The importance of the 2020 election cannot be understood apart from an understanding of the dueling visions for the role of the Supreme Court. Visions that pit the preservation of our liberty against the erosion of freedom and an insidious and ever-growing tyranny.
In that context, it can hardly be overstated how huge the swearing in of Amy Coney
Barrett last week was. Absolutely huge. Absolutely, incredibly
huge.
Associate Justice Barrett was the third Supreme Court justice appointed
by President Trump and confirmed by the Republican Senate in the past
four years. As part of an historic remaking of the Federal judiciary,
the president has also appointed more than 200 Federal judges - most of
whom are Constitutional originalists. As we have seen time and time
again, there are never any guarantees about how a judge will rule once
seated. Chief Justice Roberts is but the most recent and disappointing
example of that. But if our justices don't at least begin from a place
of deep respect for the text of the Constitution - and equally important - understand their
own role in protecting it, our country's existence would be all but
doomed.
Back in 2016, many of us were unsure about exactly what kind of a president Donald Trump Jr. might be. Was he a man of his word - did he mean what he said about draining the swamp and building border walls and getting us out of endless middle eastern wars - or was he just another huckster politician? Could a braggadocios, pugnacious, and sometimes crude New Yorker be trusted to govern with what sounded a lot like mid-western values? Did he truly have a change of heart on the issue of abortion and would it affect his public policy? And above all, would he really keep his eyes on the prize by keeping his promise to appoint only Originalist, Textualist, Constitutionalist judges?
We all had to seriously ask ourselves one very fundamental question: Did the character flaws on public display and being widely and gleefully exaggerated in the predominant news media disqualify Donald Trump from receiving our support? And truly, both candidates were morally flawed. But conservatives and Evangelicals had been burned many times before when going to the dance with Republican candidates.
Many Evangelicals, Catholics, and other people of faith made the prayerful decision to take the chance, trust their gut, and go with the candidate who was right on the issues. Thankfully, many of us - whether joyfully or while holding our noses - cast our vote for Trump and trusted that God would ultimately use him to accomplish His purposes in the same way He has used and still uses flawed individuals today.
Many of us believed back in 2016 - and most still maintain - that the most important issue was Judicial appointments. (Imagine if Merrick Garland had been confirmed in the waning days of the Obama administration to replace Antonin Scalia. And then a President Hillary Clinton had appointed two radical justicial activists to the court.) While we know that court appointees sometimes stray from sound judicial philosophy and we will at times be disappointed in their rulings, still, President Trump's many originalist judicial appointments have gone a long ways toward the restoration of the Constitution as our guiding document, while largely vindicating the value voters' support for the President.
What was it about the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett - this mild-mannered, devout Christian and mother of 7 children, that scares the Democrat party? Why does a soft-spoken and respectful legal genius, a careful law professor and jurist so rile Senate Democrats? What is it about the confirmation vote on this thoughtful jurist who promised to faithfully interpret the Constitution sent Chuck Schumer into an apoplectic rage?
I can tell you that it is not because they think she isn't up to the task - she is smarter than any of them and twice as smart as some of them. It is not because she doesn't respect the Constitution - she knows it better and holds it in higher regard than they do or ever did. And it is definitely not that they are politically rudderless partisans - while they may be quintessential partisans, they are anything but directionless.
No, the problem truly isn't that they are without direction, instead it's that their direction is hard left. The Democrat political tantrum we've witnessed over the past four years has shown us how little the average citizen actually has in common with the political party of AOC, Sol Alinsky, Jim Crow, and Karl Marx. They have discovered, to their dismay, that their leftist agenda is too unacceptably radical for the American people and impossible to enact legislatively within the present rules.
For them the court has become far more than just the third of three coequal branches of government - it has become the last chance to enact their unpopular platform. They want to place judicial activists on the court in an attempt to turn it into an unaccountable, un-elected, uber-legislature. Justices such as Barrett, who respect the text of the Constitution, who honor the original intent, and who believe it means what it says are a threat to their radical agenda. That is why Chuck Schumer said of the confirmation of Justice Barrett:
And we were very close.
Back in 2016, many of us were unsure about exactly what kind of a president Donald Trump Jr. might be. Was he a man of his word - did he mean what he said about draining the swamp and building border walls and getting us out of endless middle eastern wars - or was he just another huckster politician? Could a braggadocios, pugnacious, and sometimes crude New Yorker be trusted to govern with what sounded a lot like mid-western values? Did he truly have a change of heart on the issue of abortion and would it affect his public policy? And above all, would he really keep his eyes on the prize by keeping his promise to appoint only Originalist, Textualist, Constitutionalist judges?
We all had to seriously ask ourselves one very fundamental question: Did the character flaws on public display and being widely and gleefully exaggerated in the predominant news media disqualify Donald Trump from receiving our support? And truly, both candidates were morally flawed. But conservatives and Evangelicals had been burned many times before when going to the dance with Republican candidates.
Many Evangelicals, Catholics, and other people of faith made the prayerful decision to take the chance, trust their gut, and go with the candidate who was right on the issues. Thankfully, many of us - whether joyfully or while holding our noses - cast our vote for Trump and trusted that God would ultimately use him to accomplish His purposes in the same way He has used and still uses flawed individuals today.
Many of us believed back in 2016 - and most still maintain - that the most important issue was Judicial appointments. (Imagine if Merrick Garland had been confirmed in the waning days of the Obama administration to replace Antonin Scalia. And then a President Hillary Clinton had appointed two radical justicial activists to the court.) While we know that court appointees sometimes stray from sound judicial philosophy and we will at times be disappointed in their rulings, still, President Trump's many originalist judicial appointments have gone a long ways toward the restoration of the Constitution as our guiding document, while largely vindicating the value voters' support for the President.
What was it about the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett - this mild-mannered, devout Christian and mother of 7 children, that scares the Democrat party? Why does a soft-spoken and respectful legal genius, a careful law professor and jurist so rile Senate Democrats? What is it about the confirmation vote on this thoughtful jurist who promised to faithfully interpret the Constitution sent Chuck Schumer into an apoplectic rage?
I can tell you that it is not because they think she isn't up to the task - she is smarter than any of them and twice as smart as some of them. It is not because she doesn't respect the Constitution - she knows it better and holds it in higher regard than they do or ever did. And it is definitely not that they are politically rudderless partisans - while they may be quintessential partisans, they are anything but directionless.
No, the problem truly isn't that they are without direction, instead it's that their direction is hard left. The Democrat political tantrum we've witnessed over the past four years has shown us how little the average citizen actually has in common with the political party of AOC, Sol Alinsky, Jim Crow, and Karl Marx. They have discovered, to their dismay, that their leftist agenda is too unacceptably radical for the American people and impossible to enact legislatively within the present rules.
For them the court has become far more than just the third of three coequal branches of government - it has become the last chance to enact their unpopular platform. They want to place judicial activists on the court in an attempt to turn it into an unaccountable, un-elected, uber-legislature. Justices such as Barrett, who respect the text of the Constitution, who honor the original intent, and who believe it means what it says are a threat to their radical agenda. That is why Chuck Schumer said of the confirmation of Justice Barrett:
"It will go down as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate." (1)
It also explains why he didn't bother, in his mad quest for power, to veil his threats about breaking or changing all the rules the next time he gets control of the Senate. They threatened to abolish the filibuster, add D.C. and Puerto Rico to the union to inflate their numbers in the Senate, and promised a Supreme Court packing power grab. Adding insult to injury, they want to disenfranchise the entire midsouth, midwest, and most of the western states by eliminating the Electoral College. Essentially, there is no rule they will not break, lie they will not tell, or depth to which they will not sink to keep from losing their grip on power.
They would have us, as someone wise has said, abandon the Constitution that has served us so well for over two centuries, and enter into, what Constitutional scholar Mark Levin calls a tyrannical "Post-Constitutional America."
Of course, in their wisdom, the founders provided a Constitutional remedy to their concerns. Simply enact laws which pass Constitutional muster - or - cultivate the necessary support to amend the Constitution. Of course those things are hard to do, especially when your platform is neither popular nor tenable.
There is another remedy - a much easier one - and one much preferred for those of us who cherish our liberty and freedom, who value the maintenance of our God-given rights, who want to continue to live in a country ruled by laws and not by men, and who want to continue to live in a Republic not subject to the tyranny of the majority. That twofold remedy is simple: It involves NOT rewarding the party that gave us a four year political temper tantrum while at the same time voting for President Donald Trump.
Return the Trump-Pence ticket to the White House for 4 more years and keep America great.
-- footnotes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 - Axios - Monday, October 26, 2020 - Dualing views: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said
Monday "will go down as one of the darkest days" in Senate history,
moments before the chamber voted 52-48 to confirm Judge Amy Coney
Barrett to the Supreme Court.
"...the next time the American people give Democrats a majority in this
chamber, you will have forfeited the right to tell us how to run that
majority. You may win this vote, but in the process, you will speed
the precipitous decline of faith in our institution, our politics, the
Senate and the Supreme Court."
"My colleagues may regret this for a lot longer than they think. Here at this late hour, at the end of this sordid chapter in the history of the Senate, the history of the Supreme Court, my deepest and greatest sadness is for the American people," Schumer said.
"It will go down as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats oppose the nomination because "they don't like the outcome."
"What this administration and this Republican Senate has done is exercise the power that was given to us by the American people in a manner that is entirely within the rules of the Senate and the Constitution of the United States," McConnell said.
"Elections come and go. Political power is never permanent, but the consequences could be cataclysmic if our colleagues across the aisle let partisan passions boil over and scorch the ground rules of our government."
"My colleagues may regret this for a lot longer than they think. Here at this late hour, at the end of this sordid chapter in the history of the Senate, the history of the Supreme Court, my deepest and greatest sadness is for the American people," Schumer said.
"It will go down as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats oppose the nomination because "they don't like the outcome."
"What this administration and this Republican Senate has done is exercise the power that was given to us by the American people in a manner that is entirely within the rules of the Senate and the Constitution of the United States," McConnell said.
"Elections come and go. Political power is never permanent, but the consequences could be cataclysmic if our colleagues across the aisle let partisan passions boil over and scorch the ground rules of our government."
