A 2022 study found that of the 57 justices who have sat on the court over the past century, the six justices with the most pro-business voting records are the six members of today’s 6-3, rightwing super-majority, all appointed by Republican presidents
Because in the past they thought they had to care about the law, they know now that they don't need to do anything other than what the owning class wants, but they must drop the large bombs like this one on a Friday and preferably after another event that will keep the media occupied like say a debate? That way there is as little pushback and attention to it as possible...
Reagan was super anti-worker, and that's when the drift started. After the PATRIOT act, the entire justice system (including the court systems) started seeing the public as the enemy (after all, we were harboring terrorists) which corresponds to the shredding of the Bill of Rights (specifically the fourth and fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States). Business interests (and their plutocratic masters) were the true citizens of the US, with us lowly proletariat becoming second class citizens. Citizens United took us by surprise but we haven't really done anything and won't until the police are busting our own heads (or we see enough officer-involved brutality -- which is, incidentally, how La Résistance got started in Paris).
Now recently
SCOTUS neutering regulatory agencies in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo
SCOTUS deciding in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that civil and criminal penalties for camping on public land do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment of homeless people.
If you're too broke to have a place to live (easy to do right now), then you can have life, liberty and property stripped from you by the state. Essentially, being a human being is very much insufficient to have rights in the US. You must also be able to afford renting or owning a place to sleep. (As tempted as I am to rant about this, I'll stop here.)
The end of true representative democracy in this country began the moment the courts accepted the "corporations are people / money is speech" arguments. When that happened, governments stopped representing the needs of ordinary people and only listened the needs of billionaires and their lobbyists.
It's taking decades to play out, but it's going to end badly.
And many of the most stubbornly ignorant potential voters in swing states declare smugly, from their ivory tower of lazy truthiness - which they refer to as "purity" and "enlightenment" - that bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe.
Insisting against all reason and evidence that their absence from the 2016 election sent a clear message, made them the opposite of insignificant... when what they actually did was drop a goddamned pellet of cyanide into their own drinking water, along with everyone else's.
Demanding a charismatic messiah god-king, willfully ignoring that what they are electing (or not electing) is a system of governance with thousands of employees at all levels. Like a pathological, medieval peasant mindset that they seem unwilling or unable to transcend. "Massage me with a single voice, who cares about the rest."
Shitting like monkeys on the importance of the Supreme Court, unable to grasp the far-reaching importance of it.
Unable to grasp how massive coordinated republican stonewalling and sabotage can be to scuttle the best intentions of whatever charismatic messiah god-king might happen to try and arise.
They keep giving the keys to the kingdom to republicans, keep them powerful, then get pissed at Democrats when they can't clean up the mess fast enough, with one hand tied behind their back.
You can't change a system overnight, you nudge the inertia one election at a time, but judging from the mediocre seesaw of the flaky, lazy and petulant electorate, it seems no momentum can ever be built.
Half the country votes for a party that is totally anti-worker because said party tells them they're pro-worker on TV... so that's not really all that surprising.
theguardian.com
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