I remember in the fall of 2000, Tchernichova was glued to the TV day after day watching the electoral debacle unfold. When I asked her how she could stand to watch so much of it, she said she was virtually obsessed with discovering whether American democracy would survive. Having grown up in a police state, her concern was certainly understandable.
As we now know, American democracy has only become more imperiled since the partisan right-wing judicial aberrations–notable among them the allegedly moderate Anthony Kennedy–awarded the presidency to George W. Bush. With predictably catastrophic results.
I’m reading Jamie Raskin’s Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus The American People. Turns out that at the University of Chicago my father was Assistant Resident House Head in the dorm he shared with Raskin’s father Marcus. Dad says he was brilliant. But that’s not why I’m reading his son’s book.
Raskin has choice things to say about the blatantly compromised 2000 ruling, one of the outstanding acts of judicial activism in this country’s history–and at the same time virtually singular, Raskin writes, in its audacious implementation of bias.
Raskin, today Representative from Maryland, could be invaluable in defeating the latest totalitarian justice Trump and McConnell will select to further bolster the GOP majority, and, most importantly, shield Trump from legal jeopardy. Senate Democrats are turning out to be so gellatinous when it comes to formulating strategy to defeat Trump’s takeover of the Court. Perhaps Raskin in the House should be consulted.