Connect with us

OPINION

‘Two Gut Punches to Democracy’: Legal and Voting Rights Experts Blast Supreme Court’s ‘Very, Very Bad’ Decisions

Published

on

‘Grave Peril’

Chief Justice John Roberts let the U.S. Supreme Court’s calendar slip into July, to allow time to hand down decisions in two cases that history may see as especially critical to the future of actual democracy in America, or rather, to ending actual democracy in America.

Legal and voting rights experts blasted the Roberts Court’s final decisions of the October 2020 term.

On Thursday the Court’s six conservative justices, five of whom were appointed by Republican presidents who had not won the popular vote when they entered the White House, joined together against the remaining three liberal justices, to make it even harder to vote, to make dark money even more prevalent in American elections, and to warn those who are fighting for the right to vote to not challenge the current slate of voter restriction laws sweeping the country.

As The New York Times put it, one of Thursday’s decisions was “a test of what remains of the Voting Rights Act,” declaring the Supreme Court today “suggested that challenges to many new measures making it harder to vote may not be successful.”

Ari Berman, one of America’s voting rights experts and author of “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America,” expressed frustration after the day’s decisions were handed down.

Is Berman being hyperbolic?

Hardly.

Ezra Klein, in his New York Times opinion piece Thursday titled “The Rest of the World Is Worried About America,” spoke to scholars of democracy from other countries.

“I’m positive that American democracy is not what Americans think it is,” David Altman, a political scientist in Chile, told me. “There is a cognitive dissonance between what American citizens believe their institutions are and what they actually are.”

Klein puts a somewhat optimistic spin, if that’s possible, on the state of democracy in America, or at least, its future, but it’s impossible to dismiss this:

“The thing that makes me really worried is how similar what’s going on in the U.S. looks to a series of countries in the world where democracy has really taken a big toll and, in many cases, died,” Staffan Lindberg, a Swedish political scientist who directs the Varieties of Democracy Institute, said. “I’m talking about countries like Hungary under Orban, Turkey in the early days of Erdogan’s rule, Modi in India, and I can go down the line.”

But back to today’s SCOTUS decisions.

Here’s what other experts are saying.

Elie Mystal, a frequent guest on MSNBC and the Justice Correspondent at The Nation writes (or, appropriately, screams):

Berman had more to say:

Rick Hasen, one of the nation’s top election law experts and a Professor of Law and Political Science at UC Irvine, sums up today’s decision in the voting restriction case as “something very, very bad”:

“The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has severely weakened Section 2 of the Voting rights Act as a tool to fight against laws that make it harder to register and vote,” he adds.

Sam Levine, Voting rights reporter at The Guardian:

And Mark Joseph Stern, who writes on the law and the courts for Slate, declared the Court handed down “two gut punches to democracy.”

 

 

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

OPINION

‘Strategically Disastrous’: How JD Vance Is Harming America’s Foreign Relations

Published

1 week ago

on

April 16, 2025

By

In the realm of foreign policy, Vice President JD Vance has drawn sharp criticism, with critics branding him as “extremist,” the “Malicious American,” and the “Brutal American“—labels sparked by what they describe as his “naked hostility,” his “morally wrong” and “strategically disastrous” posturing, and a demand to interchange “truth for trade.” If alienating allies is the objective, critics say, he’s well on his way to achieving it.

During the first Trump administration, the President repeatedly came under fire for promoting a brand of foreign relations that was seen as entirely transactional. Turning a blind eye to decades of presidents promoting democracy and human rights as critical components of their foreign policy, Trump forged friendships with authoritarian dictators, invited terrorists to Camp David, and delivered “extensive damage” to “the United States’ international interests and global security.”

In this new, second Trump administration, the President appears to have gone all in on that transactional approach. In what is seen as an effort to upend the world order, Trump is on the offensive, attacking friend and foe alike, distancing America from the rest of the world on the premise that the rest of the world needs America more than America needs the rest of the world.

But Vice President JD Vance appears to have taken Trump’s foreign policy to a far different place: an attempt to create a political and cultural reshaping of foreign nations into the far-right realm. Where Trump wanted trade and military deals, Vance seeks to promote the far right and encourage attacks on minorities.

His efforts, to some, were first noticed during the infamous Oval Office meeting with the President of Ukraine. When Vance took the lead in publicly berating Volodymyr Zelenskyy on live television, many saw it as the moment the United States pivoted—from supporting Ukraine to effectively siding with Russia.

The Vice President is now fully engaged in the role of President Trump’s attack dog.

READ MORE: ‘Willful Disregard’: Judge Finds ‘Probable Cause’ to Hold Trump Admin in Criminal Contempt

But the costs are high.

Vance’s assault on a world leader seen as a hero to Western democracies effectively killed what was billed as a wildly lucrative rare earth minerals deal with Ukraine, and with it, a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump campaigned on—stating that he could bring peace in just one day.

The Greenland imbroglio was another embarrassing event—not only for Vance, but for the Second Lady, and for America. What was supposed to be a week-long charm offensive turned into a few offensive hours.

Now that Trump has imposed his worldwide tariffs, Vance appears to be the one attempting to negotiate country by country.

It is not going well.

Last week, Vance told Fox News that America is borrowing money from “Chinese peasants” to “buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”

Robyn Dixon, Moscow Bureau Chief for The Washington Post, reports that the “JD Vance comment about ‘Chinese peasants’ was taken in China as deeply offensive, and it is now a hurdle to trade talks. Trump administration’s approach appears tone deaf on this.”

READ MORE: Secret Musk Pentagon Briefing Nixed by Trump Led to Ouster of Longtime Hegseth Associates

Spencer Hakimian, the founder and chief investment officer of the hedge fund Tolou Capital Management, one week after the Vance “peasants” comment, posted that “Chinese purchases of American oil are down -90% Y/Y, while Chinese purchases of Canadian oil are up +700% Y/Y.

“That’s a $20B annual loss for the United States at $60/barrel.”

Bloomberg News reports that “China wants to see a number of steps from President Donald Trump’s administration before it will agree to trade talks, including showing more respect by reining in disparaging remarks by members of his cabinet, according to a person familiar with the Chinese government’s thinking.”

It’s not just China, Greenland, Ukraine, or Germany that have had to experience the American Vice President.

According to The Independent, Vance wants the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to repeal hate speech laws “in order to get a trade deal over the line.”

The UK-based news outlet adds that “a senior Washington figure, who has provided advice for the administration, claimed he is ‘obsessed by the fall of Western civilisation’ – including his view that free speech is being eroded in Britain – and that he will demand the Labour government rolls back laws against hateful comments, including abuse targeting LGBT+ groups or other minorities, as a condition of any deal.”

“’No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that,’ the Washington source said.”

That may come as a surprise to some, but taking a walk back to just a few months ago, it shouldn’t.

In February, Vance traveled to Germany to declare support for its growing neo-Nazi party.

“After berating European allies, Vance met with the leader of the far-right AfD party, Alice Weidel,” The Washington Post’s European Affairs columnist Lee Hockstader wrote.

“That Vance took up the cause of the AfD, a party polling at around 20 percent which many Germans regard as beyond the pale, is heedless of history and contemptuous of the transatlantic alliance,” Hockstader said. “In doing so, he managed to transform Europe’s old stereotype of the Ugly American into something more grotesque: the Malicious American.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘This Is a Big Deal’: Top Hegseth Advisor ‘Escorted’ Out of the Pentagon Amid Leak Probe

Continue Reading

OPINION

‘Dangerous’ New Trump Drug Tariffs Would Lead to Shortages, Soaring Costs, Death: Critics

Published

2 weeks ago

on

April 9, 2025

By

In his 2023 State of the Union Address, then-President Joe Biden vowed, “Make no mistake: if Republicans try to raise the cost of prescription drugs, I will veto it.” Democrats cheered and applauded, while Republicans remained mostly silent.

But Republicans cheered and applauded as President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday night he would impose “major” tariffs on pharmaceuticals—prescription drugs, some life-saving, taken by nearly two out of every three Americans, including nine out of every ten seniors aged 65 or older. Over-the-counter medications like pain relievers such as Advil and Tylenol, and allergy medications, for example, could also be included.

“We’re gonna tariff our pharmaceuticals, and once we do that, they’re gonna come rushing back into our country, because we’re a big market,” Trump declared in remarks (video below) at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner, a black tie event for the NRCC, which works to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives.

READ MORE: Noem Slammed for Pointing Assault Rifle at Law Enforcement Officer

The contrasts were striking: one President pledging to keep prescription costs down; the other, in black tie, announcing major tariffs on medications—many of them used daily by Americans, including seniors and low-income individuals who depend on them to manage serious conditions or even to stay alive.

“The advantage we have over everybody is that we’re the big market,” President Trump went on to say, “so we’re gonna be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals, and when you and when they hear that, they will leave China, they will leave other places, because they have to sell most of their product to [be] sold here, and they’re going to be opening up their plants all over the place in our country.”

According to NBC News, “Pharmaceutical imports were initially exempt from Trump’s first set of reciprocal tariffs last week,” but upon hearing the President’s announcement, global pharmaceutical manufacturers’ stocks took a tumble.

Late last month, the Brookings Institution warned that tariffs on pharmaceuticals will not provide incentive for U.S manufacturing of “off-patent generic drugs, which represent over 90% of the volume” of prescriptions dispensed. It also warned that tariffs on pharmaceuticals could lead to “product discontinuations or cost cutting that erodes quality.”

“Any production disruptions in the already fragile generic injectable markets are likely to result in shortages,” Brookings added.

Backlash to Trump’s announcement was swift, as many Americans, already under stress from the President’s massive tariff program, have seen markets in the U.S. and across the globe decimated.

Critics warn the tariffs could lead to deadly consequences

“Donald Trump wants to slap tariffs on pharmaceuticals, most of which are made outside the States, including the raw ingredients that go into almost every pill we take? That’s not being tough on China—that’s playing politics with people’s lives,” commented political strategist Shea Jordan Smith.

READ MORE: ‘Answer the Question!’: Dem Berates Trump Official Over Worst Policies ‘In My Lifetime’

“Make no mistake—this will kill Americans,” warned 314 Action, which says it is “the only organization in the nation focused on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats with a background in science to public office.” “Trump is gambling with people’s lives through his tariffs. This is why we need more doctors in Congress—to be able to stand up to Trump and protect our health care from weak spined Republicans.”

Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, lamented: “President Trump wants to tax low-income families’ and seniors’ prescription drugs at accelerating rates until they can no longer afford the medications they need to survive and function. Sadistic. And Congress does nothing about it.”

Middlebury College political science professor Gary Winslett, who focuses on politics around trade and global business writes, “This has got to be one of the absolute dumbest product classes you could ever tariff.”

Robert Tyler, a senior policy advisor at a conservative European think tank, observed: “It’s one thing to disrupt global supply chains for the auto industry (because frankly people just aren’t buying that many cars at the moment anyway) but pharmaceuticals is dangerous. A lot of the world don’t have the capacity to fill a shortfall.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: DOJ Accused of ‘Abuse of Power’ After Sending Armed Marshals to Whistleblower’s Home

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

OPINION

‘No Adult Supervision’: Concern Escalates as Trump Increasingly Appears Out of Touch

Published

4 weeks ago

on

March 27, 2025

By

Concerns are mounting over President Donald Trump’s ability, willingness, or even interest in engaging with the most pressing issues facing the country, as he increasingly—and casually—admits to being unaware of critical matters. His repeated declarations of ignorance, often delivered without hesitation or concern, have deepened alarm among critics who warn of a dangerous void in informed leadership in the Oval Office.

Late Wednesday afternoon, a reporter asked President Trump, “Have you been briefed about the soldiers in Lithuania? Who are missing?”

The Commander-in-Chief, appearing both uninformed and unconcerned, simply replied, “No I haven’t.” And moved on to take a question from another reporter.

The four soldiers went missing on Tuesday during a training mission in Lithuania, near the border of Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia. On Wednesday, as Axios reported, their Hercules armored vehicle was found submerged. Hours before Trump was asked, NATO and numerous media outlets had reported the soldiers were dead, only to walk that back later. They currently remain missing.

But President Trump said he was unaware of any of this.

“Is Trump just totally out of the loop?” asked journalist Matthew Yglesias. “Why wasn’t he briefed on the soldiers in Lithuania?”

READ MORE: Passwords, Contact Info for Top Trump NatSec Officials ‘Publicly’ Available: Report

Declaring President Trump “clueless” on “basic intel,” The New Republic on Thursday morning noted that “the armymen were known to be missing as early as Tuesday at 4:45 p.m., the Lithuanian military said, so why Trump was still unaware of the situation more than 24 hours later is unclear.”

Also Wednesday afternoon, President Trump was asked about his Secretary of Defense’s involvement in Signalgate. Pete Hegseth has been identified as the one who shared classified information in an insecure channel—seen as the greatest violation within the entire scandal. But the President appeared unaware of his Defense Secretary’s role in the massive nation security breach when asked by a reporter.

“Hegseth is doing a great job. He had nothing to do this. Hegseth? How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with it. Look, it’s all a witch hunt,” Trump told the reporter. He then went on to try to blame Signal, saying he thought it could be “defective.”

Attorney and former Biden White House senior presidential speechwriter Dan Cluchey, responded to the video of Trump’s remarks on Hegseth and Signal.

“This is stronger evidence of cognitive decline than anything Joe Biden has ever said in his life, ever,” he wrote, and warned: “Something tells me the press will breeze right past it.”

READ MORE: ‘Liar’ Hegseth Faces ‘Immediate’ Resignation Demand From Growing List of Democrats

Journalist James Surowiecki observed, Trump is “so checked out of his job that he doesn’t even know Hegseth needlessly disclosed the weapons packages and times of the attack on the Houthis.”

On Monday, Trump had told reporters when asked about the Signal scandal, “I don’t know anything about it.” Appearing as if he had not been briefed, he then asked a reporter for more information about it.

“Trump initially told reporters he was not aware that the highly sensitive information had been shared, 2 1/2 hours after it was reported. He later appeared to joke about the breach,” the Associated Press reported.

The Signal texts that The Atlantic had published also reveal the President’s apparent lack of awareness, on numerous fronts.

On Wednesday, asked by a reporter if he believed the information shared in the Signal chat was not classified, the Commander-in-Chief told reporters, “That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know. I’m not sure, you have to ask the various people involved.”

The White House has repeatedly insisted it was not classified, but countless experts, including lawmakers, say it was classified.

Vice President JD Vance in the texts says, “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this [military strike] is with his message on Europe right now.”

The Washington Post, citing a person with knowledge of Vance’s intentions, reported on Wednesday that “Vance wanted to ensure that Trump had been given all the facts about the potential attack, including that European nations stood to benefit more from it than the U.S.” That would suggest the Commander-in-Chief was not aware of “all the facts.”

Also of concern is that the 18 participants in the Signal chat appeared to be unsure of the President’s directive.

Calling him “President Bystander,” MSNBC’s Steve Benen writes, “Trump appears out of the loop in his own White House.”

Pointing to the Signal texts, Benen says one text “chain featured the White House’s Stephen Miller adding, in apparent reference to the attack plan, ‘As I heard it, the president was clear: green light.'”

“The problems should be obvious,” Benen added. “Vance was uncertain about Trump’s knowledge of the relevant details, and one of the president’s right-hand loyalists added an ‘as I heard it’ qualifier to the commander in chief’s directive about a deadly military operation abroad.”

The Commander-in-Chief appears to have been uninvolved in important portions of the planning of the military strike. Based on the Signal texts, it appears likely that he was absent from key portions of the decision making process.

Jared Ryan Sears, who writes The Pragmatic Humanist, offered this observation.

“Trump didn’t know about the Signal group chat or that a reporter was included. Trump says he didn’t sign the authorization to use the Enemy Alien Act to deport people without due process. His signature was on the document. Trump didn’t know that US service members went missing during a training exercise in Lithuania,” he noted. “What kind of leader knows nothing about what his administration is doing, what he himself is doing, and what is happening with the military he is in charge of?”

Attorney, Republican, and former U.S. Representative Barbara Comstock on Wednesday shared her concerns via social media.

“There is no adult supervision at the White House. Grandpa does not know what is going on except on the Golf Chanel or if someone takes a bad picture of him. Where’s Melania? Does he have a COS or caretaker?”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Quite a Bit of Perjury’: Texts Shatter Trump Admin’s ‘Bungled Coverup’ of Classified Leak

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.