I don't even think the dems put time into considering options. The vibe at the time was "oh well of course Hilary will win and we'll deal with it then."
There was all sorts of discussion, somewhat similar to now, as to how they could've worked around it, forced it, or at least made the republicans look a hell of a lot worse for doing so. Hell there's an argument that the senate is to ONLY advise on the appointment and not needed to confirm (something that, of course, the dems and reps have brought up and backed off on as benefits them).
Make no mistake, I see that as an undeniably anti democratic act and the real kickstart of the fucking shitstorm we're in now, but a major reason we're here is because of unbelievable arrogance across the spectrum from the dems. In regards to the election, regarding ancient justices AND senators, regarding the middle/lower class, regarding 08, regarding so so many other things.
I categorically disagree that increasing the court's size would be a "nuclear option." It's an exercise of the Legislative branch of its Constitutional powers to balance and manage the triangle of power it shares with the Executive and Judicial branches of our government.
The Nuclear Option, should SCOTUS decisions that are patently absurd (as several of those just released are) continue to appear, would be for various states to either entirely withdraw from the Union, or emphatically state they will no longer follow the "law" as interpreted by the blatantly corrupt SCOTUS.
That's a nuclear option. I could name examples that might actually, real-world, trigger that option, but the list would be long. An easy one would be Trump taking office again and immediately doing exactly what he's spent the past several years stating he very earnestly wants to do. Or doing what the MAGAs have outlined they want to do with their published plans and intentions.
Arrest his detractors. Including judges and others who've pursued him via the legal system.
SCOTUS just made it effectively impossible -- or, at the most charitable and good-faith reading of their ruling, highly difficult while being totally dependent on the judge to have good faith and truly be on the side of the nation and democracy -- to claim anything the President decides to do is illegal or unconstitutional. Trump could start signing orders and, under that SCOTUS ruling, not even an emergency hearing could injoin the action.
So what if Trump does start detaining people simply because he feels like it. What if he starts executing them? What if he starts deporting them, even natural citizens. Pissed Trump off? Well now he just signed an order that you're to be arrested, processed, stripped of citizenship.
And before anyone wants to start picking apart those examples with claims of "but the President doesn't have that power", again SCOTUS just ruled the President can do whatever he decides he can get away with. Power comes at the barrel of a gun. Violence. All it takes is loyalists willing to carry out his orders and presto, it happens.
Further, Congress might very well be on Trump's side if enough MAGAs get elected. So they could make all sorts of shit "legal." Patently unconstitutional, immoral, outrageously absurd, but "legal."
So what if various states decide enough's enough and they're not going to play those foolish, dangerous games anymore? What if California or the Northeast, for example, say "we're out, we're closing our borders physically, fuck off with your fascist bullshit?"
Well, as Liberals and Northerners love to point out, usually with tremendous glee, it's been previously ruled under United States law that states actually don't have the right to withdraw from the United States. So any states pulling out of the authoritarian hellscape Trump or Project 2025 or the MAGAs run amuck might be creating ... those states would be violating a legal precedent set more than a century and a half ago.
What happens then?
This is the kind of crap all these extremists are pushing the country to. Where something like this is not out of the realm of possibility. Where we very well may see states refusing to participate and violence being called up to bring them to heel.
They packed the court as step one. Now that it's been packed, they have literal legal cover to ram all sorts of things through.
Expanding it and ramming through some good faith justices is absolutely not a nuclear option. It's a civilized move that might, maybe, inject some sanity back into the process. Restore the rule of law, remove authoritarianism from the execution and pursuit of law.
For what it's worth, I agree with you. People tend to exist in bubbles, but my read of the broad electorate is that any talk of packing the courts will be punished at the ballot box.
Additionally, the obvious solution is actually passing laws rather than on relying on common law court rulings. All of these major changes from the supreme Court were modifying or reversing prior judicial rulings. They haven't attempted to over rule statutes, and are unlikely to do so.
So you want guaranteed access to abortion? Elect leaders who will create that law. You want broad rule making authority? Congress can pass that law too. Packing the courts is an alienating bandaid of a solution, when what is actually needed is passing more laws to enshrine rights. Additionally, the federal legislative branch is also somewhat hamstrung because of the structuring of authorities in the Constitution. Specifically, the granting of all rights not enumerated to the States.
So people really need to get out and vote at the local, state, and national level and elect leaders who will advance positions they want to see, even if those candidates or positions aren't "perfect" or "exciting." If the candidate is at least pushing in the right direction, get out and vote.
The only legal way to"fix" the court's extreme Right slide would be to increase its size, and "pack in" new appointees to counterbalance the existing unbalanced tilt. Presumably a non-Right non-MAGA administration would expand the court from nine to some other number. I've previously heard 15 bandied about as a suggestion.
The instant, immediate rebuttal to that proposal, whatever the number you decide to increase the court to, is "well they'll just do the same thing when it's their turn." That's always slapped down into the discussion as a reason to not.
If we get to the point where the court continues to swell in size as the Presidency changes hands between two partisan extremes, we're already fucked. As a nation, as a people, as a society. If that happens, if 2024 sees The Court swell to 15, then 2028 (and a hypothetical Republican assumes office) sees it increase to 22 or 30, and then 2032 or 2036 sees it balloon up to 40 or 50 ... we are already fucked. The nation would already be crumbling.
So I feel, in this discussion, using that as a reason to leave The Court alone at this extreme partisan and obviously anti People, anti Society, and anti non-wealthy place it's been moved into is a suggestion designed to shut any discussion down. It's a point designed to encourage nothing will be done, to maintain this tilted status quo.
Because that's the actual real problem. The partisan takeover of The Court, where jurists don't consider cases in good faith with the intent of finding the best and most fair solution for the country as a whole. That's the real issue looking for a solution.
SCOTUS has been "taken over" by the Right as part of their planned for reimaging, reimagining, conversion of the country. They've used a whole book's worth of political tricks, some of them astonishingly bad faith, to get SCOTUS to where it is. They've made it abundantly clear they want to use SCOTUS and hoped for control of the Presidency and/or Congress to complete that harsh, stark, dramatic swing in how the country is organized politically.
Who thinks they live in an America where you have to say the "correct" things, believe the "correct" way? Who thinks the America they're a part of is one where you have to worship the correct God? Where your views and actions and stated beliefs must conform to The One Way as dictated from upon high by Dear Leader?
It's not a fantasy, it's been laid out in the Right's Project 2025. They want to implement it. And once they do, once it's in place, everyone will have to make a decision. Or it's over.
So really, arguing about SCOTUS' current roster and how to "fix" it just avoids the problem. The actual problem.
We're headed for a massive, historic, unprecedented reorganization of America. It might happen politically, and that could go in either direction (either towards Authoritarianism, or towards something more Collective and Democratic). Or it could happen with physical upheaval that physically brings the country to a halt as the people openly revolt and we all have to struggle to find a new normal of some form we'll all agree on to settle things.
Or it could happen violently, as people take up arms to fight either for where they want the country to go, or against where it is headed.
SCOTUS is just a symptom. It's part of that section of the future history books where they mention The Court's tilt into extreme partisan divide as one of the underlying factors that preceded the upheaval.
The partisan divide is destroying America. No one approaches anything, government or politics or business or social interaction, nothing, with good faith. Everyone looks for the angle, everyone judges, everyone has drawn lines and you're either on Their Side or you're The Enemy.
Both Right, Left, and Center are doing this. Have been doing it for more than a decade at this point. It's destroying our society. People have no concept of concession, of collaboration, of finding a shared solution we can all live with. Everyone insists on total victory all the time, period.
And most of the things, the changes and methods we're fighting over, increasingly divide people not just on ideology, but into actual real-world winners and losers. Being homeless is now illegal, for example.
If an agent of the State, such as a cop but it could be anyone else in or out of government (who could call a cop in), questions you, and you can't produce proof of some sort of residence or shelter you can reside in, that's been ruled illegal. Or, rather, it's been ruled completely legal for a law describing how homelessness is illegal to be enforced.
That is insane. Further, what happens if you start abusing it? Consider the following. Renters have a landlord, and home "owners" usually have a mortgage for decades. What happens if a bad faith landlord or bad faith bank (which controls your mortgage) decides to up and pull it. Up and evict you. With little or no warning.
Then they call a cop. "This person is trespassing, this residence is not theirs." When questioned by the cop, should that asshole even bother to 'investigate', it'll turn out you don't have a residence. You just lost it, see. The bad faith landlord/banker has paperwork proving it.
You're now homeless. It's entirely legal for that cop, should that city/county/state have an anti-homeless law in place, to arrest you on the spot. Now you're in jail. Will you be offered bail? That's up to the judge. Nothing says you must be released to await trial; they can keep you there if they want. After all, they have guns, and the Power of the State backing them. It's not like you can just say "I disagree, and will see you in court" as you walk out. They'd stop you, violently, and keep you in jail.
Things like that, changes in how laws and judicial/enforcement processes operate, would make it entirely possible to do things like the above scenario to "unwanted people." And those people, those undesirables, could be whomever the person with power decides he or she dislikes. It might be Rightwingers targeting Leftists, it could be Democrats targeting conservative rabblerousers, it could be a boss angry at an employee, anyone. Once power exists, it will be abused. Not just used, abused.
These changes are all bad faith designed to shift what kind of country America is. That country is changing rapidly, and the rate of change is increasing.
There are many current examples. Not just from the most recent wave of SCOTUS cases, but across the country from city and state level rulings and laws, from the lack of oversight or guidance or overruling laws from the Federal level.
That last one is particularly problematic. It's common, for example, to want a Federal level law that supersedes "problematic" state or city laws. That works both ways though, and is just deepening the divides.
What if MAGA puts in a Federal abortion ban, for example? One just as restrictive as Iowa's or Texas'. Obviously that very directly sentences a certain percentage of pregnant women to death each year, because pregnancies can have medical complications that lead to the mother's death absent an abortion.
Do the nation's women just accept that? What if they object? How might they object? National strike, mass exodus, what? What does the government do if women do take steps to resist or withdraw from the now regressive and hostile nation?
Further, if (somehow, which recent political history shows is impossible) Democrats push through a Federal abortion legalization, what says Iowa and Texas (among others) will follow it?
After all, you can't just send Federal Troops into a state to enforce a law. It has happened in American history, but only at truly dramatic moments. Pivotal moments.
Just because those incidences worked out "fine", without upheaval that led to open revolt, has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it would work out non-violently should it come up again. Any of the states could organize themselves to physically resist the incursion of Federal troops into their states.
Any state, for example, would have plenty of time to raise its own army if it looked like Congress was going to shove some law through that state vehemently objected to. Even a matter of weeks would allow them to have "units" of armed personnel at least partially organized.
What happens then? Oh, that's right. We'd be basically at Civil War II. And the violent scenarios don't have to only include "evil, regressive" States resisting "good and wholesome" Federal Government in bad faith. It works exactly the same way in reverse.
If Trump takes office, and starts issuing Federal arrest warrants for, as an example, every single person who either sued him or participated in the court cases, what happens then? Do those states, such as New York as one example, just let it happen? Do they just stand by while Federal Troops round up judges and prosecutors and court clerks and plaintiffs?
What if they target Leftists? Liberals? Non-MAGA? Hippies? Counter-culture folks? The Homeless? Women? Minorities? Immigrants? Disruptors? Protestors?
And what about those Troops? Project 2025 wants to dissolve the FBI. Why? Because the FBI, in practice, "bigfoots" State level police agencies. So who would Trump be sending? Private security he hires and deputizes? Does he turn to a loyalist MAGA general to have a ideologically loyal handpicked US Army platoon deployed to execute those arrests? Do they form a new Federal armed agency that answers directly to the President?
What about the soldiers? Their oaths are to the Constitution, not the President. Just because some officer points at a crowd of Americans and says "open fire" doesn't mean that unit would mow down Americans. What happens then? Do the units fight amongst themselves across the divide? Do they try to defend the Constitution by stopping the illegal orders? What if those orders have been made legal, even if they're immoral and clearly authoritarian designed to impose a dictatorship?
There are so many ways, so many scenarios, that lead to the exact same place. Upheaval. Historic political change. A new America.
The only question is how we get to that new America. Because it's coming unless everyone involved backs the hell off and lets some good faith consensus and moderation return to how this country is governed. It's just a matter of how we get there (wherever 'there' is) and who does which things that push us from talking about it to it actually happening.
SCOTUS is a symptom. The problem is extremism that allows no moderation of any kind. Since no one shows any signs of backing off, odds are it's coming.
People tend to point at the army and think of them as a brainless mass.
This is the enlistment oath
Interestingly, there's no mention of the president in the officer's oath
Whatever they do, they have to uphold the UCMJ and Geneva convention or be personally liable for their actions.
Do people really so readily forget that the GOP admitted in the Supreme Court that they can't win without voter suppression tactics?
Nothing really. Vote for presidents who will make better picks and hope the bad justices all get hit by a bus or something before they can do too much damage.
Problem is there's no good presidential candidates, you have to pick a lesser of two evils and that doesn't work well for modern society
I’m not going to argue that the “lesser of two evils” system we currently have is good, but I really disagree with the implication here, intended or not, that there’s no functional difference between the SC appointees between the two parties. This spate of horrible rulings is a direct consequence of the GOP’s success in the last 15ish years at getting justices appointed who subscribe to their worldview. Three of the conservative justices responsible for these rulings were appointed by Trump. There’s little argument that things would have been different if more people had voted for the “lesser of two evils” Clinton.
Instead of the lesser of two evils we got the greater of two evils.
Many people believe in tearing down the system and replacing it with something ideal. There is no such thing, and no such thing has ever happened in human history.
An aside: all the radical socialists and communists I meet always conveniently forget the fact that all revolutions have ended in horror incomprehensible to the modern imagination.
Regardless of what's ideal, and whether it exists, systems that look like this have always been torn down one way or another. Greed leads to exploitation, exploitation leads to revolt. They are just betting that they have enough force to crush whoever doesn't cooperate.
This sounds like you want it to be based on history, but it doesn't seem historically accurate. Ancient states didn't last forever, but they seem to have failed for a lot of other reasons. In modern times, there are oppressive states that are still around.
If we're going to do comparisons from history properly, I think at a minimum, it requires talking about a lot of examples, and those examples are going to be messy, because real history is messy when you get into it. (I'm not sure it's worth it.)
And in any case, comparative history can't be all that definitive, because each country is different. There are lot of things that are unique about the US.
Some of it based on history, sure. But moreso it's based on what I know about humanity (and Americans).
This government is not sustainable. This level of oppression may be tolerable for most, who live good enough lives that they don't have to worry about what happens to poor and marginilazed communities. But what happened in the last 2 weeks is a ramp up. More people will now be included in the oppressed bucket. When that population isn't enough, they'll change the bucket again. They've given themselves the authority to decide who goes in that bucket without input from citizens. I think revolt is a likely path. But I think there are a lot of other paths. Revolt isn't guaranteed to tear it down. But there are quite a few powerful forces outside of the US that are capable of completely destabilizing us. One way or another, some or all of the current United States is going to experience collapse. We aren't being governed anymore, we are being ruled.
I don't have to be a proper historian to know that increasing police presence, training them with foreign armies, giving them military weapons and equipment, making protesting a crime, allowing private prisons to sue a state for not giving them enough prisoners, making being poor a jailable offense, and giving leadership immunity from prosecution for crimes, are all precursors of some pretty bad shit. And all of these things have happened before in systems of government that were subsequently torn down.
You're predicting two different things, unrest and collapse. I think US history shows that the US is unruly but not particularly fragile. Bad government and injustice can last for a surprisingly long time (most of US history, actually) and that alone usually doesn't result in collapse. For example, there was quite a lot of chaos in the late 60's and early 70's.
Protests and unrest, sure, it can happen any time.
Yeah, that makes sense. I am feeling like it's two different things, but also just inextricably tied together...
I am present in some discussion groups elsewhere, mostly Europeans. I try to be aware of the sentiment of other places, because I am worried about the decisions our government is making. It's not good. We are not well liked in most of the rest of the world. And it's only because we're scary that other nations do what we want them to do. That is the part that feels fragile to me. They can walk away from us, it's not out of the question for us to be much more isolated than we are today. If it was just one thing or the other it wouldn't feel so likely to fall apart, but it's both happening simultaneously. Unrest from inside, and deteriorating relationships outside.
I think some relationships do need shoring up, but to put this in perspective, when it comes to scary, I think "Russia might invade" beats anything the US is likely to do? And being scary doesn't mean that their neighbors do what they say. Rather the opposite: NATO got some more members. Similarly for China.
These are reasons why US isolationism could be a problem. A big worry with Trump would be whether he would abandon Ukraine.
Conversely, flawed systems left unchecked also result in incomprehensible horror. Some of the darkest stains on modern history are from evil people running rampant through government.
That simply further demonstrates the point that an accelerationist mindset where one allows greater suffering now in order to gamble on a future outcome is folly. Nobody knows how history will unfold, and most of the time it won’t unfold in the ways we hope or want.
I don't disagree, Trump was especially bad, I just meant its pretty disheartening on what the common people can do when the only course of action is vote for better candidates when there are none
There has been a very clearly better and very clearly worse candidate in every election for at least the past 25 years.
The past week’s rulings were carried out by a majority made up of the worse candidates judicial appointments.
So while Democrats are not good enough there very clearly are better candidates and we are suffering because they were not chosen.
While the President isn't everything and obviously more emphasis needs to be placed on other elected officials, I'll highlight that the President running as Democrat has won the popular vote in 7 out of the last 8 elections. We aren't suffering because they aren't chosen, we're suffering because the system is broken. I think that imbalance highlighted in the system with regards to the Presidential elections applies to different extents to the Senate and the House as well, but with other varying problems in those. The voting systems and apparatus surrounding that which controls our elections are outdated and fundamentally broken for modern governing.
If I gave you a basic screwdriver, a box of nails and some basic housing materials (2x4s, shingles, plywood etc.) and told you to build a house, would I then be right to say you're suffering from lack of housing because you didn't build a house with the tools I gave you? Or would it be fair to say that I gave you a shitty composition of tools/materials for which to build a house? What are you supposed to do, hammer away at nails with a shitty cheap screwdriver into 2x4s and plywood? Shouldn't the first thing you do is go to the store and buy a hammer at least.
OK that last part is not really comparable to what it takes to overhaul our election systems, it's nothing like going to the store, unless maybe you're abandoned on a deserted remote island with no way to communicate with anyone in which case going to the store might be as difficult as overhauling the election systems.
I’m well aware that the system is broken. The statement I was responding to was “the only course of action is vote for better candidates when there are none.”
There are better candidates. Unfortunately because of our broken system the power to choose them disproportionately runs through a few states.
This is a matter of perspective, but it seems favorability ratings for the candidates seem to be trending down. Exact data on this is hard to get.
I can think back to Obama vs McCain, I wasn't nearly as worried about that election cycle, regardless who won.
Source:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/14/biden-trump-are-least-liked-pair-of-major-party-presidential-candidates-in-at-least-3-decades/sr_24-06-13_historical-favorability_1/
The topic of this thread is a pattern of extremely far-right, pro-corporate, and pro-authoritarian rulings by SCOTUS over the past few years, and how they’re a big problem. Participating in the discussion without disputing that premise implies that one agrees that those decisions are objectionable.
For anyone that holds that value base, the “better” and “worse” choices for every election of the past 25 years are extremely self-evident. Five of the Supreme Court justices who issued these rulings were appointed by the “worse” candidates, George W Bush and Trump. Zero were appointed by Democrats.
Public favorability polling has no bearing on this values judgement.
I agree that a McCain victory was far less scary than a Trump victory. He recognized climate change, for one. But his party has moved far, far to the right since then, and the better and worse choices are starker than ever.
Is that a problem for the context? Do you believe Biden would appoint lunatics to the Supreme Court? At least personally, I do not.
And can anyone, in good faith, say that Biden wouldn't step down if his (alledged) mental state decline worsens and give the reins to his VP?
Because I can guaran-fucking-tee that Trump will not step down no matter what, he'll never admit he's sick or weak. He'd rather run the world to the ground than step down from power.
The things preventing us from getting better candidates happen early, before most voters pay much attention. Voting in the general election is too late to do anything other than pick the less-bad choice and limit the damage. (That's no excuse for not doing it.) Voting in the primaries might also be too late, depending on which state you live in and how competitive the election is. Sometimes good candidates drop out before that. And we have a system where often, nobody with any name recognition in the same party runs against incumbents at all, because the candidates choose not to run.
Sometimes I wonder if we should start out with sortition. Or maybe the losers in the previous election should automatically be on the ballot?
But anyway, it is mostly not up to us.
When my primary vote becomes meaningless because the candidate I voted for has dropped out between me mailing it off and it being counted, I definitely question how useful primaries are. I guess they're fine in the very first places to run them.
From my perspective, the party picks the candidate and I have no real say.
Just piping in to give you some outside perspective:
Here in Germany, that's simply how it works. There may be some general surveys, but who gets to be on the ballot is entirely determined internally by the party by the actual party members.
I actually really like how the German system works. Splitting up power between parties the way it is there is great.
This is the exact reason why I make a public show of disrespecting the humanity of anyone who argues "Can't you see the people have spoken? He won the primary, after all." Further, popular with voters (or would be popular if they were still in the race) and popular with donors do not necessarily have overlap.
The way to argue against that is to use polite logic once, then, once they restate their original point without engaging with the above points, use the cheapest dunks you can. There's no point attempting to change their mind, but you can show the audience they're a loser (or just frustrate them enough they are one step closer to burning out from politics altogether).
In the unprecedented situation they respectfully engage with your arguments, then use polite rhetoric for as long as it takes.
"The people have spoken" is kind of bogus boilerplate, but I think it's connected to something real, which is that elections are a way of temporarily settling political disputes that, for all its flaws, beats the alternatives. Continual political struggle (and worse) seems exhausting? Election denial, storming the capitol? Seems bad.
And while the machine is flawed, it's not unconnected to popularity. The game might be rigged somewhat, but it's still possible to beat it.
So be careful what you're tearing down. These are the only legitimate elections we have.
(Also, I'm not too sure about those tactics.)
At this time, the best way to impact the court is to make sure Trump doesn't get to nominate more justices imho.
Or get the abuse the new powers granted to him.
The software running the United States government (the Constitution) needs patch updates. We have this metaphorical operating system that has been corrupted and is out of date. We have to start pushing for constitutional amendments on all the things that is wrong with the United States. We pretty much need a new 21st century Bill of Rights. It needs to cover
The thing is, I just don't think the USA is going to make it. The people who set out on building media empires to enrichen themselves won't be alive to see the consequences of the damage they have made by the time this country starts truly breaking at the seams.
Here is a policy proposal
Here is a policy proposal for an independant federal prosecutor as a fourth branch of government. Lawrence Tribe OP ED
I feel the same uncertainty. How can I bring about change as an individual? My first thought is to call my elected representatives. But that’s easy for them to shrug off, so how can I be a squeaky wheel or better yet a thorn in their side? Maybe I should document all contact with my representatives’ offices, and make noise in my community if they’re unresponsive or fail to take action on these issues. How much time will it take for change then? How low or how high do I aim when looking for someone’s ear to bend? Does my city council make a difference? Or just my congresspeople? But before I get started I’m halted by the doubt that my efforts would change anything.
The thing that I hold myself to do is to actually have the patient and hard political conversations with my family, to make explicit how important the next election will be.
In all likelihood, this will make my father more likely to disown me, but I simply cannot be quiet any more.
On an individual level I agree that doing all we can to influence this upcoming election is the single most important thing at the present moment. Whether that is personal conversations, canvassing, volunteering for get out the vote initiatives, donating to campaigns, etc, it is vitally important to ensure that DJT goes not return to the White House now that there is truly nothing left to rein him in. Between these rulings and Project 2025 plans, I no longer think it is hyperbolic to say we are teetering on a knife’s edge between losing the last semblance of being a functional democracy vs starting the hard climb back to a nation with a functional rule of law.
I know I’m essentially saying “Vote!” as a solution which is often risible in the face of so many setbacks, but in terms of what individual people can do, the ballot box is really our last remaining hope. It makes absolutely no sense to cede defeat before being actually defeated. Even withholding your (the general you) despair can be an act of protest!
If your family currently supports Trump's and the Republican party's efforts, consider that this is due to a fundamental difference in core values that you won't be able to change with logic. I think galvanizing apathetic citizens to voting is a worthwhile effort. But I don't believe you can change someone's core beliefs that are the foundation of the party they vote with.
When I lived with them over a decade ago now, as recently as 2011, I was a registered Republican.
I found the path out of that cult-like system, and I have to think that if anyone can get them out, I would have the highest chance of success.
Those odds may still be very low, but I have to try. It is literally the least that I could do after all of this to try to make some headway against the horrors of today. If I didn’t try, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
Those with the power to change that system have no incentive to do so. Wealth is power here. It's really corporations and the ultra rich that control things, and they don't care which politician they are paying. Our votes are not needed anymore to keep the system as it is, both parties will maintain it. They have no reason to care whether we protest or not.
The long term things you CAN do won't change the system we exist in, but can change the lives of working class citizens. Foster community. By this I mean skill shares, clothing swaps, helping others mend and repair things instead of buying new, community kitchens, community gardens, ride sharing, book and knowledge sharing... active community participation. Find any way you can to stop participating in this corporate controlled environment, and help others do the same where you can. Find the people near you who organize, and participate in that community, not just during a protest. They've made it nearly impossible to be able to scrape by, and then made it illegal to sleep outside unhoused. The private prisons in Arizona just sued the state and won, for not having enough prisoners. Maybe these decisions will be fine, and business as usual, whatever. But probably not. And once bad things start happening to people, their community will be their only resource. We can watch in horror, or we can take each other in. Protest won't prevent it.
I am afraid community building and bracing for what's to come is all we have left. After seeing how protestors have been treated by cops in the last few months I'm not surprised at their absence now. And I don't think it would matter anyway. My plan is to just try to spread as much information as I can in my own community, and to offer my skills whenever I can.
This is not your fault and you can't fix it. At best, you can influence the outcome slightly, if you're in the right place to do it. National politics is often unpredictable and ouija boards work in mysterious ways sometimes.
But it's still worth paying some attention to things we can't fix, in order to be prepared.
My view: the rest of the free world needs to band together, develop cultural, political, and economic independence from the US, and essentially "encircle" the US through economic and political pressure. If you live outside the US or have strong ties outside the US, I'd say work toward this end in whatever capacity you can.
If you haven't stumbled upon it, I usually see this as a call for "multipolarity." I am personally very interested in this as well, although I'm still figuring out my feelings on it. (I generally just hate "war"-- although I understand that "peace" is not always the utopia people imagine. So a multipolarity with a lot of traditional war would not be ideal.)
You could see it as a distinct bloc, or as a shift in the center of mass of political influence among democratic nations away from the US.
Issue is that power isn't going to give up power willingly, and the only real alternative to US or US adjacent power economically is China. Multipolarity would only exist at the convenience of the big dogs in the room.
It can be more subtle than direct confrontation, if we're thinking about where people choose to do business, creative collaboration, academic collaboration, or deciding which countries to develop diplomatic relations with.
To get all hippie: become a better person. There is a tradition in confucism that the people create the leaders, not just by democratic process, but by how they live day to day. Similarly, buddhists reckon that a noble heart enlightens everyone it touches.
A return to a mor humble and spiritual path among the regular people might cause leaders to pay attention, as we begin to have joy without their involvement.
I will note that the biggest Confucian country in the world is a brutal dictatorship. I don't think this system leads to democratic government in and of itself.
I assume you’re talking about China, but it’s not a great example. Although Confucianism still is influential, especially in modern times, ironically CCP China is probably the least Confucian of the East Asian countries due to Mao throwing it under the bus during the cultural revolution. As a result, it’s only been after the 80-90s that Confucianism really sprung back.
I believe you. I'm just saying that it doesn't have a particularly notable track record of producing democracies. It seems to produce the same regimes most other systems produce.
I read the above comment to be about kindness in an individual making life better for those around them, not about making it a system of governing. Being a better person makes a small ripple which affects those in tbe immediate area, often by encouraging them to then be kind. It is a small thing, but the ripples matter to those they touch and sometimes that's just all you have the power to do.
I don't agree that this has a significant effect on the governing political system. It's probably what you should do in terms of mental health and happiness. But I can't think of many dictatorial regimes that were undone because the populace was nice and zen. Color revolutions, the Arab Spring, Euromaidan are driven by anger and action, from deeply unhappy people.
I came across this proposal through Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, and I don't know if it's a silver bullet, but it's certainly an intriguing idea.
Ezra Klein's own reaction to the proposal was this:
Anything that will require constitutional amendments is, in my opinion, completely off the table. So that precludes radical reforms. Unfortunately, although the American political system needs radical reforms, I don't think we are going to get them short of extreme and disastrous circumstances.
The second half of the 20th century alone saw 6 amendments. It's crazy how polarized politics has become that we no longer perceive amendments to be a serious option for resolving constitutional problems.
I don't understand how laws and governmental structures are man-made, and somehow "nothing can be done" to restructure the current power structures. Can someone please ELI5, because I do feel five when I'm mad and scared at the same time.
Oversimplification but not really for those who are 5: Congress made it harder for Congress to change the law of the land because a stalemate system benefits those who are in a position to exploit it, i.e. the wealthy. "Nothing can be done" because doing nothing keeps campaign donations coming from corporate donors. The rare occasions where congress passes legislation with bipartisan support usually only benefits the few, and again, wealthy.
Is there a particular example that you’re confused by?
How there's nothing for the public to do when the machine of the Supreme Court outputs illogical results.
There is something for the public to do. You should vote in the presidential election, as well as the congressional election. Ultimately, the SC is the most junior of the three branches of government. A congressional law like the War Powers Act can limit presidential power tomorrow, if there was consensus. Takes time, though.
As to why there isn't an instantaneous thing you can do, in most representative democracies there are layers between direct democracy and the facets of government to both reduce hyper-reactivity and the impracticalities of a general public deciding the minutia of governance.
There are things "The People", aka the public, could and can do about anything political. Or, really, anything at all.
It just takes collective will. The Floyd riots are one of the recent high profile examples of that. But the will fizzled out after about a week, and everything went back to normal.
The specific doesn't matter. It could be anything, from a SCOTUS decision to a police shooting to a new law, anything. But whatever it is, let's say tomorrow, a sufficiently large segment of "The People" have decided enough's enough. They've been pushed and shoved and stepped on and they're just done.
If tens of millions of people just stop, what happens? I mean they don't go into work, they don't go out drinking in bars and eating in restaurants, they don't run around renting hotel rooms and cars, nothing. They just decide to hold a national protest. Let's even say it's a non-violent one. They don't even show up en masse at the courthouses and governor mansions and Congress. They all simply stay home and withdraw from the economy, from the ebb and flow of "society" and its rhythms.
That would get attention. That would elicit some form of response. Probably multiple forms of response. But ultimately there are basically three ways things would resolve.
1, the government decides to "crack down" and enforce a return to normal. Probably quite violent, and could easily trigger resistance that escalates both the protest and the violence.
2, the government decides to negotiate and find some sort of consensus "The People" agree to accept and things return to normal peacefully.
3, "The People" decide to end their protest, which is mostly likely via some form of fizzling out as time goes on and individual people amongst "The People" decide to return to normal. This could happen if the government decides to wait things out in hopes of that exact outcome.
The only reason such a collective action doesn't happen is "The People" have convinced themselves it's impossible. That there's zero chance they could organize and act together in unison.
"The People" always seem to forget; there are more of us than there are of them. Who's them? Cops, military, government. Us. The nation has 330 million people. The Armed forces is 2.2mil. Less than 1mil total police scattered across the country in every city and county and state. Something like less than 21 or 22-ish million government employees (not that most of them are prepared to be violent agents of the State) across all local and state and federal levels.
US armed forces are highly unlikely to fire into peaceful American crowds. Remember, I'm not postulating some sort of riotous mob that's tearing cities apart violently. Just a collective decision to stop participating until grievances are redressed and changes implemented.
But the excuses instantly show up. "I have a house, a mortgage, rent, utility bills. I have a trip coming up, I just waxed my car, it's hot outside and I don't like sweating. I don't want to argue, I don't want to be yelled at. It's too hard, they're too powerful, we can't win. Wah, wah, wah, wail, wail, wail."
Excuses.
There is a point where people decide they've been pushed too far. A point where people stop accepting excuses, even their own excuses, and decide to act.
It's not mythical, and it does happen. Societies rise up throughout history; that's how historical change happens. Just because powerful asshats sit in powerful seats with the levers of power at their fingertips doesn't mean they're inviolate and invulnerable. History is full of those exact kinds of asshats who were deposed and replaced, protesting and confused the entire time at how and why "The People" are doing it to them.
Americans could decide to take collective action. They, we, don't have to just put up with this shit.
Clearly though, the pushing hasn't been hard enough yet. The line hasn't quite been crossed. Yet. At some point though, at some point enough people will decide they have been pushed too far, that they are out of any other option but to protest and demand redress of grievances.
The way things are going this past decade or so, the sooner that happens and some actual Change takes place, the sooner everyone can sink back into their happy little comas and return to ignoring all of everything outside their happy little circles. Because the pushing shows no signs of stopping, and it's harder and harder to be happy, in or out of your little circle, with so much shoving ongoing.
Option 4- people return to work because they need to eat or pay for housing.
In general I agree with your premise and I understand that option 4 could theoretically fit under the way you worded option 3, but I think it deserves calling out because the reality is that most folks do not have the luxury to just stop participating in society even if just for a short period of time. Most people do not have this privilege.
The reality is that to get a widespread protest on this level to work is that things need to be so bad that there is no normal to return to. People will tolerate a lot, so long as they have food and shelter. Deprive humans of those and violence is bound to happen.
As an aside I like to regularly participate in direct action on a much more local level and I sit in enough of a place of privilege that I am happy to protest or sit out or otherwise show solidarity in larger scale protests so that they have some kind of teeth. In general I'm disillusioned of the idea of non-violent protests which don't have some kind of teeth - occupying space does nothing, we must deprive those in power of some resource in order to get them to listen.
The public decides what kinds of people get put on the Supreme Court by way of who they put in the White House, but (1) most Americans seemingly don't understand this and (2) there is a substantial time delay between these choices leading to their consequences.
The decisions from the current court are what "the public" manifested when they elected Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Trump. What voters do in the next few elections will shape the makeup of the courts going into the future. The voters have agency here, but the payoff isn't quick and 40% of them desire a conservative-dominated court anyway.
Anyone who opposes the direction of this court but decides not to vote against Trump's re-election is either ignorant of how this works or a hypocrite.
Cultural restrictions are part of the real world, even if they're not physical. The calendar and the metric system are also cultural inventions, but good luck changing them.
There are ways of changing laws, but they're extremely difficult.
I think it would be worth it to examine why Congress has been unable to amend the Constitution since 1971 (not counting the 27th Amendment, which was a weird publicity stunt that doesn't do anything).
Finding the cause and treating for it instead of discussing the symptoms would really help the US right now. Will there ever be another amendment? Amendments are supposedly a part of our democratic tradition, but the government (when run by both parties) certainly does not seem to see it that way.
My flip the table answer is to invite all citizens to be a part of the Supreme Court and make it something like a jury duty. Get some experienced judges in the room to moderate and let the common decide what the law means.
The only way to fix it is to stop voting for the assholes that broke it to begin with, the GOP has become the party of government interference.
If Trump wins we're past voting as a solution. This supreme court, whose current majority depended on 3 of their members being nominated by an undemocratically elected president, one of them with a blatantly stolen seat, has no scruples. If they think that voting could threaten their power they would have no reservations in changing the rules in there favor to neutralize that threat. As they have already begun doing with the gutting of the VRA.
The left really needs to start arming itself like the far right has. This next decade will be hell.
Study chemistry, too. Nitrogen is a very fascinating molecule.