Thursday, January 27, 2022

Supreme Thoughts

I was finishing an article on Biden's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad first year when the news hit that Supreme Court Justice Breyer intends to retire. So it made sense to share some thoughts on that instead.

● First, stay calm. Talk radio will tell you about the end of the world, but looking at the possibilities, the GOP can't lose and the Democrats can't win. Breyer is the court's strongest intellectual leftist, so if they find the perfect replacement, nothing changes. But anything less than a perfect replacement hurts the left. Why?

● The problem the left is facing is that Breyer was the intellectual driving the court's left. He was smart and clever -- top notch. And he knew how to justify his views and how to trip up the conservative justices when they overreached. The other leftists remaining on the court just aren't that bright. Sotomayer, for example, plays well to leftist journalists because she speaks like they think, but she's a legal lightweight. If they replace Breyer with another lightweight like Sotomayer, the left loses its intellectual motor on the court and its ideology will get run over time and again.

● Unfortunately for them, finding someone of his caliber will be incredibly hard. There just aren't that many heavyweight justices out there. What's more, limiting the talent pool to black women makes it even harder. And that's before the other problem: the Democrats are looking for a partisan, not a thinker. In other words, they are looking for the very thing they should not be looking for.

● In fact, the black women already being mentioned lack intellectual prowess. That's bad for the left. They may pound the table with the best of them -- who knows -- but none of the ones mentioned will ever write the kind of scathing technocratic takedowns that swung a guy like Roberts from time to time and justified leftist thought in terms that made it hard to challenge.

● As an aside, forget Harris. Everything I see tells me that team Biden despises her, and I'm not surprised. She has a history of being seen as worthless by allies all the way from the beginning (she's the Peter Principle on steroids), and I don't see anyone on the left wanting to risk putting her on the court. Also, as I've said before, she lacks an ideological core and dances to the tune of corporate backers, making her a terrible choice for anyone wanting to defend an ideology.

● NBC tonight said that this was a chance for Biden to prove himself to blacks and shore up the support of an important (vital) constituency before the election. Indeed, recent polls show Biden's support among blacks slipping from 90% to 60%. Take that with a grain of salt, but Biden clearly has a problem and needs to energize his black base. Will this do it? Nope. Why?
● For one thing, this will happen before the election. That makes it a fait accompli when it comes time to vote. People don't tend to reward politicians for favors already done. Machiavelli tells us this, in fact. He says to inflict pain right away and all at once, because people will forget, but spread out rewards because people are fickle and hold off delivering until you get what you want. By the time the election rolls around, blacks will see this as "what have you done for me lately." And if she puts her foot in her mouth, she becomes an embarrassment. This only way this energizes blacks is if the Republicans step in it and come across as actual racists.

● Secondly, I'm not convinced that black men are all that excited about rewards given to black women. There seems to be a real disconnect there.
● I actually think this is aimed at energizing "women." I think Biden thinks that "women" are a collective. But they aren't. White women and black women have suffered a disconnect with a lot of anger aimed at white women by black women (think back on the "hey, white woman" articles), so picking a partisan (i.e. a yeller rather than an ideologue thinker) black woman could further alienate white women. Also, the angry white women faction is notoriously self-centered and tramples over their allies to get their share. Giving this seat to a black woman will not be seen as giving them their share.

● Ultimately, I think black and white female support goes up at first on principle -- more with blacks than with whites, and some black male support as well. But the bounce fades quickly and their support will depend on other issues in the election cycle.

● So how should Republicans handle this? I would float some names right now of qualified but moderate-left black women, Hispanic women, a Muslim, and a lesbian or two, and I would say these women are quite acceptable and we would support them. Then explain what kinds of qualifications you think they need. This prevents a charge of racism and obstruction because the GOP identified several qualified leftist women and what they think is important. Biden and the media, however, will respond by going insane and tearing these women apart, which is really bad optics. It also creates the opportunity that they may invent reasons these women aren't acceptable which ultimately trap the candidates the left want... "hey, you said they needed this! Now you're changing your mind??"

● I said we can't lose, but we will lose if we come across as racists. Censure anyone who goes that route.

● You could also argue that the left wins by replacing an expiring (older) judge with a younger judge, but it's unrealistic to think we can block appointments for three more years. That would make us look terrible. So name some good ones and let them pick a bad one who isn't up to Breyer's intellectual level and in-fight.

● That said, we all need to brace for more hero worship from the left regardless of who they pick. Watch for sycophantic documentaries, fainting legal groupies and Democrats going to therapy with sex fantasies involving their new crush. See The Notorious RGB for reference (LINK and LINK).

Those are my thoughts. As long as we don't act like racist obstructionists, this cannot hurt us, but it is a very delicate balancing act for the left, one I don't think they can manage because they've lost their minds and want the wrong things now.

Your thoughts?

11 comments:

ArgentGale said...

Can't argue with any of that, Andrew. The calmer and smarter conservatives and libertarians I know aren't freaking out about this since they don't consider trading one leftist justice for another to be a big deal (and agree no way Harris gets "promoted" to that despite it being a convenient way to get her out of the Presidential line of succession for practical reasons as much as anything). None of them hit the intellectual angle, though, so it is good to know that the weak Democrat/leftist bench is likely to hurt them in this regard as well as the fact that they're openly insane these days. My only worry is that the GOP is known as the Stupid Party for many, many good reasons and I'm afraid they're going to live down to that and go out of their way to give the left a win by doing the exact stupid things you're warning them not to do. At the very least I find the odds of them taking up your suggestion about floating center-left women to be practically impossible knowing them. Hopefully they won't screw it up too bad.

Kyle T. said...

Well articulated Andrew, I agree on most points. As you pointed out, Breyer seems to be the most coherent voice among the left leaning justices… so losing him is honestly a win for the right.
At best the left maintains the status quo by replacing him… at worst they replace him with an idiot. Case in point:

I’ve read a few articles suggesting that Stacey Abrams is being considered as a replacement for Breyer… yea that will work out great! She would just end up making the left look bad.

I do not see how this changes anything here and now. In the long run it will more than likely help the Republicans. Then again Republicans have been known to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory… if the GOP attempt to stop this it will blow up in their faces… so we will see how this plays out.

Either way Biden is in my opinion the worst president in living memory. He has been so much worse than I could have ever imagined; Inflation, shortages, Afghanistan, gas prices. He’s failed on the covid response, he’s about to have a major foreign policy blunder in Ukraine… the list goes on and on.
But no mean tweets right? Well I mean other than all the nasty crap the Biden admin/staff have spewed along with Biden calling Peter Doocy an “SOB” on hot mic recently. To top it all off Biden cant articulate a full sentence without tripping up. In a word, Biden sucks.

-Kyle


ArgentGale said...

Kyle, as a GA resident (though hopefully not for much longer) I'm all for Abrams getting to try to upstage Sotomayor as the court jester. It'll keep her out of the governor's mansion down here! Then again it could lead to her being replaced with a Democrat that's actually competent and marketable on top of Stupid Party stuff, so that may not be a good thing after all. Damn.

Kyle T. said...

Lol! Abrams is to Georgia as Beto is to Texas. Both are terrible, and they just wont go away!

-Kyle

AndrewPrice said...

Kyle,

I've read a lot about Beto behind the scenes and he seems like a real loser. I still remember he had a chance to beat Cruz and apparently couldn't be bothered doing the work. High up Democrats were outraged.

As for Biden, he's easily proven to be the worst President in my lifetime. He's achieved the worst aspects of Jimmy Carter plus the worst aspects of Trump in administration. It's amazingly bad. And I'm a tad worried right now that he's lurching us into a real war in the Ukraine.

AndrewPrice said...

Let me clarify, he's making wild ass threats but at the same time is sending clear signals he won't fight (like he's no moving enough troops), which makes him come across as a wink-wink-nod kind of guy, which will encourage Putin. If Putin attacks, I don't know how Biden responds. If he miscalculates, that gets ugly fast for all of us.

AndrewPrice said...

Daniel and Kyle, The GOP excels at being stupid. In this case, the main GOP seems to be handling this well. They are saying largely the kinds of things I'd hoped about qualifications and telling him to go moderate. There was even a comment from a democrat who floated the idea that the GOP would support a judge from South Carolina, which sounds like a GOP leak to me. Good for them.

That said, the usual suspects will scream that the sky is falling because fear sells.

AndrewPrice said...

As an aside, for those who can't post (I've gotten emails on that), I managed to post this time by clicking preview first and then refreshing the page. I hope that works.

Kyle T. said...

In regards to other readers having issues posting comments, That makes sense Andrew. I always click the “preview” & “edit” buttons for my posts to insure I have no major errors in my wording… As a result I’ve never had any issues posting on your blog. I’ve always gotten the “publish” function to work this way.

Must be another glitch.

Yes, Biden and his weak admin are giving Russia & China an excuse to go run roughshod over everyone they think they can bully. Hell even North Korea has been getting in on this with all these missiles they have been firing off lately. The escalation over the last month has had me at a bit of a loss. We need actual leadership at this time but instead we have a bunch of idiots at the helm playing identity politics.
Example: What color & style genitals are best qualified to represent the left of the supreme court? Thats literally what our representatives are discussing in Washington.
The fact these politicians (right & left) think anyone gives a crap about identity politics blows my mind. We have so many problems in our country, Bidung could arguably appoint Beyonce and nobody should really care. How few American citizens are still worried about skin color or sex of an appointed official while our country is falling apart?! Like sub one percent? Probably less!

And Andrew, Beto is not only a loser… he is an absolute cringelord! Look up the video where he skateboards out into a political rally. It was absolutely f**king embarrassing.

-Kyle.

AndrewPrice said...

Wow, so now Germany and France are going to negotiate separately with Russia? Not only is that a disaster, but it's an unbelievable diplomatic failure. Wow.

Kyle,

I know very few people who base decisions on race at this point - and I know a lot of people good and bad in a wide variety of communities. The only ones who are concerned with it are white elitist liberals and talk radio types.


I saw that video. It made me laugh. The guy is so self-absorbed it's amazing. Unfortunately, politics is full of total losers.

Kyle T. said...

In regards to Ukraine:

Haven't you heard Andrew? Biden got a cat! Its all good now, because cats are so relatable right? Seriously though, I’ve read multiple legacy media articles harping on about Biden's new cat! It’s just such a blatant distraction from Biden’s numerous failures.
My point is I hate our media machine. Whats happening in Ukraine is the real news yet were being fed crap about a pet.

Whats happens in Ukraine over the next few months will shape our diplomatic relationships in the region for years to come. Biden is setting an abysmal standard right now.
The western aligned Ukrainian leadership back handed Joe Biden making it clear they know the situation on the ground better than the Biden admin (and they are right to think that, just look what happened in Afghanistan).
The Ukrainians dont want to align with Russia, however they are hesitant to let the US deal with the situation because the Biden admin has proven itself time and again to be weak & feeble. Its a damn disaster unfolding before us, but Willow the cat is front page news! I’m sick of the media soft balling this jerk of a president.

Well I had to go and rant, so let me end on this: I wish you all a good weekend.

-Kyle

Post a Comment