Below is my column in Fox.com on the recent decision of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to join the ranks of Democrats calling for packing the Supreme Court. It is a disappointing moment for many of us who hoped that Shapiro could offer a moderate voice in the upcoming elections, resisting the rise of socialists and communists in his party. Instead, he proved to be just another politician thinking of the next election rather than the next generation.
Here is the column:
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D. Pa.) has finally reached his Terry Malloy moment. In the classic movie, On the Waterfront, the character tells his brother of losing it all; his shot to be a champion and a person of respect: “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”
Shapiro decided to deliver his defining moment on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” when he abandoned all principle and decided to join other Democratic establishment leaders in offering up the Supreme Court to the radical left. Shapiro used the common coded reference to court packing, calling for “radical reform of the Court.” The only “radical” reform being seriously discussed is packing the institution with an immediate liberal majority to reverse a series of recent decisions and to greenlight an equally radical agenda for changes to our political system.
What is so disappointing is that Shapiro could have truly been a contender, an alternative to the cringing, accommodating politicians who are yielding to the demands of the mob. Figures from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg have recently embraced the scheme to show their bona fides to a rising socialist and radical movement in the Democratic Party.
Shapiro could have been different. He could have offered the country moderation and pushed back on the radical elements of his party. Shapiro was reportedly rejected as a vice presidential candidate due to being Jewish and is a member of a party that is careening toward open anti-Semitism. He could have been that mature voice in his party cautioning restraint before destroying one of our core institutions.
Instead, he chose to just be another bum in American politics.
Shapiro told MS NOW:
“I think we need radical reform that’s actually going to ensure that the voices of the people are heard from, that the voices of the people are represented in the three branches of government. We don’t have that right now.”
The comment echoes the remarks of other court-packers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who insisted the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.”
The Supreme Court was never designed to be the “voice of the people.” On the contrary, it was meant to be a countermajoritarian check on the people’s impulse. It is that body that is designed to stand against the majority to protect minority interests and to maintain a constitutional system meant to blunt popular impulse.
In my book, Rage and the Republic, I discuss how the Framers sought to avoid a direct democratic system, which had failed repeatedly in history. These systems (based on channeling public demands) became what Benjamin Rush called a “mobocracy.” The Supreme Court plays a vital part in preventing our Republic from destroying itself.
For years, professors and pundits have quietly urged a hostile takeover of the Court to remove the barrier to fundamentally changing our system. Now, on the 250th anniversary of our Republic, they are close to getting their way.
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.
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”
James Carville declared, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
Now Shapiro has joined these ignoble ranks.
Shapiro and others are demanding the radical reforms despite the current Court repeatedly ruling against the Trump Administration, including most recently on birthright citizenship. Without acknowledging that the decision again showed the Court’s independence, Shapiro griped, “this case should have taken a nanosecond to decide and it should have been nine nothing.”
What does that mean? Should the courts not have heard arguments, or should the Supreme Court have issued an immediate ruling from the bench during oral arguments?
Nevertheless, that is enough for Shapiro to toss the Court to the mob. It is transparent and frankly pathetic.
Shapiro added that too much power was being given to the Executive Branch. This is a court that just ruled against the President on issues from citizenship to tariffs. It has drawn sharp rebukes from President Trump for curtailing his powers.
Now Shapiro appears ready to repeat his controversial move against his neighbor and exercise a type of adverse possession against the Court. However, he lacks the courage (as do figures like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries) to come out and call it court packing. They simply refer to “radical” changes.
It is part of conditioning voters to the type of structural changes contemplated by the left to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” Most voters still oppose court packing. You have to wait until voters are angry enough to take a hammer to a system that remains the oldest, most stable democracy in history.
The Court could well fall in the coming years to this mad frenzy, but it will be preceded by the fall of figures like Josh Shapiro. He and his establishment colleagues are deluding themselves into believing that they will be spared in this mobocracy that they are making.
Refusing to have his state participate in the 250th celebration on the Mall and offering up the Supreme Court will not appease an increasingly violent and anti-Semitic far-left movement.
Despite his own pandering to the mob, the socialists recently chanted “you’re next” when they saw Jeffries’ image on a screen at a New York victory party.
Yesterday’s armchair revolutionaries like Josh Shapiro will soon be treated as today’s reactionaries by the very mob that they are trying to enlist. What will be left is a lament of what Shapiro could have been at this moment in our history. As Terry Malloy said, he “coulda had class. [He] coulda been a contender. [He] could’ve been somebody.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Governor Shapiro seems to be under the delusion that he has a chance of being nominated by his party. He is Jewish, so his party will never nominate him. That point was driven home in 2024 when they chose Walz over Shapiro, even though they were aware that Walz was far less likely to help the ticket.
Trump corrupts everything he touches.
The star player of the USA football team, Folarin Balogun received an automatic one game suspension after being red carded in the game against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask for a review of the red card that led to the ban, and Infantino unilaterally lifted the ban so that Balogun can play against Belgium tonight. Infantino is the same guy that awarded Trump the absurd and fake FIFA Peace Prize.
This is a blatant violation of FIFA rules. The red card is an automatic one game suspension that cannot be appealed. Under FIFA regulations, teams cannot appeal a direct or indirect red card. Referee decisions regarding facts on the pitch are considered final. A team can only appeal if the FIFA Disciplinary Committee chooses to extend a player’s ban beyond the automatic one-match suspension. In that scenario, the team can appeal to reduce the additional games, but not the initial one-game ban.
Under FIFA rules a one game suspension is NOT subject to appeal.
Trump has utterly corrupted the FIFA tournament.
Of course the irony here is that Folarin Balogun is a birthright citizen of the US. He was born here in 2001 when his visiting mother was refused boarding on a flight home to the UK because she was in an advanced state of pregnancy. After giving birth she and Folarin left for the UK when he was 2 months old. He has never lived in the USA.
If Trump had his way Balogun would not even be eligible to play for the USA.
And a further irony is that more than half the USA team roster are birthright citizens born to immigrant families.
Everything Trump touches becomes corrupted. And the Fourth Of July celebration was no exception.
Typical left wing nut.
You are not only miserable, and a miserable person – but you do not want to be happy, and you do not want anyone else to be happy.
The only thing bad about our 250th celebration is that so many left wing nuts are miserable about it. If Harris had been elected – you would STILL be miserable – out explaining to all of us how the nation is evil and colonial and telling us all how we we evil racists and should not be celebrating.
Every day I thank god that I am not miserable and filed with hatred like those of you on the left.
Trump displayed the historical flags just to vex liberals.
Well he has the magic touch when it comes to irritating dumbocrats as evidenced by your above expressed frustration. screech louder, TDS sufferer.
ATS – first lets assume you are correct – SO WHAT ?
Next what occurred is Rare, it is not unprecedented – in fact it has occurred pretty much every single time a super star player is red carded before a playoff game.
If Trump managed to get FIFA to break the same rules that it ALWAYS breaks under those circumstances SO what ?
Neither Trump nor conservatives have problems with immigrants.
They have problems with Illegal Immigrants. At some point every person in the western hemisphere has ancestors that came here from elsewhere.
North america had no Humans 30,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens is atleast 300,000 years old and more recent anthropology is suggesting that the Homo genus and possibly even Homosapiens have been arround for 900,000 years.
Ahh the age old dilemma
Texas will become blue in November.
When that happens, your alarm clock will ring.
‘Anonypuss says “Texas will become blue in November.”
Yes…if you mean “blue” as in “sad, depressed”! 🙂
as in “sad and depressed” Texas DEMOCRATS!!!!!
You honestly think Texans are going to elect a fake christian minister who hates Christianity, and a closeted gay vegan ?
Your talking Texas not Seattle.
Polymarket has PAxton with 56% odds of beating Talarico and Paxton is NOT a candidate with strong crossover appeal.
The odds of Dems winning the governors race are 11%
NYT has Brown losing in OH, Fox has Platner down 3 in ME – Collins – who has never lost is usually down 6 in July.
UNH has Sunnunu within 3 in NH Rogers is down 1 in Michigan. Of the Democrat MUST WIN seats for the senate only NC and GA are not either losses or too close to call – and Dems must run the board AND not lose any of their own seats – most of which are nail biters.
OT, Mayor Mamdani, a socialist who recently criticized air conditioning, is now suggesting New Yorkers can cool down more efficiently by spending time in a siberian gulag:
https://babylonbee.com/news/mamdani-offers-to-cool-new-yorkers-down-by-sending-them-to-siberian-gulag
Old Man, does that mean Putin’s a creep? Or is Putin still a MAGA hero?
Putin has never been a MAGA hero. Questioning whether hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars should be squandered on a border dispute half a world away, in which no vital American interests are at stake, does not make the leader of either nation a hero to the person asking the question.
OldManFromKS,
Well said.
Putin is a thug. We all know that. Not being for a war that is not in America’s interest, the continued expansion of NATO Eastward was never a good idea. There are foreign policy experts who wrote about that some ten years ago, this is the place the world will be.
That is not the same as being pro-Putin. But that is all the leftists have.
There would seem to be only one “rational” argument for packing the SCOTUS and that is that there are 13 circuits so one justice watching over a single circuit makes a certain amount of sense (at least to the “man on the street” who knows next to nothing about the actual workings of the SCOTUS).
I am against packing the court. It’s clear that the argument packing supporters make is eye-wash and the real reason is that they don’t reliably vote the way they want.
The reality is that if even the “moderate” Democrats come to power, they will pack the court. For that reason, I think Trump should announce a push to add four justices to the SCOTUS now and take that one seemingly reasonable argument off the table. Democrats would have no other reason to be against it than to admit that they are only in a search for eternal power.
No one really thinks the Court should be expanded because it’s just too small. To test that theory, ask those favoring the expansion (1) whether it should be done right now, or (2) whether it should be done over time allowing for presidents and Congresses of each party to at least theoretically have equal input into the new members.
People still don’t seem to realize that this IS the ‘democratic’ party in 2026. The days of parsing things or candidates and being precious are over. If you are still voting blue, at all, for anything, this IS what you are voting for, full stop. The fact that it is acceptable to so many for whatever delusional reasons they may claim is just mind boggling. Really: if you like your life or having a life at all; if you didn’t like the covid lock downs, for heaven’s sake, stop voting blue. For anything. For all things.
If you don’t like what you see happening in Britain and abroad, then open your eyes and see that the playbook of the left here is not just similar, but literally identical. This is not an upcoming election between bickering parties – it is whether or not we allow a globalist regime to unravel everything we have and are, and likely, for good.
And any independents or libertarians that think they’ll somehow weather the storm in insularity that will no longer exist, and ultimately be ok, need to think again.
The dem platform is –>
I don’t know what’s better but I do know I hate you and whatever you’re for I’m against and for the opposite.
Democracy equals popular opinion. The popular opinion of the inmates in a maximum security prison varies wildly from free, law keepers.
Hardened criminals.
Shapiro More Sensible Than Trump
President Donald Trump said Sunday he personally overruled a recommendation to cancel the July Fourth “Salute to America” event on the National Mall after approaching storms forced a chaotic evacuation of hundreds of thousands of revelers and triple-digit heat cast a sweltering pall over much of the day.
The president — who took the stage just after 11 p.m. Saturday after a more than three-hour delay in the planned programming — on Sunday declared the event a rousing success in a Truth Social post.
https://wapo.st/3SOFdUc
………………………………..
Here we had a president so eager to hold a rally, that he ignored public safety concerns and ordered that crowds be returned to an event that had essentially been canceled due to storm activity.
And Turley condemns Governor Shapiro for wanting nothing to do with such a fiasco? Shapiro had the foresight to recognize that Trump would make the whole event about Donald Trump and his personal grievances.
“Here we had a president so eager to hold a rally, that he ignored public safety concerns and ordered that crowds be returned to an event that had essentially been canceled due to storm activity.”
The event was successful and the storm activity abated. He also didn’t order the crowds be returned, he made it possible for them to return if they so chose to.
Please keep up and get over your MSNOW myopia.
And yet….no one was hurt. Not a single sole. Maybe Trump knew something no one else did.
“Maybe Trump knew something no one else did.”
Pres. Trump prays a helluva lot! So do I, and so should we all, especially with all of the evil coming at us from the Left.
Cindy, Trump has no history of attending church. Not sure where you’re getting that.
No where does it say you have to attend church to be religious.
I am not religious, do not attend church but consider myself spiritual.
Anony at 1:39pm ………..from what he himself has said about praying. I’ve also watched several of his cabinet meetings that were opened with prayer.
Try to keep up!
Blue states such as California and New York have high GDPs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP
Why did you leave out red state Texas, which was higher than NY? On your own link, yet
Plus VERY debt.
DustOff,
Let us not forget Mamdani balanced the NYC budget!
After he got a bailout from Albany.
Another phony baloney moderate. He is delusional. He could join CAIR, and scream from the “the River to the Sea” and would have a snowball’s chance in hell of being nominated. He joins Rahm Emanuel who think that appeasing the Marxist/Islamist wing of the Democratic Party will get them nominated!
OT, data point from the fed:
Biden’s open borders program has increased the cost of buying a home 30%, and increased rents 20%. All while depressing wages.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-era-illegal-immigration-drove-up-housing-costs-fed-economists-find
OldManFromKS,
The Free Press did a article, to include interviewing a number of Green Card holders, about how Biden’s illegals were driving down the price of labor.
Sorry, it is behind a paywall.
Also OT but of interest, Blue states have higher electricity costs, and net zero policies are to blame, analysis shows
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/blue-states-have-higher-electricity-costs-and-net-zero-policies-are-blame
You have been proven wrong countless times, so your posting privileges have been suspended.
awn.. poor cry baby
It is called the law of supply and demand and it is immutable.
Not even Mamdani can repeal it.
And that very law was knowingly used by the “Joe Biden” administration to lower the quality of life for Americans through lower wages and higher housing costs – not to mention the rape and murder of American girls and women, drug trafficking, opioid overdoses, and child sex trafficking. The shadowy left-wing cabal that used “Joe Biden” as a meat puppet has a lot to answer for.
OldManFromKS,
IIRC, the Biden admin was paying land lords to take in illegals.
One land lord, getting paid per head, would stuff like six to eight people into a two bedroom apartment.
So, rather than rent out to a native born American, of course the land lord rented out to illegals and billed the US government.
We all paid for that. As you know, the US government only pays what it takes from us. Paying taxes would be less of a burden if the government didn’t misuse the money on destructive policies like the one you mention.
So someone with a better memory may recall. Back in the days of the Warren Court, full of penumbras, emanations, references to international law and sociological studies, among other things, were there voices on the GOP side advocating court packing? I know that Jerry Ford tried to have Bill Douglas impeached, and that there were other calls for impeachment, but I don’t remember reading or hearing about that particular response. Have I missed something?
No. That didn’t happen. Court packing is exclusively a Dem project, 90 years ago, and today.
That’s what I thought.
FDR stuck with his plan until his VP, John Nance Garner, who opposed the bill, told him he didn’t have the votes
Turley Writes:
“Refusing to have his state participate in the 250th celebration on the Mall..
……………………………………
Blue states had NO obligation to support events that Donald Trump had hijacked to serve as a rally for himself. And besides, the weather was unbearable anyway. The blue states missed nothing of importance!
The 250 celebration had nothing to do with Trump except he happens to be POTUS. Anybody with a brain who watched the stirring presentation of historic flags and veterans would know that. 🤔
Dems are now openly calling for dismantling of our Republic. Once they seize (word used advisedly) control we are doomed. Packing the SCOTUS (which most Democrats opposed when FDR proposed it) is only the beginning when they are calling for arrest and incarceration, even death, for MAGA supporters.
“Blue states had NO obligation to support events”
Correct – you do not have to participate in our 250th birthday.
You can stay home and suck lemons, and rant about slavery and racism, and see Nazi’s everywhere.
Or you can join the party as the greatest nation on earth celebrates 250 years – no thanks to you.
“the weather was unbearable anyway.”
Still people celebrated. Again the difference between the left and the right.
If Harris had won re-election – Conservatives would have showed up for the 250th party – they are capable of coming to “family events” and managing to be civil when surrounded by left wing nuts. Those ont he left will either not show or not allow those they disagree with to participate.
Regardless, so you think Trump is conducting a partisan celebration – hold your own. While a poor choice, it is STILL the birthday of freedom.
Either you value freedom and want to celebrate – regardless of who the president is,
or you hate the country and want to stay home and suck lemons and plot the overthrow of the country.
You did not need to be at Mt. Rushmore or the Mall.
You did not need to be anywhere.
But your choices show your core values
John Say,
Good points.
I would add, PA Senator’s Fetterman (D) and McCormick (R) would not let their state go unrepresented, showed real moral courage and leadership and set up their own tent in honor of their state.
Upstate – yes, and I would argue they are the best bipartisan pair of senators in the U.S. right now.
Js, they might have celebrated the birth of a new nation. The transformed US was born in 2008, January, inauguration day. It’s not nearly as old as the old one and certainly not as good. In fact it’s worthless and bankrupt.
You quote the Democrat manifesto so beautifully!
Why didn’t God help humans draft a constitution 5,000 years ago? They sure could have used one back then.
Caveman
As Trotsky, himself, said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” It’s time for GOP and red-state officials to start drawing red lines on these questions. Make sure Democrats understand the stakes of trying to hijack the Federal government forever.
@Diogenes
I agree, and I would add states that are merely legitimately purple (the few that still exist, and they are few). Red states that refused to redistrict predicated on either naive belief in good faith from opposition or greed are fools – they are still operating under the delusion that the modern left care a whit about honesty or fairness of any kind, or likely to benefit personally from the collapse.
All the modern left need are the most populous districts in such places, including Texas (hence the calculation of which places to flip through a wide variety of means, all of them unethical), and then everyone else is subject to state law whether they like it or not. This will be federally mandated if the left ever has majority power again in this country, and no one will be able to say diddly about it. The Biden years were a preview. Eventually even the most prominent will no longer e able to insulate themselves, and sadly, such as they are, total destruction might be what it takes to open the eyes of the sleepy and reticent.
I think you and I may be the only ones on either side that see it.
I think you and I may be the only ones on either side that see it.
Not quite Diogenes.
Dear Prof Turley,
You can ‘pack’ a court with 9, 13 or 113. .. the problem is you can only pack them with Democrats and Republicans.
Voting is like that too.. . only Republicans and Democrats can gerrymander voting districts.
The stranglehold these two private, for-profit political organizations have over our civic life is impossible to over-state.
*at least we’re all still birthright citizens . .. but it was a Split Decision.
Respectfully, may I rely on others’ wise words to express my own.
(After years of reading, analyzing, excerpting, and sending for publication summaries of various SCOTUS opinions), I join OldManfromKansas (whom I affectionately refer to as NotSoOld) in declaring “Nine is Fine.”
This, based on my eyes, ears, experience, and epithalamus, I conclude that:
while acknowledging the ‘warmth’ of democratic socialist adages like “many hands make light work,”
I find that
“too many cooks in the kitchen do indeed spoil the broth.”
“Nine is Fine.”
Lin – even Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the same thing.
Yours,
Uncle Henry, a/k/a NotSoOld, a/k/a not.so.old 😉
actually she didn’t say that. she said she wanted nine women on the Court.
although she did say that “nine would be a good number.”
Josh Shapiro now transitions to being a mere symptom of the Democratic Party’s disease. Next!!
Shapiro is too stupid to reallze the bad optics of trying to steal his neighbor’s l
Neighbors ‘ land. And why a Jew would do such a thing amidst the crues to Free Palestine is a headscratcher for sure.
hello michael:
bad optics AND bad justification for sure. But I do not believe he is stupid. I think more that he has compromised his earliest values in order to further his political ambitions. He’s not the first.
The 3 episode film rendition of Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is in re-runs at this most propitious time. Worth the watching for those without the intellectual curiosity of the written word.
Yes. Or if you like books on tape, the abridged or unabridged version of the novel. While Ayn Rand had her flaws, she was remarkably prophetic in predicting the gravitational downward pull of socialism in the United States. I say “gravitational” because it never seems to go away and it pulls society downward.