While the problems are encircling US President Biden, Congress is only able to act to a limited extent. Not so the Supreme Court, which recently decided key social issues in a piecemeal fashion. Americans are turning away from their system in droves.
It only took a few hours for everything to change. The US Supreme Court had just declared the universal right to abortion to be null and void. The state of Ohio enacted an extremely strict law. Abortion after more than six weeks, when some do not even know they are pregnant, is now a punishable offence. It doesn't matter whether the woman was raped or a victim of incest. And there was little news in the US media about a ten-year-old girl who had become pregnant but was suddenly no longer allowed to have an abortion in Ohio. Her doctor called other states and found a gynecologist in Indiana where the abortion could be performed. Still, because the politicians are also discussing a restrictive law.
The governor of South Dakota, where this has already happened, complained that no one was talking about the perpetrator. US President Joe Biden was horrified, as were journalists in a variety of US media outlets. The ten-year-old is an extreme case, but one that shows what the Supreme Court is currently doing with judgments that have nothing to do with the reality of life for a majority of the population. In his verdict, one of the judges wrote that on the basis of the reasoning, consideration should also be given to banning contraception in general. Is anyone married? Wouldn't matter. "What century are we living in?" Biden asked incredulously on Friday.
What is the role of the US Supreme Court? As the supreme authority, it is to ensure that politicians draft their laws according to the basic rules of the constitution. But the new judges decide under conservative premises that are highly controversial. Most recently, the Supreme Court ruled on whether the coach of an American football team can pray with her on the field after games, with the participation of the spectators. Because players from the state school saw themselves under pressure, critics saw a violation of the separation of church and state.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the coach. A little prayer, what's so bad about that? But in fact it is a judgment that waters down the separation of church and state. The reasoning behind the judgment is also highly controversial; first, because it distorts facts in the spirit of the judgment, and second, because religion is banned in state schools because of the principle of equal treatment. So far. The left-wing magazine The Nation said: "In a decision full of lies, the Supreme Court rules that a football coach, if he wanted to, could become a dictatorial priest." It also asked a razor-sharp rhetorical question: what would the court have decided if the coach prayed to Allah?
That sounds exaggerated, but it fits easily into the often overheated political debate in the USA. The country is in turmoil because of its Supreme Court, which currently answers important social questions at the highest legal level, but usually not in the interests of the majority. Congress, which shares responsibility for answers, is blocked by the two-party logic, since regular legislation requires a 60 percent majority in the Senate. This can only be achieved with a great deal of willingness to make compromises, but it happens less and less. Trust in the system has been destroyed in most of the population.
In a matter of weeks, the court abolished universal abortion rights, annulled restrictive rules about carrying a gun in public, and tore down a dividing wall between religion and state. States must now fund religious schools with tax money. The latter verdict is the latest twist in a politicized Kulturkampf that began more than half a century ago. That's when the federal tax agency began taxing private religious schools, driving large sections of the Catholic and Evangelical population into the arms of Republicans who are skeptical of centralized power in Washington.
The Conservative majority of Chief Justices is forcing the United States into the past. 6 out of 9 judges, and therefore the current verdicts, are the result of a concerted, multi-million dollar strategy led by the alliance of conservatives and Christians over decades. A network promotes lawyers with specific positions, provides lists of suitable candidates and reasons for judgments for political goals.
Ex-President Donald Trump was only the executive when, during his four-year presidency, he had three new judges elected for life by the Republican-dominated Senate. In the appellate courts, the lower instance, Trump replaced more than a quarter of all judges. The judgments that now follow sound like a conservative coup from above, carried out in small steps. Abortion rights were just the biggest of them. Conservatives are applauding, not just progressives calling for rigorous congressional action, while US President Joe Biden and the center Democrats retreat to helpless appeals as the legislative process falters.
Almost incidentally, the Supreme Court recently revoked the EPA's authority to make coal-fired power plants general regulations on CO2 emissions. Congress must give the authority an explicit mandate to do so, or proceed individually for each power plant. This is despite the fact that the EPA had already been mandated by a previous Congress to comply with environmental laws - in this case the Clean Air Act. Due to the majority ratio, it only has a limited quorum. The judges know that too, and are thus protecting the fossil fuel industry, making the fight against climate change more difficult and, on top of that, endangering public health.
The parliamentary maneuvers of the Democrats have achieved nothing on the controversial issues. The climate program for a greener economy has failed, electoral reform is unrealistic, the bill legalizing abortion has been blocked in the Senate. The latter, despite the fact that a majority of the population is in favor of universal abortion rights. Instead, conservative state governments can now force new restrictive laws on their people.
The consequences of all this are already becoming apparent in polls. The people have fundamental doubts about their country. Confidence in institutions, which was already low, has collapsed across the board this year and has reached new record lows. Only 31 percent trust religious communities, 7 percent trust Congress, 16 percent newspapers, 11 percent trust television news, 28 percent trust public schools, 23 percent trust the presidency, and 45 percent trust the police. The legal system as a whole is only trustworthy for 14 percent, the Supreme Court for 25 percent.
Worse still, the US could slide into an ungovernable mess. This year, the Supreme Court intends to rule on who will have the final say in organizing national elections in the future. In the most extreme case, the Supreme Court could disempower itself and the lower instances and hand over decision-making powers to the elected state governments, including the design of absentee voting and the certification of the results. The result would be legal chaos in presidential and congressional elections, and the process would be even more politically overloaded.
The so-called affirmative action by universities is also up for decision. For university applicants, these often quote access according to ethnicity, which is intended to increase equal opportunities and reduce discrimination. The court will also deal with the rights of homosexual couples. A web designer refuses to accept a job for a gay couple's wedding website because of their sexual orientation, a law in Colorado prohibits this.
Several Conservative Chief Justices are proponents of so-called "originalism," believing that the Constitution should be interpreted literally and not re-evaluated in the current societal context. On the basis of this conviction, some wild guesses are made as to what the authors probably intended in the 18th century, and a judgment is derived from them. This leaves room for politically-motivated interpretations, which the majority say judges are exploiting: Last month, 57 percent of US citizens in a poll said removing universal abortion rights would be "politically motivated, not legally motivated." Apparently, large parts of the population have the feeling that something has gone completely out of control.
Another example is the gun law, which also deals with a comma that was set differently hundreds of years ago in the draft and in the final version. The versions leave open different interpretations about the intention of the authors at that time. Should only organized militias be allowed to carry weapons? Or every single one? Could it be grammatical incompetence? Lawyers can then discuss with linguists how punctuation was used in the 18th century.
The numerical minority in rural areas feels better represented by this, not overwhelmed by the social changes of the cosmopolitan city dwellers, who in turn do not see the reality of their lives reflected in the backward-looking judgments. Anger grows on both sides, the camps become cemented, and the ability to compromise is declared a weakness. In addition, there is a lack of trust in the presidency and the political system, a congress that is only partially incapable of acting, and a supreme authority that is viewed as partisan rather than neutral.
In theory, Congress can rein in the Supreme Court, remove judges from office, or even increase the number of seats to correct an imbalance. But the same applies here: the majority will not allow it. It would take two-thirds of the votes in the Senate. Instead of finding solutions, social conflicts are overplayed and politics become a question of faith. An explosive mixture. For example, there is no evidence of election rigging in 2020, but Trump's lost election is perceived as a fraud by Republicans. Almost a third of Americans are convinced that Joe Biden was not rightfully in the White House. Among Republicans it is even 70 percent.
The general loss of confidence in one's own democracy is dramatic. Only 30 percent of the US public believe the American political system would work well with a few tweaks, compared to just 6 percent who think it does now. In February 2020 it was 46 and 9 percent. In the country of individualism, where everyone should be able to do what they want and be happy because there is enough for everyone, there is less and less room for a common democratic idea.
