The spectre of Alito

The spectre of Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court is extremely worrisome to those who care about the well-being of this country's democracy and a reasonable balance of power between monied interests and the rest of society. With the vote against the filibuster last night in the U.S. Senate, I notice at least a few progressive bloggers are using this occasion to rail against members of the Democratic Party, if not the entire party.

But Alito is a creature entirely of the Republican Party. While perhaps understandable to lash out in a moment of anguish, blaming the Democratic Party (or certain members thereof) is nonetheless completely misguided. It is the Bush administration and its toadies in the GOP that have forced Alito upon us. And it was our inability to convey our supposedly obvious and just cause to the general public, both in November 2004 and now, that has allowed his ascendancy.

Fortunately, many other progressive bloggers are taking a more sober look at the situation, celebrating those who helped in this battle, and resolving to figure out how to do better next time. For as dangerous as he is, Alito is only one vote in one branch of government.

Comments

[Mike Thomas]

I have two takes. The optimistic one is that Alito's extremism combined with the right-wing troika of Scalia-Thomas-Roberts will push Justice Kennedy further to the left where he will take up where Sandra Day O'Connor left off, thus changing little in the makeup of the court. The only difference is that there will be more 5-4 decisions and fewer 6-3.

The negative one is that Kennedy does not move left and we have a true shift to the right with a lot of 5-4 decisions going the other way. While this is bad, there is also the silver lining to consider by remembering that major ideological shifts such as this tend to fuel opposition movements. The same way the conservative movement has been feeding off of the Roe v Wade decision all these years, it's overthrow and a return to restrictions on women's rights could spark an outcry and an uprising in the electorate that would help the Democrats regain control of Congress and win the presidency during the next several election cycles.

[Peter]

I doubt Kennedy will move left. He already joined in a fair number of 6-3 decisions. Those will likely be 5-4 now, as you point out.

O'Connor was apparently quite conservative on a number of economic issues, and on those issues little will change on the court. Kennedy will be the swing vote on those issues as he is today.

So there won't be earth-shattering change. At least until Stevens, Ginsberg, Breyer, or Souter retire.

Let's hope we can get someone in the presidency ASAP to put in respectable replacements for them.