06 May 22
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I’ve gone through my own fevers back in my youth, I marched, I manifestoed, and I am still capable of high dudgeon, but I’ve come to have a higher regard for kindness than righteousness, especially the sort that burns other people at the stake, which we see more of these days.
My ancestor Elder John Crandall was arrested in Boston in 1651 for preaching kindness toward the Algonquins, which was not politically correct at the time, and a man who was arrested with him was whipped, so John removed to Rhode Island, a more civil society, where young women weren’t burnt as witches on the basis of other women’s accusations.
I was five when our family was split by a schism in the Sanctified Brethren caused by two preachers who loved the Lord but loathed each other. It was more tribal than Bible. Dad’s family was on one side of the schism and Mother’s on the other, and Dad stuck with Mother. What I remember was the kindness and generosity of Dad’s sisters, my loving aunts who never spoke of the split to me ever, not even by implication. I felt lavishly loved by them.
A friend who lives on the 18th floor of a building in L.A. heard some hubbub in the hall and found three cops and his next-door neighbor and her little granddaughter. The neighbor had called the cops because her daughter was on the balcony, threatening suicide. My friend took the little girl into his apartment to play with his three Pekingese, meanwhile a cop tried to talk to the woman on the balcony and she jumped to her death. The friend and his wife have become surrogate stepparents to the little girl who now lives with her grandmother and who seems not to realize what happened to her mother and to be okay with her life. Her future is not clear, which is true for most of us, but she has kind people nearby looking after her. And she likes to dress the Pekingese in dog jackets and party hats and serve them tuna sandwiches around a table.
Years ago, I went to Washington to lobby for the National Endowment for the Arts and every congressman I talked to was very righteous about an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs indirectly subsidized by the NEA, including one of a naked man with a whip stuck up his rear end. The congressmen enjoyed showing me this picture and telling me how horrible it was. Then I visited Senator Simpson, the Senate Republican whip, who was delighted to tell me about a game he’d seen played by drunken cowboys in Wyoming, who dropped their trousers and competed to see who could pick up a quarter off a wooden bench using only his cheeks. I became a fan of Simpson’s in that moment. To make a joke in the face of showboat righteousness is the mark of a great man.
An old friend of mine was blessed with two kind sons who conspired to fly her halfway around the world though the friend dreads flying with her whole heart and she was exhausted from having cared for her ancient mother for years, but she allowed herself to be squired to the airport and one son held her hand all the way to France, then Vietnam, and now, here on my phone, is a video of the flyer holding her other son’s tiny twin daughters, in an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City.
We have a dark history in that land of the damage righteousness can work and I pray that these little girls grow up swaddled in kindness. They look at the flyer with bright curious eyes, scootching, preparing to crawl, and then, Lord knows, do the 100-yard high hurdle. Lord be merciful.
Anti-Putin protesters in Russia. (photo: Getty)
A tremendous surge in VPN downloads represents a challenge to Putin and his version of the Ukraine war
Konstantin turned to a virtual private network, an encrypted digital tunnel more commonly known as a VPN. Since the war began in February, VPNs have been downloaded in Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day — a massive surge in demand that represents a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to seal Russians off from the wider world. By protecting the locations and identities of users, VPNs are now granting millions of Russians access to blocked material.
Downloading one in his Moscow apartment, Konstantin said, brought back memories of the 1980s in the Soviet Union — when he used a shortwave radio to hear forbidden news of dissident arrests on U.S.-funded Radio Liberty.
“We didn’t know what was going on around us, and that’s true again now,” said Konstantin, who, like other Russian VPN users, spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld for fear of government retribution. “Many people in Russia simply watch TV and eat whatever the government is feeding them. I wanted to find out what was really happening.”
Daily downloads in Russia of the 10 most popular VPNs jumped from below 15,000 just before the war to as many as 475,000 in March. As of this week, downloads were continuing at a rate of nearly 300,000 a day, according to data compiled for the Washington Post by the analytics firm Apptopia, which relies on information from apps, publicly available data and an algorithm to come up with estimates.
Russian clients typically download multiple VPNs, but the data suggests millions of new users per month. In early April, Russian telecom operator Yota reported that the number of VPN users was 53.5 times as high as in January, according to the Tass state news service.
The Internet Protection Society, a digital rights group associated with jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, launched its own VPN service on March 20 — and reached its limit of 300,000 users within 10 days, according to executive director Mikhail Klimarev. Based on internal surveys, Klimarev estimates that the number of VPN users in Russia has risen to roughly 30 percent of the country’s 100 million Internet users.
To combat Putin, “Ukraine needs Javelin [missiles] and Russians need Internet,” Klimarev said.
By accessing banned Ukrainian and Western news sites, Konstantin said, he has come to deeply sympathize with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian the Russian press has sought to falsely portray as a “drug addict.” He was recently compared to Adolf Hitler by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“I loved him as an actor, but now I know Zelensky is also brave because I’ve seen him talk on Ukrainian news sites with my VPN,” Konstantin said.
Not only does widespread VPN use help millions reach material laying out the true extent of Russian military losses and countering the official portrayal of the war as a fight against fascists, say Russian Internet experts, but it also limits government surveillance of activists.
Mass flight of tech workers turns Russian IT into another casualty of war
Russian officials have sought to curtail VPN use. An anti-VPN law in 2017 resulted in the banning of more than a dozen providers for refusing to comply with Russian censorship rules.
In the days before the war, and in the weeks since then, Russian authorities have also ratcheted up pressure on Google, asking the search engine to remove thousands of URLs associated with VPNs, according to the Lumen database, an archive of legal complaints related to Internet content. Google, which did not respond to a request for comment, still includes banned sites in search results.
The Russian government is reluctant to ban VPNs completely. Policing such a ban would pose a technological challenge. In addition, many Russians use VPNs to access nonpolitical entertainment and communication tools — popular distractions from daily hardships.
Last month, when asked by Belarusian TV if he had downloaded a VPN, even Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov conceded: “Yes, I have. Why not?”
Since the war began on Feb. 24, more than 1,000 Internet sites have been restricted by Russian authorities, including Facebook, Instagram, BBC News, Voice of America and Radio Liberty, according to a survey by the technology site Top10VPN. The last independent Russian media outlets were forced to shut down, and those in exile that are offering critical content — like the popular Meduza — have also been banned.
Today, even calling Putin’s “special operation” — as he has forcibly dubbed the invasion — a “war” risks a sentence of up to 15 years in jail. Free speech has effectively disappeared; even teachers who question the invasion are being reported to the authorities by their students.
“People want to see banned content, but I think they’re also genuinely scared,” said Tonia Samsonova, a London-based Russian media entrepreneur. “No matter your attitude toward the government or the war, every Russian knows that if the government knows too much about you, it’s potentially dangerous. So a VPN is so useful even if they aren’t critical of Putin.”
Katerina Abramova, spokeswoman for Meduza, said online traffic at the site declined only briefly after it was banned by Russian authorities in March. That’s because, suddenly, traffic began surging from unlikely countries like the Netherlands — suggesting that Russians were utilizing VPNs that made them appear to be abroad.
“VPNs won’t start a broad revolution in Russia,” Abramova said. “But it’s a way people who are against this war can stay connected to the world.”
Natalia, an 83-year-old Muscovite and former computer operator, asked her adult daughter to help her download a VPN on her laptop shortly after the war started. She feared that the government would ban YouTube, preventing her from seeing her favorite program — an online talk show on technology news. The Kremlin has yet to block YouTube, though Russian Internet experts say the probability remains high.
As the war progressed, however, Natalia found herself also looking at banned news sites, including Radio Free Europe, to stay informed, even as friends around her bought “totally” into the government line that Ukrainians were Nazis and Russia was facing an existential threat from the West.
“People now just believe lie after lie. I feel so isolated,” she said.
She said, for example, that she’s been able to read foreign news stories suggesting there were significant Russian casualties in the sinking last month of the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. But the Russian press has reported only one official death, with 27 soldiers declared “missing.”
“Parents are just getting one answer from the Ministry of Defense — that your son is ‘missing,’ ” she said. “Missing? Don’t you really mean dead? But they’re not saying that. They’re not telling the truth.”
Although downloading a VPN is technically easy, usually requiring only a few clicks, purchasing a paid VPN has become complicated in Russia, as Western sanctions have rendered Russian credit and debit cards nearly useless outside the country. That has forced many to resort to free VPNs, which can have spotty service and can sell information about users.
Vytautas Kaziukonis, chief executive of Surfshark — a Lithuania-based VPN that saw a 20-fold increase in Russian users in March — said some of those customers are now paying in cryptocurrencies or through people they know in third countries.
In a country used to hardships, Russians are good at creative workarounds. Elena, a 50-year-old Moscow tour operator, said she has managed to tap into her old Facebook account by repeatedly signing up for free trials with a series of different VPN providers to avoid payment.
“We do what we have to do,” Elena said.
'If Democrats don't offer more than rhetoric and unfulfilled promises to union workers, they are going to be in for a rude awakening.' (photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP)
But if Democrats don’t offer more than rhetoric and unfulfilled promises to union workers, they are going to be in for a rude awakening. Those voters will either stay home, or as many did during the 2020 election, vote for Republicans.
Undeniably, the coming midterm elections will be tough for Democrats. Irrespective of the trend that the party in power usually has a difficult time winning seats in Congress, analysts predict dire results in November. As inflation rises, a war in Europe pumps up prices at gas stations, and the effects of a once in a lifetime pandemic remain present, voters are frustrated—and they’ll likely blame the party running both Congress and the White House.
Millions of Kids Fell Into Poverty and No One Noticed
Biden and Democrats haven’t sat on their hands. On the contrary, they passed an enormous COVID aid package, a historic infrastructure package, and have shown steadfast international leadership in the face of Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.
But when it comes to unions—whose support Democrats simply cannot win without—Democrats haven’t delivered on most of the promises they made during the 2020 election. Congress hasn't passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a sweeping bill that would expand labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace, as Biden promised during his campaign. Even when the president announced an executive order mandating union labor be used on new infrastructure projects, he declined to issue additional executive orders that would have put into place the labor policies his own union modernization task force requested.
This mixed message of support for unions happened again earlier this month. In a speech to members of North America’s Building Trade Unions (a few days after the historic unionization of an Amazon factory in New York), President Biden reflected on his administration’s role in protecting unions. He said, “By the way, Amazon, here we come. Watch watch.” But shortly after the speech, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki forcefully walked back what the president said: “What he was not doing is sending a message that he or the U.S. government would be directly involved in any of these efforts or take any direct action.”
This is not how Democrats should treat a crucial part of their coalition, and one that is popular with Americans.
While official union membership dropped by less than one percent last year, union petition circulation has increased by 56 percent this year, and approval of labor unions is at its highest point since 1965.
Correspondingly, much of the organized labor and strike activity has been happening in battleground states which Democrats need to win elections. If Democrats can support these efforts with pro-labor legislative victories before November, they’ll have a serious chance at competing for the vote in rural communities.
Here’s the deal though, the people of rural America are as complex and diverse as voters anywhere. And like most people, rural union workers can see right through the façade when politicians show up to ask for votes—promising things they either can’t or won’t deliver.
Democrats, in many of these towns, are still building back the credibility they lost when former President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—shipping millions of good-paying union jobs overseas. Trump and Republicans have hit Democrats on this failure constantly when making their pitch to rural voters.
But when Democrats show up to rural communities to stand with union workers, good things happen. For instance, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders met with striking union coal workers in Alabama, who were fighting against private equity firms that were cutting their benefits and salaries. Some of these workers typically vote Republican, like Riley Hughlett, a participant in the strike. Hughlett told NPR he was thankful that Sanders raised money for their strike fund. “The man stepped up, I'm shocked but at least it points to he's a decent person,” Hughlett added.
Rural union workers are open to hearing Democrats out, but if they don’t produce results for union workers, they’ll make no electoral progress in rural communities. As Republicans continue to push anti-labor propaganda in these places, arguing that Democrats only care about people living in “blue cities”, any lack of results will be interpreted by rural union workers as apathy, at best.
To ensure that union support for Democrats in the midterms is not only guaranteed—but also to bring in new vital voters—President Biden needs to show results.
The administration must work with Congress to sign the PRO Act into law and implement, by executive order, the policies his union modernization task force recommended—such as mandating federal contract dollars are not spent on union busting, along with another recommendation that ensures “anti-union campaign activities by federal contractors are publicly disclosed.”
These moves will plainly demonstrate to union workers not only that Democrats value their votes, but that they’ll fight for them. It will also encourage more workers to join unions, for which Democrats can then rightfully take the credit.
Alongside policy victories, Democrats need to physically show solidarity by standing alongside striking workers on the picket line.
In New York, the very first successful unionization of an Amazon warehouse has inspired other Amazon workers across the country to start their own unions. That matters.
It won’t be easy, but if Democrats show up and make it clear they support union workers not only in words—but in actions—they could avert a Republican landslide this November. And they’ll take back a constituency they never should have lost through neglect in the first place.
An anti-abortion demonstrator holds a sign as she and others protest in front of the Supreme Court after a decision was made to strike down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, in Washington, D.C., June 29, 2020. (photo: Caroline Brehman/Getty)
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“We can’t wait on the Supreme Court,” said Republican Rep. Danny McCormick, who co-authored the legislation with a Baptist reverend
“We can’t wait on the Supreme Court,” said Republican Rep. Danny McCormick, who co-authored the bill with a Baptist reverend.
House Bill 813, also known as the “Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022,” would not only makes abortion a homicide, it would make it a homicide “from the moment of fertilization.” The fertilized cluster of cells, the bill states, would be afforded all the protections of a human being.
The bill also holds that “any and all federal statutes, regulations, treaties, orders, and court rulings which would deprive an unborn child of the right to life or prohibit the equal protection of such right” would be treated as void. It later notes that the bill would be enforced “without regard to the opinions and judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States in Roe v. Wade and its judicial progeny, past and future.”
The implication here is that H.B. 813 would be valid regardless of whether the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Bradley Pierce of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion said as much, according to the Lafayette Daily Adviser: “If the Supreme Court ignores the Constitution, you should ignore the court. The Legislature has the right to disregard the Supreme Court.”
The Constitution also states that judicial power should be vested in the Supreme Court, of course, but that doesn’t seem to be of much concern to the bill’s proponents. The leaked draft of the decision to overturn Roe gave them a taste of gutting reproductive rights, and they can’t help themselves. “No compromises; no more waiting,” Rev. Brian Gunter, the bill’s clerical co-author, said. “The bloodshed in our land is so great we have a duty … to protect the least of these among us.”
H.B. 813, which passed through committee by a 7-2 vote, will now move to the House floor for debate.
Abortion rights and anti-abortion advocates demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, in Washington, D.C., May 3. (photo: Jabin Botsford/Washington Post)
Overturning Roe will likely weaken the public’s already-low trust in the Court. With a contested election looming in 2024, that’s a recipe for disaster.
The literal wording of Jackson’s response is likely apocryphal, but it does capture the essence of his administration’s reaction. State authorities continued and escalated policies of ethnic cleansing blessed by Jackson and the federal government, forcing the Cherokee and other tribes off their lands in brazen defiance of the Worcester ruling.
The Worcester case illustrates something vital about the Supreme Court: It only has power inasmuch as people believe it does. Constitutionally speaking, the Court does not have the hard authority of the presidency or Congress. It cannot deploy the military or cut off funding for a program. It can order others to take actions, but these orders only hold force if the other branches and state governments believe they have to follow them. The Court’s power depends on its legitimacy — on a widespread belief, among both citizens and politicians, that following its orders is the right and necessary thing to do.
That legitimacy has been slowly eroded in recent years. The unprecedented blockade of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016, the bitter fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 nomination, the GOP’s brazen disregard of the Garland precedent in 2020 to appoint Amy Coney Barrett after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, and the increasingly hardline conservative tilt of Court rulings have combined to do significant damage to the idea that the Court is somehow above politics. As a result, many Americans favor radical reforms to the Court: 66 percent favor term limits for justices, and a 45 percent plurality favors packing, or expanding, the Court.
Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion that would overrule Roe v. Wade, if issued, could be yet another significant blow to Court legitimacy. The issue is not just that a majority of Americans will disagree with the ruling, though they almost certainly will. It’s that the process that led to this outcome has repeatedly exposed the Court as a vessel for politics by other means.
In that context, a reversal of what is probably the most contentious modern Supreme Court ruling — which established a 50-year precedent with longstanding majority support — will hit differently than previous controversial Court rulings. The damage could be severe and lasting, worse even than nakedly political decisions like Bush v. Gore.
While it may be tempting to cheer the collapse of the Court’s legitimacy given its track record, the Worcester case should give us some pause. In the American system, for better or for worse, the Court is supposed to serve as the final arbiter of political disagreements. If it lacks the legitimacy to play that role, it sets the stage for a constitutional crisis — especially if former President Donald Trump runs again in 2024.
How overturning Roe would damage the Court’s legitimacy
Political scientists who study the sources of Court legitimacy generally find that it stems from the perception that the Court is not a political body. The idea that justices are interpreting the law to the best of their abilities, rather than simply finding a justification for imposing their political preferences, is fundamental to the public’s faith in the institution as a whole.
For decades, this belief has been fairly widespread in the American public, allowing the Court to weather some very controversial rulings.
In 2000’s Bush v. Gore, for example, the Court divided along transparently partisan lines to elevate George W. Bush to the presidency, infuriating pretty much the entire Democratic Party. But the damage was not permanent: A 2007 study found that “the Court seems as widely trusted today as it was a decade ago,” with no significant divisions by partisan affiliation. The single best predictor of faith in the Court was not party, but an individual’s ideological commitment to the rule of law.
Since then, the American political system has come apart at the seams. Rising political polarization has led partisans on both sides to view politics in more zero-sum terms; rising distrust in mainstream institutions, particularly on the Republican side, has contributed to a general decline in confidence in government.
In theory, the Court may have been able to survive these anti-establishment headwinds. But since 2016, Republicans have taken a series of steps that have made it hard for anyone to see the Court as standing above politics.
When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously refused to even schedule hearings for Obama’s replacement nominee, current Attorney General Merrick Garland, until after the 2016 election. McConnell’s argument was that no justice should be appointed in an election year, but the rationale was clearly political: Garland is a moderate liberal and would have tipped the Court from a 5-4 conservative majority to a 5-4 liberal one.
Then Donald Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote and proceeded to remake the Court along McConnell’s preferred lines.
First, he appointed staunch conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Court instead of Garland — preserving a 5-4 conservative majority on the court. Then longtime Republican operative Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed amid a furious battle over Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, one of the most bitter and polarizing hearings in Supreme Court history.
And when Justice Ginsburg died in September 2020, McConnell and Trump rushed Amy Coney Barrett onto the Court before the 2020 vote — giving conservatives a 6-3 advantage, and revealing the alleged principle behind the Garland blockade to be a partisan fiction. (McConnell’s attempt to square this circle, citing an alleged norm against the Senate confirming nominations from opposite-party presidents in election years, was risible.)
By September 2021, the Supreme Court’s approval rating had fallen to 40 percent, the lowest number recorded in over 20 years of Gallup polling. The decline was largest among Democrats, but also visible among Republicans — who seem to be turning against institutions writ large in the wake of Trump’s 2020 defeat and subsequent claims that the election was rigged against him. Another September poll from Quinnipiac gave the Court an even lower approval rating, 37 percent, the lowest point in the firm’s polling since 2004. A third poll, released in November, found that 61 percent of Americans believed the Court was motivated mainly by politics rather than law.
In an April article, political scientists Miles Armaly and Elizabeth Lane show evidence linking the decline in Court legitimacy to the past few years of partisan warfare. By sheer luck, the authors began fielding a survey on the effect of confirmation battles on Court legitimacy in the weeks before Ginsburg died — allowing them to follow up with the exact same participants immediately after her death. They found that McConnell’s rush to fill the position with a Trump appointee decreased Democratic voters’ faith in the Court on a variety of different measures, without improving it among Republicans.
“Our results suggest the Senate’s increased politicization of Supreme Court confirmation hearings harm the Court’s legitimacy,” they conclude. “Attitudes regarding the Court — often marked by their stability — are impacted by the actions of the elected branches.”
Of course, the Court itself hasn’t helped matters. Since the Trump appointments, the Court’s jurisprudence has lurched hard right. Chief Justice John Roberts, seemingly the sole conservative concerned with the Court’s above-politics reputation, can no longer join four liberals to rein in his colleagues’ policy ambitions.
This is the context in which Alito’s Roe draft opinion emerged. Much of the concerns about the opinion’s effect on legitimacy have focused on the leak of the draft — on how it makes the Supreme Court look like any other Washington institution. But this is inside baseball: The much bigger effect on Court legitimacy is more likely to come from the ruling itself, if it in fact becomes law.
A recent paper by Logan Strother and Shana Gadarian, political scientists at Purdue and Syracuse, respectively, argues that the rise of extreme partisanship has changed the Court’s ability to issue controversial rulings and maintain its legitimacy afterward. In the current climate, they find, “policy disagreement with Supreme Court decisions leads individuals to view that decision, and the Court itself, as being political in nature” — which, they also show, damages the Court’s fundamental legitimacy.
Since 1989, every Gallup poll on Roe v. Wade has found steady public support for keeping the ruling in place. In the closest poll, conducted in 2008, supporters outnumbered opponents by 19 percentage points (52 to 33). By 2021, that difference had risen to 26 points (58 to 32). Three other recent polls find even stronger support for keeping Roe. The consistency of these results over time, together with the visibility of the abortion issue, suggests the public’s views are deeply held.
In this context, it’s fair to think Alito’s hardline ruling — overturning Roe entirely, in no uncertain terms — would further erode the Court’s already weakened legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
You’ll miss Court legitimacy when it’s gone
One reaction to a loss in Court legitimacy, increasingly popular among liberals and leftists, is to basically say good riddance.
The Supreme Court is a fundamentally undemocratic institution, one that has a long track record of reactionary decisions and a limited-at-best ability to promote progressive social change. Why shouldn’t a turn against it be cheered?
“Diminished public trust in the Court is a good thing,” as my colleague Ian Millhiser recently put it. “This institution has not served the American people well, and it’s time to start treating it that way.”
I agree with much of Millhiser’s critique of the Court. There’s a compelling argument that weakening its powers of judicial review — by, for example, adapting a model used in Canada, the UK, and New Zealand that gives legislators power to reject court rulings — could lead to both superior policy outcomes and a more democratically legitimate system. In theory, a decline in public faith in the Court could pave the way for fundamental reforms to its practices.
But changes to judicial review are exceedingly unlikely to happen in the near term, as are liberal proposals to add more seats to the Court or to end lifetime tenure. For now, we have to operate in a context where the Supreme Court still plays an essential role in the American political system. And especially in the context of a 2024 election where Donald Trump is likely to run again, the Court’s inability to credibly perform that role could precipitate a democratic crisis.
It is likely that there will be significant litigation surrounding the 2024 contest. The Supreme Court has final say on voting procedures, and the nature of its rulings will affect the way the public views the legitimacy of the election itself.
In the nightmare scenario, the Supreme Court could be called on to adjudicate a Republican effort to overturn the results of a Biden victory at the state level. The groundwork for such an effort, as Barton Gellman wrote in the Atlantic, has already begun:
For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their party’s national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trump’s crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump’s claims on anything like an issue of this significance, there is a very real chance that large numbers of Democrats do not accept the ruling as legitimate or even binding, regardless of the merits.
This is not implausible, even though the federal judiciary held firm in the litigation surrounding the 2020 election. Gellman notes that four conservative justices have already signaled support for the so-called “independent state legislature doctrine,” which would give state legislatures untrammeled authority to set election rules and even toss out election results. If they used this idea to effectively authorize such an undemocratic action, who could blame Democrats for rejecting the Court’s decision?
Nor does the Roberts Court’s pro-GOP tilt guarantee legitimacy if it rules in favor of Biden. In that scenario, Trump and his allies will almost certainly claim the Court has been corrupted — and will likely persuade most Republican partisans. Think about the way Trump has turned against staunch Republican officials, like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had the temerity to accurately conclude that the 2020 election was on the level.
Indeed, Republican Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance has already proposed ignoring Court rulings that might get in the way of a second Trump term’s agenda:
I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country, and say “The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
If any major faction rejects a Court ruling in the way that Jackson rejected Worcester, we will be thrust into a constitutional crisis. That’s a recipe for instability, even outright civil violence — something we all now know to be a real possibility.
It’s important to be clear on who deserves blame for this state of affairs: It’s McConnell, Trump, and the Court’s conservative majority. They chose to politicize the Court and turn it into a vehicle to enact conservative policy they couldn’t pass through the legislature. Seizing control of the Court for this purpose is one of the biggest reasons — arguably the single biggest — why Republican elites decided to embrace Trump as fully as they have.
So, yes, it is good in one sense that the American people are recognizing what has happened to the Court. But the fact that it’s happened at all is a tragedy: The Court may not be a great institution in the long arc of history, but it performs a necessary function in our system as currently designed. What we’re seeing now is a particularly important example of the degree to which America’s democratic institutions are degrading — and even at risk of failure.
Women's rights demonstrators in Colombia. (photo: Raul Arboleda/Getty)
Women’s movements have fought hard to reverse anti-abortion laws in their countries and say it’s not the end for the US
Latin America has some of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the world. But feminist movements have fought for decades to chip away at the prohibitions, and in recent years a younger, diverse generation of activists has mobilized in massive numbers to help clinch a string of victories in traditionally conservative countries.
Now, the possibility that the US could be moving in the opposite direction has prompted bewilderment, fear and indignation among campaigners from Mexico to Argentina.
“The segment of society that wants to return us to the dark ages is real,” said Ana Cristina González Vélez, a Colombian doctor and co-founder of Mesa por la Vida, an organization that was part of the successful campaign for decriminalization of abortion in Colombia. “This has to be a wake-up call, that a legal victory is not a cultural one.”
A February ruling by Colombia’s constitutional court – which decriminalized abortion until the 24th week of pregnancy – was the latest in a series of gains by reproductive rights activists.
In 2020, Argentina’s marea verde – green wave – protests pushed the country’s congress to legalize elective abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy. Less than a year later, Mexico’s highest court declared a complete abortion ban was unconstitutional – although statutes outlawing abortion are still on the books in most of Mexico’s 32 states.
Brazil – where terminations are only allowed in cases of rape, risk to the woman’s life and certain congenital conditions – and Chile are also facing pivotal moments in the fight for legalization.
But the importance of Roe vs Wade across the region cannot be overstated, said Debora Diniz, a Brazilian law professor and human rights activist.
“In a country that is a political, financial, military empire, a supreme court decision has a contagious effect. Because everything moves together,” said Diniz, who co-founded Anis – Institute of Bioethics, Human Rights and Gender, an NGO pushing for the court in Brazil to decriminalize elective abortion.
Argentina was able to secure change through legislation, but the effort took years and has been difficult to replicate in other democracies ravaged by past military dictatorships or still governed by a patriarchal ruling class, she said.
“For Latin American countries, like Brazil, like Mexico, like Colombia, the US supreme court was a very important precedent behind the simple idea that courts are a legitimate space in which to decide abortion [rights],” said Diniz.
The Mexican lawyer and abortion rights campaigner Melissa Ayala said that the courts in Mexico were strongly on the side of women’s reproductive rights now. But she warned that anti-abortion groups that have been gathering forces in the region will now take a page out of the US playbook. Mariela Belski, executive director of Amnesty International Argentina, agreed.
“The threat has been there since the legalization [allowing abortion] was passed,” she said. “We are very worried about the strong anti-rights groups that we are seeing.”
Such concerns are all the more pressing because while abortion may be legal in Argentina, access still varies dramatically between regions.
Women in Argentina are not prepared to cede any ground, Belski said, adding that they would flood the streets at the first sign of any fresh threat to their legal rights.
Her advice to US counterparts was exactly that. “Take to the streets. Mobilize in massive numbers,” she said, and work in a bipartisan way. “I think that the secret in Argentina was the cross-section of legislators who were fighting for the same cause. There wasn’t political division.”
Added Diniz: “We have to believe in the green wave. The situation in Latin America was so desperate, and we managed to bring about change.”
In several Latin American countries the situation remains desperate: Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador maintain absolute prohibitions in all circumstances, and women have been given long prison sentences even in cases where they suffered miscarriages.
In Honduras, the government responded to the growing strength of legalization campaigns by enshrining its total abortion ban in its constitution. “Things couldn’t be worse,” said Neesa Medina, a member of feminist collective Somos Muchas.
It was not lost on Medina that the people most affected by an abortion ban in the United States will be the most vulnerable: minorities, migrants, the undocumented.
“Latinas,” she added. “There are so many stories that link us as societies. It’s our neighbors, our families, our cousins, aunts, who are going to feel the repercussions directly.”
But activists across the region said that their own recent histories offer proof that progress can be fought for. “We’re so used to looking to the United States, but this is a very good moment to look to the south,” said Ayala.
Advocates call on countries like Mexico to employ Indigenous staff at consulates. (photo: John Moore/Getty)
Advocates call on countries like Mexico to employ Indigenous staff at consulates.
Now, Gómez López works at the Mexican Consulate in Orlando, where she provides translation and interpretation services in an official capacity, but she says much more support for Indigenous migrants is needed.
From the moment Indigenous migrants and refugees arrive in the U.S. they face obstacles. Border crossings rarely have Indigenous language interpretation available, leaving migrants vulnerable and often unaware of the options and services available to them. Once they make it to a new home, language challenges continue.
In an intervention delivered at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Rosalba Sotz, Maya Tseltal and a representative from Red de Indígenas Migrantes, called on the Mexican government to employ more Indigenous leaders at their consulates in the U.S. to help with translation, interpretation, legal advocacy, and other services. Many Indigenous people in Mexico and Central America are farmers and are particularly sensitive to climate disasters, changes in weather patterns, and drought. And as those populations continue to bear the brunt of climate change and seek refuge outside of their homelands, Sotz says the U.N. must pay greater attention to the unique challenges facing Indigenous migrants.
“Climate change is pushing people to leave their territory,” she said. “We are going to see more migration and more displacement.”
Geoffrey Roth, a Standing Rock Sioux descendant and member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, says that the forum can make recommendations to member states to adopt recommendations like Sotz’s. He added that Indigenous migrant populations are uniquely vulnerable. “We need to address these issues on climate change and the environment the best we can so we can allow people to stay in their homeland if possible,” he said. “If not, we need to be able to provide services and support to Indigenous peoples wherever they are.”
For Indigenous people, displacement from their land and people can be particularly difficult. “Our way of life is related to the community and being isolated is a very traumatic experience,” Sotz said.
Thousands of Indigenous people from Mexico, Central America, Africa, and other parts of the world call the U.S. home, but the exact number isn’t known because they are often counted among other immigrants, rather than as Indigenous people. That means that the unique challenges facing Indigenous immigrants are often overlooked. “Language is a huge issue,” said Roth. “It’s been an issue on the borders, but it’s also an issue beyond the borders.”
Gómez López says that empowering and employing Indigenous people will help their communities access and understand services, become more comfortable in their new homes, and contribute to the community both in the U.S. and Mexico. She also hopes that her work can serve as an example for other consulates serving Indigenous populations.
After living undocumented in the U.S. for fifteen years, Gómez López secured a diplomatic visa through her work at the Consulate. Next year, however, the visa is set to expire, meaning she may have to return to Mexico, where she hasn’t lived in nearly 20 years. Sotz says that Gómez López’s situation illustrates the need for institutionalized Indigenous consulate employees. If Gómez López leaves, not only will her life be uprooted, but the Indigenous community in Florida will lose her years of knowledge and expertise.
“In our own country we have been discriminated against and excluded,” Sotz said. “That situation is exponentially worse when you migrate.”
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