Not really. The Supreme Court believes some rulings to be wrong the day they were decided:
> “The dissent’s reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: *Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided*, has been overruled in the court of history, and to be clear ‘has no place in law under the Constitution,’” Roberts said, quoting Justice Jackson’s 1944 dissent.
I think that's a fair assessment. Goldberg seems to have strong journalistic ethics too. Again, from Bluesky,
David Graham asks Jeffrey Goldberg about possible retaliation
Jeffrey: It's not my role to care about the possibility of threats or retaliation. We just have to come to work and do our jobs to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, in our society today—-we see this across corporate journalism and law firms and other industries--there's too much preemptive obeying for my taste. All we can do is just go do our jobs.
The republicans hold the presidency, have a majority in congress, and a majority (depending how you interpret the moderate members) of the supreme court. Even the more moderate republicans are afraid of the Trumpets so they mostly vote in-line (see for example Cassidy voting for RFK Jr).
There are some things the democrats can do but it's mostly "spanner-in-the-works" slow-downs of the process, or mid-level judges. At the same time, the democrats are in disarray with no clear leader or message.
Probably the best strategy for the democrats is to let Trump make more mistakes until even his base questions his presidency.
Democrats could do a lot with their physical bodies if they wanted to. Take a page out of classic American protest strategies: strikes, marches, sit-ins, etc.
You mean the democratic leadership, or members of the party/people-who-vote-democratic?
Protests happen in the summer mostly, and they always have a small amount of violence and property destruction (even when the protest is organized to be peaceful). Trump is just waiting around for that so he can have the military shut them down (at least, that's what he said).
Unless the protests are large enough (say, 1/4 the population of the US), and persistent, and affect business heavily. Maybe that would be enough to dispel the reality distortion/enforcement shield Trump has cast on the republicans.
People-who-vote-democratic need leaders to organize them. Their elected representatives need to be the ones heading marches and organizing rallies, not just AOC and Sanders shouldering the entire burden.
Yes, the administration will try violence, but it’s a lot harder to justify when elected officials are on the firing line.
Republicans can't vote against Trump, because the vast majority of Congressional districts are gerrymandered; this means the candidate can be easily outprimaried with just a little bit of cash. The original red map project (2010) cost about 40 million; the last map (2020) was quite a bit more expensive — perhaps 10x as much — but still quite cheap considering the benefit (functional control of the U.S. government). One of the unintended effects of the deep 2010 gerrymanders that project red map discovered was that it also distorts the Senate map (this was unknown effect, at the time). Until gerrymandering is fixed, and the legislative powers ceded to the executive are clawed back, there is no "fixing" the current situation. It was always just a waiting game for a well-heeled (for primaries) autocratically-leaning president to come along.
The Democrats can neither pass bills of impeachment (minority in the House, which introduces such bills), nor convict (a supermajority is required within the Senate, the Democrats don't even hold a majority).
Democrats can introduce bills of impeachment, but those would simply die without consideration given GOP control of the House. So far as I'm aware, none have done so since 20 Jan 2025.
There is no Democrat in the singular. There is a left-wing bloc defined, first and foremost, by identity politics and foreign policy views (namely, Palestine). There is a centrist bloc focussed on employment and wages (historically pro-union). And there is a free-trading bloc focussed on American enterprise and industry (historically pro Wall Street and the party's dominant wing through 2016 to 2020).
The second and third used to be aligned. Then, briefly, the first and second. Currently, nobody is aligned. The financial crisis cost the third group its moral standing. The third group's affiliation with the second lost corporate America and Silicon Valley to the Republicans. Then the middle group's alignment with the first lost its base to the anti-woke pitch. The first group remains cohesive, but it's too small and uncoordinated (e.g. voting for Trump for Palestine) to move the policy needle on its own.
to clarify: the leftmost bloc eschews identity politics because they are first and foremost anti-capitalist and believe that identity politics are a wedge issue designed to distract from class struggle (which is to say, they still address issues like systemic racism/misogyny/bigotry/etc which perpetuate wide-scale societal inequality but care less about politics which center individual identity). because they are anti-capitalist, they also focus on wages and are heavily pro-worker and pro-union (pro-labor). in foreign policy, they advocate for liberation movements which they believe are part of a global class struggle.
the second bloc is liberals, which are more center-right as they frequently side with conservative policies and are pro-capitalist. in recent years, this has come to include DSA (AOC) and other progressives like Bernie Sanders, who believe that the current system of politics under capitalism can be reformed instead of abolished. these people are very much for identity politics because they believe idpol will bring the leftmost bloc into the fold (it won't). this bloc sometimes supports leftmost causes but will abandon them when it is politically expedient (AOC, Bernie).
the third bloc is just right-wing. Bush Jr-era neocons. the party has always catered to these folks but more recently has come to embrace them as it moves rightward. this bloc will continue to grow as we see more of a rightward shift as more Democrats embrace the far right because they believe it will lead to electoral gains (Gavin Newsom, Chuck Shumer, etc) - once again, it won't.
the first bloc absolutely is not part of the Democratic party, and in fact despise the Democrats. they largely do not participate in federal electoral politics.
> the leftmost bloc eschews identity politics because they are first and foremost anti-capitalist and believe that identity politics are a wedge issue designed to distract from class struggle
This is a very narrow slice of urban leftists. When it comes to electioneering, the messaging is almost always about identity politics and anti-corporatism more than class-struggle politics.
> they largely do not participate in federal electoral politics
Then it isn’t a bloc. Non-voter non-donors are politically irrelevant.
yeah fair, the leftmost folks are not really involved in party-level messaging at all.
i disagree that they're a narrow slice and aren't a bloc, though. in federal politics sure but in local politics they're more active and there's much more alignment with Democratic politicians (and more pragmatism).
Anti-corporatocracy, not anti-corporatism. A fair chunk of the left, if not the majority, is very much in favor of Corporatism (Tripartism and/or social corporatism like the Nordic model).
You can legitimately shade a multidimensional object to a single dimension without being untrue nor even biased. The point is such a cross-cultural comparison is mostly useless. Identify themes and interests versus unobservable beliefs.
american liberals are for neoliberal markets which alone puts them to the right of their global counterparts. besides hollow support for socialized healthcare, they've put forward no meaningful reforms which would lead to it (besides the ACA which is dismantled more and more every year), they take large donations from corporate donors and are largely aligned with capital (see weakening of Dodd-Frank, Gramm-Leach-Bliley), they frequently support military interventions and large amounts of defense spending (see Iraq war, interventions in Yemen, Libya, Syria), give lipservice to pro-immigration but in action are largely anti-immigrant (see deportations under Obama and Biden), and compromise on core issues like abortion and LGBT rights. that's just a few examples.
do you have anything of substance to share, or is this what passes for intellectual discourse on HN these days?
