The Supreme Court Rulings
We have a lot to talk about. The letter I dropped last week was unscheduled, of course, but these have been waiting to go out for a minute–as such, they're kind of old news. At this point you can swap pretty much any mention of Biden with Kamala Harris, if that brings things current for you.
Since I last dropped a letter, Biden and Trump had their first debate, in which both tried to out-stan a genocidal nation that, research indicates, has potentially killed nearly 200,000 Palestinians--a massive leap over current estimates. Biden, for his part, appeared more incoherent than Trump–though I feel that's on a sliding scale, as Trump has always sounded like he's simply live-streaming every thought that ever entered his head. Anyway, Dems are panicking*.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court issued three particularly impactful rulings: the end of Chevron deference; the enshrining of further authority in the executive branch by way of ensuring immunity for any act conducted in an official capacity; and the criminalization of homelessness–I'm sorry, I misspoke, "the decision to allow the criminalization of sleeping in public places," overturning a federal court ruling on the matter. We're going to look at these rulings with cooler heads than most, even though the news is indisputably not good.
*Dems were panicking. Now everyone seems excited to try and elect a Black woman to bomb people. As if we didn't already have one in the UN vetoing ceasefires for Israel.
Gerontocracy
We have known for quite a long time that our government is not that of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: the electoral college and gerrymandering have ruled much of the "by the people" out. It's not "for the people," because Jesus Christ, look around you–who, amongst the majority of Americans, is benefiting from these policies? It's corporations, not people. And to round us out, "of the people" seems like a lost cause, as most elected officials are roughly forty years older than the average age of the US populace, and at 75% white, quite a bit pastier as well.
There's nothing wrong with being old. I'm nearly twenty years older than the average American. But we're living in a world in which our every action worsens the plight of those younger than ourselves. To abdicate the country to a gerontocracy who has no stake in how the world looks in twenty years is to condemn younger generations to, quite possibly, a non-hyperbolic hellscape.
The debate between Biden and Trump underscores this. It was a long, meandering fight between two exceedingly privileged white men, both past their prime mental faculties, who will be given the reins over the most powerful nation in the world–exemplifying most choices we have in this country. And while the media and participants in the false-dichotomy of liberal/conservative will have you believe that these two couldn't be more different, it is blatantly obvious that's not true: they're roughly the same age, same race, both rich, and both are okay with providing weapons and aid for a genocide. Where they differ is the speed with which the country descends into an overtly fascist state–and to be clear, both are on that path. That Trump's road is more blatant just means the Dems are better at distracting with paltry social victories. I want to reiterate to any lingering liberals reading this newsletter that Biden is no friend to your causes; if he were, we'd have some protections for abortion, we'd have student debt forgiveness, and we'd have billions and billions of dollars back in the states spent on, well, probably just our own police rather than bombs for Israel–but that's because the Dems export most of their bloodthirst**.
I say all this to point out our crumbling political system from another angle. We have senators who are hardly able to think for themselves, who can't put together cohesive thoughts in public, all because they are being propped up by the monied interests who put them in office in the first place. These people should be home with their families, not being puppeteered into padding the pockets of Lockheed Martin.
**I will eat my hat if any of these policies are meaningfully changed under Harris.
The Supreme Court Rulings
There has been a lot of breathless coverage of the latest batch of rulings out of the Supreme Court–and at first blush that's understandable. The end of Chevron deference (a precedent that deferred authority on interpretation of laws as they pertained to subject matters to their corresponding subject matter experts, instead allowing federal judges to interpret those laws as they see fit) basically ends the era of expertise in government. That era that was coming to a close anyway, and across the country in general, thanks to the persistent vilification of any and all experts on subjects in the sciences as cogs in a great machine of conspiracy. If you need an example, look to Fauci. If you need another, look to the Ohio's Health Director Dr. Amy Acton, who received so many threats during the early days of COVID that she stepped down. Say what you will about our handling of COVID, but Dr. Acton and even Mike DeWine were doing pretty much everything they could, I felt, during those early days. And they caught hell for it.
For us, in 2024, the end of Chevron deference boils down to one thing: the chances for slowing down climate change become even slimmer. Federal regulations will become harder to uphold, meaning more will be pulled down, meaning emissions of every kind are more likely to be allowed to continue if not proliferate, amongst any and all dross from whatever petro-chemical company is paying for supper in the courts that day. There is plenty more that this ruling will effect, but this newsletter is about getting a tourniquet on a hemorrhage, not fixing minor wounds.
The Supreme Court's second ruling, on presidential immunity, is mitigated in large part by one thing: we anticipate absolute bullshit from the presidency. Which means whether we saw this coming or not, we say we saw this coming, right? Our leaders get away with everything and they always have. This doesn't materially increase the amount of heinous acts we'll see from Biden or Trump–it just makes the trajectory of the government more clear. I'm not trying to be glib, but I don't see much of a reason to get my dander up about a problem that we've always had that has now been made official.
What does get me pissed is the Court's overturning of previous rulings against total bans on sleeping and camping in public. Until the Supreme Court threw this ruling out, it was correctly ruled cruel and unusual to punish people for sleeping or camping outside due to a lack of anywhere else to turn. The Supreme Court heard this case on the urging from a city in Oregon called Grants Pass, where homelessness is on the rise–like most of the country. And rather than address the heart of the issue, cities instead opt for the easier–though not cheaper–method of punishment. It's a disappointing but not unexpected turn of events, coming from some largely liberal areas. I think that last point is worth dwelling on and rubbing in your liberal friends' faces.
What Comes Next
I think there is a fairly predictable dystopian trajectory for this country in the wake of these rulings and the debate, and it is largely unchanged from our previous guesses–with added moments of cruelty sprinkled in to taste. We can expect further turns toward authoritarianism no matter who wins the election, though if the liberals win we may see the occasional gesture toward "equality," perhaps some enshrined protections for Trans people, if we're lucky–which would not be nothing, however temporary such protections may be.
But at the end of the day, even with Harris taking in office, we will still be living in a country, and a world, that is largely permitting the genocide of Palestinians. We will be living in a country that regards its people as an engine for profit rather than inherently valuable as living beings. And moves by conservatives will continue to dig the United States deeper into the right. This is not a slide that ends with the election of someone liberal enough to satisfy progressives–this is the legacy of white supremacy in America and it will not be stopped until that supremacy itself is addressed head on and wiped out.