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Food regulation is one thing. What's stopping a sitting president from directing his party's governors across the states to appoint judges favorable to their po

Food regulation is one thing. What's stopping a sitting president from directing his party's governors across the states to appoint judges favorable to their politics (already happening the last 4-8 years). Wink wink, nudge nudge, they get "tipped" after the fact by big business XYZ (the supreme court ruled this is not considered a bribe) to do some terrible thing, sure, here you go. It's long been an open secret that our politicians are for sale to the highest bidder but it's very difficult for me to understand how the mask can be this far off and people don't know, realize, or seem to care all that much.

techdmn 2y ago
Trouble is, for people who do realize and care, there isn't much we can actually do. Our two party system is effectively preventing change through the established channels, and I'm not super interested in sustaining a life-altering injury in the process of protesting.
- vundercind 2y ago
  The two party system is a huge weak point. Consider what it means for someone who wants, say, limited but substantial restrictions on abortions. Their choices are a low-restrictions party or a party that attempts to ban it entirely every chance they get. Where’s their representation on that issue? Doesn’t exist. Further consider that if they decide one of those is closer to their position than the other, and they take that issue very seriously, they’re now stuck supporting the entire rest of that party’s agenda no matter how much they hate it, if they want to vote close to their own views on the issue. Repeat for all other issues. The system basically guarantees most voters don’t agree that much with the party they end up supporting. WTF. And the only way to fix it is an uphill—scratch that, up mountain—battle against the two parties, since they benefit greatly from the current system. [edit] it’s a weak point, to clarify, because it enables all kinds of bundling of terrible, unpopular, and even dangerous-to-democracy policies with other issues. It elevates those unpopular positions by holding other issues hostage, basically.
abduhl 2y ago
>> What's stopping a sitting president from directing his party's governors across the states to appoint judges favorable to their politics (already happening the last 4-8 years). Nothing has ever stopped this except for the ability to vote these people out. In fact, voting for people that hold the same political values as you do and expecting them to advance those political values is literally the point of representative democracy. There is a lot of fearmongering related to the Supreme Court's decisions recently, but a lot of it seems to take an issue with our political system generally rather than the specifics of the decisions. (And the entire discussion is hampered by everyone's inability to actually read and understand what the Supreme Court decisions actually say, leading to people just repeating their favorite news agency's talking points like you have here with the "supreme court ruled this isnt a bribe" insert.)
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  This kind of hand waving is extraordinarily counter productive. Yes, corruption has always existed in our political system. Now it's a legitimate political strategy and has been accelerating in demonstrable ways in the last 10 years, and these decisions add fuel to that fire. Hard to really argue otherwise. With extensive rollbacks to the voting rights act, and the inherent power of money in political campaigns, it's very difficult to swallow the "just vote" argument as well. It clearly isn't working. Also, you cannot vote out appointed judges, including the ones sitting on the SC that are making decisions that impact hundreds of millions of people and sit for life.
  - abduhl 2y ago
    It's always been a legitimate political strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine#In_the_history_of_the_United_States_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine#In_the_histo... I'd be interested in your basis for the statement that it's "accelerating." I'd go further and bet that your basis is more of a vibe rooted in recency bias. Edit: And to your point about voting out judges - well, some would say that's a good thing, but more importantly most judges at the state level are usually voted in or have term limits along with recall procedures (so it's not even clear how your original hypothetical of a governor appointing sympathetic judges would work in practice since governors don't appoint judges usually, but whatever). We are talking about state judges, right? I guess one of my points here is what I said before about fearmongering. You're out here posting about these hypothetical situations that you're afraid of trying to drive Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt when you apparently don't even know how the judicial system works (federal judges vs. state judges, elections vs. appointments, federal law vs. state law, etc.).
tpmoney 2y ago
Why bother with all that nonsense when the sitting president could just order all their executive agencies to change the rules or stop enforcing them entirely. The argument for the most recent decision is deferring to the enforcers about the extent of their powers is a bad move to when those powers are being challenged. We’re in a lot of the messes we’re in because a lot of our federal regulations aren’t laws, they are the whims of the president and their regulatory body heads, and are subject to change at any time with the stroke of a single pen. For example, net neutrality was a thing, and then it wasn’t, and now it might be again, all in the span of about a decade and all because different presidents and FCC chairs had different opinions about the extent (and intent) of the powers of the FCC. Or consider marijuana, still a schedule I drug per the DEA, yet by presidential decree, the DEA isn’t supposed to be spending effort enforcing that. Until I guess a new “tough on drugs” president comes into office. Or maybe until it’s politically expedient to enforce that law against some distributor. Maybe some grower in California or Colorado where it’s legal at the state level has done something to draw the ire of the president. Gosh wouldn’t you know it, the DEA decided it has some time to start enforcing those laws after all.

techdmn 2y ago

Trouble is, for people who do realize and care, there isn't much we can actually do. Our two party system is effectively preventing change through the established channels, and I'm not super interested in sustaining a life-altering injury in the process of protesting.

vundercind 2y ago
The two party system is a huge weak point. Consider what it means for someone who wants, say, limited but substantial restrictions on abortions. Their choices are a low-restrictions party or a party that attempts to ban it entirely every chance they get. Where’s their representation on that issue? Doesn’t exist. Further consider that if they decide one of those is closer to their position than the other, and they take that issue very seriously, they’re now stuck supporting the entire rest of that party’s agenda no matter how much they hate it, if they want to vote close to their own views on the issue. Repeat for all other issues. The system basically guarantees most voters don’t agree that much with the party they end up supporting. WTF. And the only way to fix it is an uphill—scratch that, up mountain—battle against the two parties, since they benefit greatly from the current system. [edit] it’s a weak point, to clarify, because it enables all kinds of bundling of terrible, unpopular, and even dangerous-to-democracy policies with other issues. It elevates those unpopular positions by holding other issues hostage, basically.

abduhl 2y ago

>> What's stopping a sitting president from directing his party's governors across the states to appoint judges favorable to their politics (already happening the last 4-8 years). Nothing has ever stopped this except for the ability to vote these people out. In fact, voting for people that hold the same political values as you do and expecting them to advance those political values is literally the point of representative democracy. There is a lot of fearmongering related to the Supreme Court's decisions recently, but a lot of it seems to take an issue with our political system generally rather than the specifics of the decisions. (And the entire discussion is hampered by everyone's inability to actually read and understand what the Supreme Court decisions actually say, leading to people just repeating their favorite news agency's talking points like you have here with the "supreme court ruled this isnt a bribe" insert.)

JohnMakin 2y ago
This kind of hand waving is extraordinarily counter productive. Yes, corruption has always existed in our political system. Now it's a legitimate political strategy and has been accelerating in demonstrable ways in the last 10 years, and these decisions add fuel to that fire. Hard to really argue otherwise. With extensive rollbacks to the voting rights act, and the inherent power of money in political campaigns, it's very difficult to swallow the "just vote" argument as well. It clearly isn't working. Also, you cannot vote out appointed judges, including the ones sitting on the SC that are making decisions that impact hundreds of millions of people and sit for life.
- abduhl 2y ago
  It's always been a legitimate political strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine#In_the_history_of_the_United_States_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine#In_the_histo... I'd be interested in your basis for the statement that it's "accelerating." I'd go further and bet that your basis is more of a vibe rooted in recency bias. Edit: And to your point about voting out judges - well, some would say that's a good thing, but more importantly most judges at the state level are usually voted in or have term limits along with recall procedures (so it's not even clear how your original hypothetical of a governor appointing sympathetic judges would work in practice since governors don't appoint judges usually, but whatever). We are talking about state judges, right? I guess one of my points here is what I said before about fearmongering. You're out here posting about these hypothetical situations that you're afraid of trying to drive Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt when you apparently don't even know how the judicial system works (federal judges vs. state judges, elections vs. appointments, federal law vs. state law, etc.).

tpmoney 2y ago

Why bother with all that nonsense when the sitting president could just order all their executive agencies to change the rules or stop enforcing them entirely. The argument for the most recent decision is deferring to the enforcers about the extent of their powers is a bad move to when those powers are being challenged. We’re in a lot of the messes we’re in because a lot of our federal regulations aren’t laws, they are the whims of the president and their regulatory body heads, and are subject to change at any time with the stroke of a single pen. For example, net neutrality was a thing, and then it wasn’t, and now it might be again, all in the span of about a decade and all because different presidents and FCC chairs had different opinions about the extent (and intent) of the powers of the FCC. Or consider marijuana, still a schedule I drug per the DEA, yet by presidential decree, the DEA isn’t supposed to be spending effort enforcing that. Until I guess a new “tough on drugs” president comes into office. Or maybe until it’s politically expedient to enforce that law against some distributor. Maybe some grower in California or Colorado where it’s legal at the state level has done something to draw the ire of the president. Gosh wouldn’t you know it, the DEA decided it has some time to start enforcing those laws after all.