Below is my column in the Hill on moments of honesty after the recent Democratic victories in California, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York. In the euphoria that followed, Democratic politicians and pundits admitted that they intend to pursue radical changes, including packing the Supreme Court, once they retake power.
Here is the column:
“In vino veritas.” The Roman proverb — “In wine, there is truth” — reflects the fact that people are often at their most honest when they’ve had a few.
Elections can have the same effect for some to become drunk on even the prospect of power. Partisans can blurt out their inner thoughts with shocking frankness.
That was the case this week as Democratic luminaries discussed plans to retake power and then fundamentally change the constitutional system to guarantee they will never have to give it up again.
It turns out that winning votes in three blue states and a blue city in an off-year election can be quite intoxicating. It is easy to dismiss it as the talk of chest-thumping, bar-room blowhards about whom they were going to thump. But there is a truth in the bravado.
Citing election results, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) seemed to bounce with elation in declaring that “the Democratic Party looks powerful for the first time all year.” In a moment of remarkable candor, Murphy explained his desire to continue the shutdown, admitting deep concerns about the midterm elections if Democrats reopen the government.
It is the same logic as randomly shoving people at a bar to impress one’s date.
Of course, extending the shutdown will harm millions and cost billions. But there are more lasting plans afoot if some of these partisans are to be believed.
Others were proclaiming their plans not only to retake power but never to lose it again. That means weakening the greatest single check on power: the Supreme Court. The talk of court-packing had died down after Democrats lost both houses of Congress and the White House. Now, after the elections last week, such talk is back with a vengeance.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder was telling anyone who would listen this week, suggesting that once Democrats take control, they intend to keep it permanently.
Holder explained on a podcast: “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power, if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.” When asked about the priority in wielding that power, Holder declared that the court was hopelessly broken and had to be fundamentally changed: “It’s something that has to be, I think, a part of the national conversation in ‘26 and in ‘28, ‘What are we going to do about the Supreme Court?’”
In other words, the court, as we know it, has got to go. While some on the left are questioning the very need for a Supreme Court or calling for it to be simply defied or “dissolved,” others want it to be stacked with political activists, like some state supreme courts are.
The problem has long been the focus of liberal academics planning for sweeping changes to the system. Many have called for the elimination of the Senate filibuster to force through measures making Puerto Rico and D.C. states with the addition of four new senators. Others want election and immigration “reforms” viewed as favoring Democratic campaigns.
That, however, leads them back to the inconvenient Supreme Court.
Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.
This week, Democratic strategist James Carville laid out the step-by-step process of how the pack-to-power plan would work.
“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen,” he said. “A Democrat is going to be elected in 2028. You know that. I know that. The Democratic president is going to announce a special transition advisory committee on the reform of the Supreme Court. They’re going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from nine to 13. That’s going to happen, people.”
Carville returned to explain that court-packing will now be as inevitable as Democrats taking power. “That’s going to happen to you,” he said. “They’re going to win. They’re going to do some blue ribbon panel of distinguished jurists, and they are going to recommend 13, and a Democratic Senate and House is going to pass it, and the Democratic president is going to sign it, because they have to do an intervention so we can have a Supreme Court that the American people trust again.”
So, with the legislative and executive branches in their hands, some Democrats are planning to decapitate the judicial branch — just in time for the 250th anniversary of our revolution.
After all, as Holder explained, it is all about “the acquisition and the use of power.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
I would say that the Democrats are mad, which they are, but the ONLY reason they will be bale to do this is because of the spineless cowardly do-nothing Republican party. The party that has done NOTHING for decades but keep itself in Congress and getting insider info to trade on. The ONLH reason Trump got in was because he had enough money to by-pass the systems monetary gate keeping mechanisms, how they use $$ to prevent every day average people from running for office, and he had to strong of a personality; he would not be bullied or intimidated by any of them including any threats. Ross Perot backed down in the 90’s because they threatened his families lives. I have no doubt the tried and failed to do that to Trump.
The Republican party leaderships has to be purged across the board, ibn every state likely as well as in DC because the leadership is either corrupt #Uniparty traitors, scaredy cat RINO’ or outdated old farts who thin this is till the 80’s Democrat party. Senators like Kennedy will kiss the but of Democrat Senators and do it publicly talking about how their his friends. Not one of those so called friends will hesitate to stab him and the rest of us all in the back if the Democrats ever re-take power again. If they do we will have this old fool, Senator Kennedy, to thank for helping make it possible.
We have a number who do the talking like Senator Kennedy but never do any walking. When was the last time Senator Kennedy actually did anything about anything he exposed in committee hearings? He’s a mouth piece who never does any real action. Both heads of each house, Mike Johnson and Senator Thune are obviously #Uniparty members who pretend to be be pro Trump but who’s job is to slow him down and stall Trumps efforts until his term is up. The deep state/establishment already tried to eliminate Trump multiple times and failed so the plan now is to limit his productivity by using these fake Republicans to slow him down.
“after the recent Democratic victories in California, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York . . . euphoria followed, ”
Democrats, euphoric that they won – actually won! – in states where voter registration as of August of 2025 was:
California 64% Democrat
New Jersey 60% Democrat
New York 68% Democrat
Virginia 63% Democrat.
Then I found a dictionary and looked up “euphoric”. It’s not a synonym for “relieved”.
The Democrat party today is filled with lunatics, people who if we still had mental institutions would be the residents at these institutions. our problem is with our own party. The Republican party save for a small number of exceptions is populated with #Uniparty traitors, RINO’s, opportunists (like Senator Lyndsey Graham), spineless cowardly do-nothings who talk the talk but never walk the walk like Senator Kennedy and lastly, the old farts who act lie as if we’re still dealing with eth same Democrat party from the 80’s.
Senator Kennedy does a LOT of talking in the senate hearings but when was the last time he actually did something beyond talking? Senator Kennedy sucks up to the Democrats treating them like as if their his brothers when everyone of them would stab him the back to retake power. Senate Lead Thune refuses to put aside the filibuster claiming that it would violate the trust the 2 parties have when he knows damn good and well that if the Democrats re-take the Senate they will not hesitate to nullify the filibuster and keep it that way until the next election where if they think they may loose control of the senate again will then reinstate the thing just before the change over. That’s how the Democrat party works today, like an organized crime syndicate while the Republican party is cowardly do nothings, traitors, RINO’s and or idiots who still do things like as if it was still 1980.
We must purge the Republican party leadership entirely at every level and start anew.
Isn’t Angela Davis a convicted felon for bank robbery if my memory serves correctly. She was a 1960’s era militant black associated with the BLack Panther Party gang. I remember shootouts and bank robberies and burning down Oakland. Why should we allow anything this anarchist writes to infect our youth?
Yes she was but b/c she is both a woman and a minority she gets 2 levels if intersectionality oppression in the oppression Olympics and so she gets a pass on her past criminal activities. In America we do not hold minorities accountable for what they do and we also do not hold women accountable for what they do. It is only white men and mainly heterosexual white religious men that we still hold %110 accountable for what they do. That %110 is not a typo.
Partisans whine about changes to the White House, but not to the Constitution.
Remind me again which party is a threat to democracy. WRT SCOTUS it appears to me that the Republican nominees display the most diversity of thought by adhering to the constitution. Some side with the liberals on occasion. The converse is not true. I feel pretty certain that we will lose our democratic constitutional capitalist republic if the Democrats should regain control of all three branches of government. Note that they speak openly of gaining power, the antithesis of preserving freedom.
Are you feeling lucky?
The demonrats don’t even try to hide the fact now that they work directly for satan.
Oscar has a serious mental problem.
Professor Turley just can’t bring himself to face the reality: “When Democrat tyrants tell you and show you what they are, you should start believing them”.
So which is the party of the authoritarians? The dictators? I’d say the one that wants permanent power without checks and balances. Even in FDR’s time there were Dems who pushed back against court packing.
STOP VOTING CRAPOCRAT