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Why Democrats Need to Campaign on the Courts
In the chaos and madness of our current political moment, I’d almost forgotten that we are in the midst of a very important anniversary: the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, and the subsequent hijacking of his empty seat by Senator Mitch McConnell. Given that that vacant seat was a substantial motivator for many of those who ultimately cast their vote for Trump — despite his manifest unfitness for the office of president — it’s probably time that we, as Democrats, revisit the issue of the courts and why it is so vital to make reclaiming the courts a central part of our 2020 message.
It’s conventional political wisdom — backed up by evidence — that Democratic voters and candidates care very little about the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the other federal courts. This has always seemed strange to me, considering how vital SCOTUS has been for both good and ill, from Roe to Obergefell to Citizens United. For better and for worse, the Supreme Court has become a key player in our political system, and Democratic voters ignore this fact at their peril.
Extensive reporting in The Washington Post (and elsewhere) highlights just how successful Republicans have been at remaking the federal judiciary in their own image. What’s more, they’ve also been adept at both using the court system as a motivator to turn out their base and as a means of rolling…
