lNovember’s presidential election is a pivotal moment in American history. The entire world, except for the autocrats, took a breath when Joe Biden announced, on July 21, that he was giving up running for a second term and named his vice president, Kamala Harris. The Democratic Party did not give in to its old demons and immediately and enthusiastically lined up behind candidate Harris.
However, whatever the outcome of the elections, the big hidden issue is the total capture since 2020 of the Supreme Court by the radical right. Six of the nine judges that comprise it are pure products of the Federalist Society [bras armé de la droite conservatrice, qui préconise une interprétation originaliste de la Constitution des Etats-Unis]And even if Harris wins the election and the Democratic Party wins a majority in the House of Representatives (which is possible) and the Senate (which will be very difficult), the Supreme Court’s rightward trend promises to continue. Whether to strengthen the powers of the presidency, defend the interests of the Republican Party (on the verge of becoming a minority) or even dismantle certain laws on the right to vote or abortion (but not on carrying weapons) or attack the power political and socioeconomic achievements of the last eighty years.
The Federalist Society, created in 1982 to fight against “progressive drift of the federal courts and the Supreme Court” (according to conservatives), he has achieved his objectives. While the courts of Earl Warren, president from 1953 to 1969, and his successor Warren Burger, from 1969 to 1983, ordered, among other things, desegregation in 1954 and recognized a federal right to abortion in 1973, the Today’s Supreme Court has attacked the political process.
“Pro-president” tropism
He has begun to dismantle the administrative state and the welfare state, and seems determined to oppose any progressive measures. He deregulated electoral financing, giving disproportionate weight to libertarian billionaires who drown their campaigns with millions of dollars from their Super PACs, these “special political action committees” that allow unlimited sums to be raised and spent. It also invalidated the anti-discrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act, before rolling back the constitutional right to abortion in 2022 and stripping agencies of their regulatory power in 2024.
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