Driftglass often remarks about the fact that memory is a liberal superpower, and as with most things he says, he seems to be right. He has, of late, been quite busy exposing the Republican never-Trumpers for the hypocrites they are, as they attempt to cover up their own part in creating the fascist party that is the current Republican Party. The claim that everything was peachy keen before 2016 is historically absurd, as is the claim of these ex-right wing radio hosts, and ex-political consultants that they are mere witnesses to the devastation they worked so hard to bring about.
Today we hear from yet another of the enablers, over at the New York Times, one Donald Ayer, who “was a U.S. attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration”. Mr. Ayer is terribly distressed at the direction taken by the United States Supreme Court:
As the court begins a new term, regrettably, its recent history suggests that it lacks a majority of justices with sufficient concern about the basic continuity and integrity of the law or the ability of government to function.
…
This distressing turn of events has a special irony for me personally. In the 1980s, along with three of the current justices (John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas), I participated in the Reagan revolution in the law, which inspired and propelled the careers of three other current justices (Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett).
The Reagan revolution pitted itself against “activist” judges who were seen as following personal whims by altering the law and creating rights not found in the Constitution. Through interpretive tools like textualism and originalism, the Reagan lawyers sought to make the law more predictable and steady — as articulated by John Roberts, the job of justices was “to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”
That revolution, however, has morphed into what it was meant to curtail, as the expanding right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has relied on an array of innovative constitutional rights to undermine traditional governmental actions while discarding longstanding precedents with which they disagree.
Example number one from Mr. Ayer? Why, the court is going to overrule Roe v. Wade. Who would ever have thunk that a right wing court stocked with justices picked in part to do just that would do just that?
Who would have thought that a movement hiding behind the bullshit guise of “original intent” would, in order to serve the interests of the few, use the pretext of uncovering the intentions of long dead slaveowners to know precisely what they would have done faced with modern realities of which they had no clue? Who would have guessed that it turns out that those slaveowners would have felt it appropriate to rule in favor of corporate interests at every turn? Who would have guessed that while original intent would be dogma when interpreting portions of the constitution that could be bent to serve right wing interests, it would have no place in interpreting the clear original intent of the 13th through 15th Amendments, since the drafters of those Amendments actually meant to give equal rights to black people which is very inconvenient at the moment since black people tend to vote for Democrats? Who would have guessed that a party dependent on a base consisting of “religious” bigots would find a way to let those bigots freely exercise their bigotry in the name of religious freedom, while being careful to make sure that the new rules only applied to groups of which those bigots approve, while claiming that James Madison, who held no particular brief for religion, would have approved of what amounts to an establishment of religion.
Who would have guessed?
Anyone paying attention.
Certainly Mr. Ayer should have done so, since he confesses to being right in the middle of the “Reagan Revolution” that began our descent into darkness. It’s not like the Federalist Society and its ilk made any secret of their objectives. They now have what they want, and it won’t matter to the current court that the American people have a low opinion of it. They can do what they want and they will do what they want, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them. (Thanks to Joe and Krysten for that too!)
So, Mr. Ayer joins the Charlie Sykes, Matthew Dowds, Mona Charens, and Bill Kristols (to name just a few)of the world. Enabler though he was, he just couldn’t see this coming!
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