Put Your Faith Not in Judges

As long as I’ve been interested in rightwing politics, which has been most of my life, the question of judicial appointments has long been overhead in any discussion – particularly, when addressing to what extent a Republican president is worth the support of conservatives. During several conversations discussing Trump’s failings, I have heard “he’s good on judges” come up as a reason the Right should still keep supporting him. I heard the same rhetoric for Romney and McCain, too. And, this mentality is not just limited to the normie Right. In fact, Pat Buchanan cited “judges” as a reason he would support Bush II in 2004, despite it being the era when the Republican Party was going out of its way to distance itself from the three major components of Buchananism: immigration restriction, protectionism, and a non-interventionist foreign policy.

The focus on judges from the Right makes sense from a historical perspective, as the judiciary is largely seen as the party responsible for the rapid change in American culture – from school prayer to contraception to abortion to homosexual marriage and many more. Very few of the Left’s major cultural victories were achieved legislatively, it was done via judicial fiat. So, in the minds of many on the Right, getting the right judges was absolutely essential to stopping the Left from gaining any more of their victories.

This attitude gave birth to another idea – what if the right judges could give conservatives their own victories, just as they did for the Left? The idea has had currency on the Right for years, but despite the fixation there is no evidence this is a winning strategy and recent events have shown that Republican appointees can move the revolution forward just as easily as Democratic ones can.      

John Roberts currently stands as the most prominent example of the failure of the “rightwing” judicial strategy, as he has sided with the Left on a number of recent issues, including giving the state the power to single out churches due to coronavirus and abortion, the single issue that overrides all other judicial issues for much of the Right. Roberts is shaping up to be one of George W. Bush’s biggest mistakes and considering Bush is known for the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, destroying what was left of homegrown American industry, and putting the GOP on track to lose Arizona and Texas, that’s really saying something. I understand that the vast majority of the Right has abandoned the Bush family, as seen in Jeb’s pathetic showing in 2016, but this same mentality is at play and the judges aren’t much better under Trump.

Perhaps nothing demonstrates this better than a fresh ruling out of Idaho. Recently, the state of Idaho passed a law to prevent men from competing in women’s sports. It was a sensible law that was designed to protect women. However, in ClownWorld 2020 that is not nearly enough because a mentally ill man in a dress might want to compete as a woman, despite the vast physical differences between the sexes. Naturally, this is fundamentally unfair for female competitors and serves as the whole reason men and women compete in separate sports. No, it is not just testosterone. Bone structure, lung capacity, and a whole host of other factors that no surgery or pill can change also plays into the physical differences between men and women.

It didn’t matter though, as a judge struck it down. And, not an Obama appointee either, but a Trump one. So, if you happen to live in Idaho and see your daughter squashed by a confused male athlete, don’t blame Obama, it was a Trump judge who brought this.

Keep in mind to this is not simply failing to win back lost territory, but actively giving the Left new gains. And, not a gain they’ve been openly willing to admit to wanting for years like gun control, but something that was only seen on the fringes five short years ago. At some point, the Right has to come to terms with this, not only will supporting a Republican president never overturn Roe v. Wade or give us a functioning 10^th Amendment again, it also cannot even combat the most extreme elements of ClownWorld. Conservatives have been willing to support a host of horrible Republican presidents and candidates – Bush (both), Romney, McCain, Dole, etc. and no matter how bad things get, not matter how much ground the Left captures, it always comes back to, “they’re good on judges.” No, they aren’t. Reagan gave us O’Connor, Bush the Elder gave us Kennedy, and Bush the Dumb gave us Roberts. Trump has given us Nye, and I’m sure others will come.

I know why the Right did this. This is what the Left did, so why don’t we? Fight fire with fire after all. But, after decades of trying this strategy the Right has very few victories to show for it, unless you’re the Club for Growth and think more deference for more corporate power counts as some sort of conservative victory. It doesn’t. Especially, when corporations have declared open war on Dixie and traditional Christianity. However, that was never what gave life to the populist Right- it was fighting the destruction of the old culture, a strategy that largely centered on the judiciary and one that was doomed to fail. Supposedly rightwing judges were never as ideologically loyal as their leftwing counterparts, only being counted on to give a favorable ruling to McWal-Martazon, but not to protect women from competing in sports against men.

So, the “muh judges” argument cannot be used for giving continued support for Republicans, no matter how bad they are. It failed in the past and will fail in the future.

-By Harmonica