Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics, Supreme Court

So You Say You Want a Revolution? President Biden Continues to Talk Revolution if the Court does not Rule as Demanded

“So you say you want a revolution.” When they sang those lines, the Beatles could well have been talking about Democratic leaders today. Revolution seems much in the minds and the rhetoric of politicians who are continuing to threaten swift responses to the Court if it rules against their wishes. The latest armchair revolutionary is President Joe Biden himself who went on Jimmy Kimmel to do the first sit down interview in months. To his credit, Biden was promising only a “mini-Revolution.”

Others have gone full revolutionary.  Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., joined the growing ranks of members of Congress in issuing a warning to the Supreme Court: reaffirm Roe v. Wade or else.  The “else” varies from promises to pack the Court to personal accountability for justices. For Shaheen, it is a promise of “revolution.”

Clearly, these leaders are using over-heated rhetoric and do not support violence. They no more want true revolution than Sen. Chuck Schumer was calling for the killing of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch when he declared on the steps of Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Calling for revolutionary change in politics is as common as calling on people to “fight” political opponents or legislative actions. For example, with rioting continuing in Brooklyn Center, Minn. and around the country, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, went to Minnesota and told the protesters that they “gotta stay on the street” and “get more confrontational.”

However, these same politicians have insisted that such references are literal when made by their opponents.  Notably, Democrats are holding hearings this week on how Republicans bear responsibility for the Jan. 6th riot due to their calls to “fight” against certification of the 2020 election. On that day, there is no question that Trump whipped the crowd into a frenzy. I was critical of the speech while he was giving it. However, Trump never actually called for violence or a riot. Rather, he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to express opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to support the challenges being made by some members of Congress. He expressly told his followers “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Trump also stated: “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy…And after this, we’re going to walk down – and I’ll be there with you – we’re going to walk down … to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

There is little attention to how such rhetoric has been common on the left.

Of course, having leaders like Biden and Shaheen channeling revolutionary rhetoric is more vapid than violent. You can put on a beret and chomp on a cigar but it does not make you Che Guevara. It is clear that he meant a political revolution, but the President was engaging in the same ultimatum and saber rattling.

It is the underlying message that is worrisome. It is part of a long series of threats to the Supreme Court that it must yield on the interpretation of the Constitution or face radical changes to the institution. The President is not alone in presenting the Court with this yield-or-else choice.

Last year, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, and others stood in front of the Supreme Court to announce a court packing bill to give liberals a one-justice majority.  This follows threats from various Democratic members that conservative justices had better vote with liberal colleagues . . . or else. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, is not willing to wait and has called to pack the Court. She denounced the court for voting wrongly on decisions and, perish the thought, against “widely held public opinion.”

The attacks on the institution have become attacks on the members of the institution. Law professors like Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinksy have called the justice “partisan hacks” while others have supported targeting the individual justices at their home. Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz declared that “when the mob is right, some (but not all!) more aggressive tactics are justified.”

Such calls can take on a more menacing meaning in the twisted minds of some who may think that “more aggressive tactics” include showing up at a justice’s house with a Glock handgun, zip ties, and burglary tools. Again, that is not the intention of such remarks but the endorsement of targeting justices at their homes shows a complete collapse in our sense of decency and responsibility.

Sixties Radical Abbie Hoffman once said that the “first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.” It remains to be seen if the public will allow these politicians to get away with it and support calls for changing the Court or retaliating against individual members. With the support of many in the media and academia, the reckless rhetoric is likely to continue.

However, there should be no question about the import of the underlying message that it is appropriate for politicians to pack or legislatively change the court if it does not rule the way that they and “public opinion” demand. Such proposals would destroy one of the core institutions of our constitution system.

That is why “when you talk about destruction” of our traditions of judicial review, as the Beatles declared in 1968, “you can count me out.”

 

 

 

134 thoughts on “So You Say You Want a Revolution? President Biden Continues to Talk Revolution if the Court does not Rule as Demanded”

  1. The Beatles lyric in Revolution 1 is actually: “Don’t you know that you can count me out (in)”

  2. Twenty, forty die from a shooting, on the news give me some news! A lot more from stupidity, like I see the Government infecting us every day, Give, “WE THE PEOPLE A BREAK” before we look for some other…I’m about to be unkind but instead let’s pray get together and get rid of Congress, President. Let the Military take control, before we lose everything everyone came into this country for “OUR FREEDOM”, all I see is Government rip off, we pay, Government gets payed by taxes, so since you all want to take a portion of our earnings, I suggest that we have a 12 month period of no taxes until the President and His staff pull Their heads out of the clouds or else where!!!!

  4. Very well stated, as usual. Be careful what you wish for, Joe. Without military backing the entire democrat hierarchy would end up like Mussolini and company.

  5. We’re in the midst of a nearly successful color revolution right now, communism is on the march in America and they have made real inroads into the greatest strongest nation the world has ever known.
    Soviet show trials and political incarceration do nothing to dispell that fact.

  7. Revolution = yes. Time to purge the republic of all traitors, namely democrats, deep state, liberals, antifa, blm, climate terrorists, illegal aliens and ‘refugees’ that were illegally resettled by the Obama and Biden regimes.

    1. Tangled web of deceit weaving Pelosi might declare Joe Biden “Some pig!”
      The Democrats use intimidation in the form of riots, corrupted law enforcement/intelligence officials, shamanistic science, judicial obfuscation, neomoral paradigms, and rigged elections to consolidate power.
      They change their truths like the pigs in Animal Farm changed their commandments on the barn wall. It is evident they have little respect for Constitutional rights endowed by our Creator. Like Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and other demogogues, Biden demonizes his political opponents and has an army of like minded miscreants that would silence, censor, cancel, and jail anyone who doesn’t buy their mischaracterizations, loony ideas, and BS.
      They put lipsticks on their pig faces and jump around in their fantasies of flying, but pigs don’t fly. They have to be grounded in civility which is darn near impossible these days.

  9. Russia has its armchair generals and keyboard warriors, too. Oligarchs in the lap of luxury while
    Russian boys roast to death in steel tanks.

  11. Is anyone protesting in front of Merrick Garland’s house? I’d like to bring about 1,000 people to harass him until he does his dam job instead of waiting for a tragedy that we all know the Democrats WANT to happen to one of the justices.

    How do we get thousands of people marching in front of Merrick Garland’s house this weekend?

    Also, have they found out what dark money group is funding the protests at the justices family homes?

    IMPEACH MERRICK GARLAND.
    IMPEACH JOE BIDEN.

  12. The dems can certainly count this Independent out. I am done with their organization for good. Enough is enough. The past five years have shown the true colors that always lingered beneath the surface, and I want no part of it. Their fabricated and Hollywood produced ‘hearings’ are the final straw. We do not need or want a caste society in this country, no matter what Soros etc. pay. Enough. Just, enough.

  13. Peter Strzok is an MSNBC analysist for tonight’s J6 drama.

    That’s all you need to know about this sham.

  15. There is something very wrong with Liz Cheney. How could Wyoming let this nightmare happen? You know what to do Wyoming. Vote her out of power in no uncertain terms.

    1. The Eleventh Commandment
      _______________________

      “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”

      – President Ronald Reagan

    2. Liz carries the Torch for the old Dick Cheney vendetta against Trump…indeed her star role in the Inquisition Committee re: the ‘Insurrection’ to take over the Govt. by a band of amateur thugs without firearms, led by the guy with the sparkly cape & horns helmet while some of the security were opening doors for & even taking selfies with the ragtag mixed group of left & right rabble rousers…..gives her an outlet to continue on in her mission to bring down 45 at any cost

    1. Well, duh!

      Germany has Angela Merkel and no balls.

      Well, Germany had Merkel.

      Now it has nothing, obviously.

      The Comrade General Secretary and Dear Leader was barren, without purpose, bereft of any vestige of raison d’être, and power-hungry for power-hungry’s sake.

      Germany dithers; Ukraine burns.

      Jawohl!!!

  17. Maybe Biden can have the FBI arrest the justices for being in Washington on January 6.

    I really shouldn’t give them any more stupid ideas. They tend to run with them.

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