“What remains is the ground we still hold at the city and state level, and the willingness to use it.”

And this lines up with election attorney Marc Elias’ posts urging us in blue states to call our state representatives and urge them to pass laws NOW to support voter rights and election integrity.

www.democracydocket.com/...

The problem is the Blue states will remain democratic, while the Red States and national government will not. The failed 18th Century constitution permits rule by minority faction, and Roberts' Repubs are making that massive flaw worse, decision by decision...

Except that Blue states could turn Red due to some of the vote suppression and other tactics. Blue state voters can FIGHT that with legislation at the state level, if they choose. Do you choose to fight or not?

Sadly, this pessimistic assessment is compelling and all too well-substantiated. 

George Carlin was right!

Where was this electoral autocracy last November, or last year where republicans were trashed up and down the ballot?

Perhaps it was there, just not enough to overcome the Blue Wave of disgust at Rumpublican bullcarp. And reminder, that per Greg Palast’s count, Harris would have won if not for the massive voter suppression that went on in several swing states. chicagocrusader.com/...

This is the problem in 2026 voter/vote suppression will be ramped up by the GOP every where they can and and every way they can, and all Federal agencies will be in on the game.

The recent elections have only demonstrated to the GOP they must do better at cheating and this is what Democratic leadership somehow better start fighting against and not just count on out voting them. 

One reason voter suppression works is that too many people aren’t paying attention to their voter registration so when they show up at the polls they find out that they’re no longer on the voter rolls and must use a provisional ballot which may or may not get counted. 

IF they show up to vote in the first place. That is not a foregone conclusion in this country.

they’ve already put the USPS into play.  I can see it now — All voting ballots in democratic districts will have major delays in getting ‘postmarked’.  I’ve heard rumors that ‘sorting’ problems are on the rise so Thrumps can plead it’s not their fault that UPSP is under staffed and under funded.  The worse USPS looks the quicker this admin will hand it over to ‘private business’.  Doesn’t matter what’’s in the Constitution.  This ‘payoff your favorite Republican justice’ has already put into play that they don’t have to explain or answer to any ruling they make. Robert’s who is already as delusional as the Orange Quack in the white house and lies just as easily has already made the Orange Quack the equivalent ‘god’.  As ‘president’ nothing he does is a crime.  He’s already killing people for his fun like it’s a online gaming.  He knowingly puts anyone he’s afraid might have support against him in serious danger of their lives and that includes spouses, kids and pets.  He knows all his sadist base are just waiting for him to give them the ‘suggestion’ that that’s whom he wants gone.  

That the person whom is the ‘Chief Justice of the US Supreme’ not only bows down to anything that the 34 times convicted felon & rapist wants, he likely gets paid lots of money on the side by the billionaires who have paid for their own supreme court.

I hear many of the Caribbean Islands will give you legal status just for buying a house.  That looks better every day!

I heard of that new post office rule that ballots may or may not get postmarked for election day, even if they are actually there in the drop box. They will take more time to get postmarked, as soon as they arrive at the sorting and distribution center which may be several days. Furthermore, the state of Ohio has decided to reject any ballot not postmarked as of election day. Other red states will follow suit.
 
What is worse, they are probably going to lay off thousands of postal workers just prior to the election, in order to slow things down even further.

There should be an emergency Supreme Court brief filed NOW (I don't know of any as of yet) on the grounds that this is tantamount to massive voter suppression

Thank you so much!  a Keeper.

This lays bare the current "conservative" strategy for returning to an anti-democratic white supremacy regime, which the techbros and plutocrats understand they must erect in order to keep fleecing the country and buying up everything.

It's a symbiotic relationship between white supremacists and plutocrats.

I was going to say more parasitical, because the billionaires are demonstrably feeding off the rest of us. But in fact the bigots are getting something too:  fewer Brown people and more-oppressed Black people. 

One particular decision to watch for would be a repeal of the Baker v. Carr decision (1962) which instituted the One Person, One Vote principle. I think that Clarence Thomas is arrogant enough to call for its overturning, and once its gone, Republicans won’t have to work so hard to negate the big cities in their states; they’ll just need to make many districts in rural areas and few in urban areas.

This is an excellent diary and very clearly explains what is actually going on.  Thank you, CA, for posting this.

Took the words out of my mind.  Excellent diary.

An aggressive Democratic president can ignore any Supreme Court rulings under the immunity ruling giving the finger to the Supreme Court.

Once this illegitimate court made its unconstitutional decree that presidents are king, Biden should have immediately ordered his DOJ to detain the conservative court. But he didn't. And he never once said anything about them being bribed. Both parties are captured by the moneyed interests. 

Very true.  A good AG would have gotten a special prosecutor to go after Alito and Thomas for tax fraud for failing to report trips and presents.  Instead, Garland focused on Hunter Biden, who had no governmental involvement.

“Can” but never will because “aggressive” and “Democratic” have not gone together since LBJ.

Not mentioned in this otherwise well documented piece is the simple fact that Democratic leadership helped get us here and those same milquetoast leaders are still in power. 

The moment the Supremely Corrupt Court passed its immunity ruling on July 1 2024, Biden “should have” first recognized that they assumed he would not act, in fact he let it be known that he would not use it.  Second, Biden “should have” turned the tables on them and used it to his full ability to undo Republican sabotage of our system.

If it seems like Democrats stand idly by as authoritarians force their way into absolute power, it would be because when not standing idly by they are aiding the rise of the corporate state.  This is easy to show.  For example, there has been no pushback against monopoly formation since 1992 when Bill Clinton proclaimed them “efficiencies of scale”.  Monopoly mergers simply accelerated, peaking on Obama’s watch with not a single challenge.  Look at a graph of most anything reflecting a declining middle class in the face of a rising ultra wealthy class and try to discern who is in power.  It doesn’t matter, which is what a Princeton/Northwestern study concluded.

So this diary exposes the present state with the alleged goal of giving us the information we need to be well informed, yet it ignores the context in which this state arose, who the major players have been to get us to this sorry state.  We can’t do anything as long as Centrists seek to maintain the status quo at all costs, even at the cost of our democracy.  We desperately need a changing of the guard.

There are too many elected Democratics in the US Congress (House & Senate) who are captured by Bill Clinton’s “third way” sellout to big money.

The 107th Congress did not pass the John Lewis Voter’s Rights Bill due that that, and that was really the last hope of countering the gutting of the 1965 Voters Rights Act.

I’m wondering if my governor, Gavin Newsom, would be that aggressive.  I’m thinking he would, from what I know of his behaviors toward Trump, but then again I know that pinning hopes on politicians often doesn’t wind up how I hope it will.  But what other choice do we have?

IF we get a massive Blue Wave this all goes out the window.  That depends on voters actually being very unhappy.  They may understand what’s going on or they may not, but being unhappy is the key.

Seems unhappiness and personal suffering is the only reliable way to get people out to the polls in this country.

Until the next cycle when it goes back. Like Nixon quickly becoming Reagan. And voters seem especially fickle right now, ready to whipsaw back and forth

To really fix the underlying issues will take a veto proof majority in Congress which is unlikely.

If they rig in favor of Democrats, thats wrong too.

One must fight fire with fire, as Lincoln said.

And Repubs cannot complain that it's wrong, it's their tactic. What's good for the goose, etc...

This isn't a baseball game.

Exactly!!!!

Ahem...some suggest that it is and is also time for a few brush-back 99 MPH pitches.

Depends what you mean by “rig.”   Blatant lying, cheating, and stealing is still wrong, IMO — but utilizing questionable tactics your foes have inaugurated and proclaimed legal is 100% okay and qualifies as self-defense.  

The system is  gamed, but evil does sow the seeds of its own destruction.

When you look at the election of 1860 there is no way that Lincoln should have won, but the Taney Court (like our current one) had gotten ridiculous. The South was used to dominating or having milksops on the other side. 

Society tends to shift and those bulwarks are not as sturdy as you think. 

Both of the political parties active in the 1848 election saw massive defections due to disagreements over slavery. The Whigs collapsed and after the Conscience Whigs went off, the remainder tried to launch the American (or Know Nothing) Party hoping to use anti-immigrant hysteria to keep the party going.

After Sen. Stephen Douglas (D-IL) launched the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Democrats had a similar breakup. So when the 1860 election came around, there were 4 parties: many Conscience Whigs and Freesoil Democrats had joined together to form the Republican Party, and they nominated Lincoln. The Northern Democrats nominated Douglas. The Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge. A group who still held onto Whig ideals formed the Constitutional Union Party, and they nominated John Bell. 

Lincoln won mainly because the Republicans had a clarity that the other parties did not.

Yes, and a lot of that fracturing was due to the major parties being unwilling to take on several seminal issues more and more Americans wanted action on. Slavery is the most remembered, but it wasn’t alone. 

Look at what is happening in Iran that same thing could happen here if they push it too far and let hope they do and it does. 

Iran has been a dictatorship for 72 years. If that's the example maybe our great grandchildren will live to see it.

And the US and UK made Iran into that dictatorship, circa 1953

This has been happening more and more over the past decades, but much more obvious since 2016 when the felon gained the WH for his first term.  I am convinced this has been more prevalent ever since Reagan won the WH.   

Same legal question. Same Court. Different answer depending on who asked.

Cannot trust the GOP under any circumstances.  They couch their reasons in twisted logic that too many people take at face value instead of reading the nuances woven into their twisted logic.

This has been the Republican project for DECADES. That is why Mitch McConnell invented the “Biden Rule” out of thin air in order to justify holding a Supreme Court seat open for a year in order to prevent Obama from filling it. 

I cannot wait for the book about Mitch McConnell!  The world needs know how pathetically he wanted to ‘run the country’ through his Senate position. Every single rule and law he subverted. He’s been trying make himself out as a ‘good guy’ now that’s he’s on his way out of the senate and likely his life (as he continues to deteriorate in public) — soon.

That book should be a quick write and publish.

And we should call attention to his filibustering Obama’s stimulus bill in 2009. He wanted to make Obama a one term president, even if it meant weakening the recovery from the Great Recession. I think we would have been substantially better if Al Franken (D-MN) hadn’t had to wait for a long recount but could have taken his seat along with the rest of his class and given Obama a filibuster-proof majority.

…..believe his ex-wife and three daughters are all Dems -— wish ‘they’ would have spoken out more forcefully and publicly against their husband/father’s sneaky and manipulative and corrupt leadership in the senate….

And when that rule no longer served the Republican Party’s needs, he simply ignored it.

Dark days ahead. Will there be enough pitchforks and torches?

Hobby Lobby is pro-plutocrat. They will probably take both items off their shelves.

I was thinking Home Depot… But there are several.

Hobby Lobby thinks that “religious freedom” means that because their employees must buy health insurance from the company store, they should have the “religious freedom” to tell these employees how to live their life.

The Senate is worse. California's 39 million residents have the same representation as Wyoming's 579,000, a ratio of 68 to 1.

I don’t understand why this claim is included in a story about the Supreme Court “rewriting the constitution”.  Because while this claim is certainly true, it is an inequity that is present in the constitution itself, as opposed to being a perverted interpretation of the constitution.

This inequity almost guarantees eventual control of the SC via conservative voters from low population states. Yes the danger from this flaw has always been there but not taken advantage of all that successfully until Citizens United tipped the balance and made what was meant to prevent more populous states totally dominating less populated states into a tyranny not of the majority but of the minority… and crucially the key to controlling the SC.

“Core constitutional authority” should always be in quotation marks.  It has no legal definition.  It’s another of the novel legal concepts created out of whole cloth by the six radical extremist Justices, right along with [royal] “immunity”, “money is speech”, “major questions”, and on and on.  They have fertile imaginations.

The best part of being an Originalist is you do get to use your imagination and just make stuff up. It’s sooo much more fun than all that research and reasoning BS.

Yes.  Of course, you meant “Originalist” (in quotation marks).

Being original in the Arts does mean being very good with your imagination, creative… “Original”... inventive even. And so too, being an Originalist is like a form of political “Art”... very creative with made-up Original stuff.

What do you think of these guys’ data and conclusions?

electiontruthalliance.org

Gotta love Leo Leo and his SCROTUS Six. They make great music for the zillionaires.

IMHO — the Gore-Bush decision was a watershed moment in US history.  Still makes me furious.

The sad thing about that election is that FL would have easily gone to Gore without the massive voter purges enacted under Jeb Bush's governorship and a recount would not have even likely come up as an option to be stopped by a corrupt court.

I wonder how aware of his central part in warping the future direction of US democracy and how much he is ultimately responsible for making Trump possible. Does he ever reflect on how warping politics in FL to help his brother caused ripples that turned into democracy wrecking tsunamis? Does he turn away from this truth? Does he not want to face it or even ruminate on his part in bending the tree of democracy into darkness?

After all the votes had been counted, Gore DID win Florida.

But, by then, it was too late, Gore had foolishly, stupidly conceded.

How did the judicial branch wind up with so much power? What happened to the “three co-equal branches” and the "checks and balances”?

It’s one of the flaws of the opening post to not point out the way Congress ceded powers to the Supreme Court and Presidency mostly in the 1950s to 1970s, largely justified by the Cold War.  Republicans remain fine with this- more and more power going to appointed judges and into the Presidency, which can significantly duck laws and personal responsibility. Democrats did little or nothing to reduce these two Branches back to pre-WW2 powers at the occasional opportunity to do so.  Notably the first two years of the Obama Presidency.

Our experiment has failed. Time for a reboot. 

No! Our leaders have failed to exercise the powers the voters and the constitution give them. 
I just posted below my thoughts so I won’t reiterate here. But basically, the system works if we do.

A reboot would be hijacked by the Billionaire boys club which as had a “model” replacement Constitution on ice as a back up plan for years. they salivate over a constitutional convention totally packed with right wing yes people. Tread VERY carefully with anything like this.

The supreme six are bought and paid for by the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, and all are enemies of Democracy…...

The next Dem president, i.e., the next president, packs the court. Problem solved.

Don’t be surprised if the current administration does it first: possibly between the midterms and the start of the next session, assuming the Dems clean house in the fall

I think they might try, but the Republicans have narrow margins in the House and in the Senate, and enough of them are starting to wake up to what a menace Trump really is. Lately, I’ve been watching two Republican reps from Pennsylvania who won by narrow margins over Democratic incumbents and who seem to be joining the resistance. Mackenzie represents Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Bresnahan reps Allentown/Bethlehem. We need more Republicans to come out and resist, but we’ve seen enough signs that we will be able to block the most extreme measures that need Congressional authorization.

You have great subject matter in your several articles, and good writing, with references.

To make things even more credible, it would be good if you participated in the commentary, act as a member of the community.

(If you do participate in comments for your other articles, my apologies)

In July 2024, the Court ruled 6-3 that presidents enjoy absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts within their core constitutional authority, and presumptive immunity for all other official acts.¹⁷ The Court held that Trump's discussions with the Acting Attorney General about overturning the 2020 election fell within his exclusive constitutional authority and were therefore absolutely immune.¹⁷

Can you clarify what you mean when stating that that case concluded, held, that Trump’s actions about the election do fall within a President’s, “official acts”?

Given what the ruling states, offered via link and quoted sections below, state that there has not been a case that has determined what “official acts” are, and are not.

What is an “official act” and what is not, is still up for the courts to determine.

www.law.cornell.edu/...

From the link offered:

Taking into account these competing considerations, the Court concludes that the separation of powers principles explicated in the Court’s precedent necessitate at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility. Such an immunity is required to safeguard the independence and effective functioning of the Executive  Branch, and to enable the President to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution. At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 754. Pp. 12–15.

 (3) As for a President’s unofficial acts, there is no immunity. Although Presidential immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the President’s decision making is not distorted by the threat of future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern does not support immunity for unofficial conduct. Clinton, 520 U. S., at 694, and n. 19. The separation of powers does not bar a prosecution predicated on the President’s unofficial acts. P. 15.

(b) The first step in deciding whether a former President is entitled to immunity from a particular prosecution is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions.

In this case, no court thus far has drawn that distinction, in general or with respect to the conduct alleged in particular.

It is therefore incumbent upon the Court to be mindful that it is “a court of final review and not first view.” Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 566 U. S. 189, 201. Critical threshold issues in this case are how to differentiate between a President’s official and unofficial actions, and how to do so with respect to the indictment’s extensive and detailed allegations covering a broad range of conduct. The Court offers guidance on those issues. Pp. 16–32.

Now, more than ever, I want to move to another country. I hear Canada isn’t as welcoming as it once was, but there are others. I’ve always been interested in visiting the UK, maybe I’ll just never leave.

If I stay, I’ll have to fight. I don’t have the physical strength like I had in the early 70s to march in the streets and run from tear gas. Maybe that sounds overly dramatic, but if we can’t vote our way out of this, civil disobedience to the point of an actual uprising may be the only chance we have when the law is unenforceable. 

“What is an “official act” and what is not, is still up for the courts to determine.”   

It has probably already been determined, in secret, by the Alito, Thomas, Roberts gang.  They just haven’t had the need to declare it outside of shadow docket decisions.

Give up it is then.

John Roberts, the smug face that acquisceses power to evil while wagging his finger at saints for failing to understand the fundamentals of politics. The vile, destructive, overconfident soullessness of that man and everything he stands for infuriates me.

If (when?) Democrats get bare majorities in both houses and the White House, they need to pullout all the stops, call the bi-partisan traditions the bullshite they are and use all the power the constitution gives them to enlarge the court. All these “constitutional changes” are not constitutional but simply judicial decrees that can be reversed by sane justices. 

The obscene overreach by Trump and the GOP is brining a massive change in the political winds. Democrats must strike while the iron is hot. It’s time Democrats take some lessons from Republicans on using the power they have, when they have it. Waiting for the moment to slip past and moaning “shoulda, woulda, coulda” has left us in this horrid time. When the voters give Democrats the power they damn well better use it or those voters will turn away again. And who can blame them?

I agree with you on enlarging the high court, but bear in mind that there are a lot of Democrats that strongly oppose this. We might have better luck impeaching and removing the two most corrupt bribees, Thomas and Alito. And then with a Democratic congress and president, these two corporate tools can be replaced with sensible and honest liberal justices. I am praying.

In summary, we are watching history in the making.
We are witnessing the one-free America devolve into fascism.
Future students will read of this in their history book, what we are seeing live.
That is to say if those history books are not sanitized and rewritten to favor the New Masters

Democrat: "Everyone of the age of 18 and up has a right to vote"

Republican: "Only white men have a right to vote (says so in the Constitution, besides, God himself says so"

 When your local news is owned by a conservative media conglomerate pushing partisan content through trusted local faces, voters cannot punish leaders for policy failures they never learn about.

And here is yet another example of the headwinds we face. “I don’t understand why our messaging doesn’t get through?!” Let’s face it. No one who is watching Fox all the time is voting for the Democrat. “It’s the propaganda, stupid.”

Fixed it 4 U:

Rigged maps only work if the right “wrong” people don’t show up to vote.

 

Yes it’s getting harder to vote for some demographics. However enough people could vote but don’t, or vote for unserious candidates (Jill Stein, RFK Jr.) because reasons (Gaza, buttery mails, masking, “antifa”, etc. & so forth). Yes, media capture, voting inconvenience and other excuses. But really, if you can vote and don’t, or throw away your vote in some symbolic protest you own the consequences. Which also fall on everyone who did vote.

GOTV takes effort and organization. It also requires a laser-like focus on pragmatic priorities  and competent leadership. The fact a convicted felon got reëlected speaks volumes about these deficits in the Democratic Party. But ultimately it’s up to the electorate to show up.

“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”  Joseph de Maistre

We own this. Act like it.

They will try to sop us. They will steal votes. If everyone voted, they would not be able to steal enough of them.

ENGAGE W PEACE AND VOTE.