5 Signs of a Radical Change in U.S. Politics

The Atlantic

This seemed like pure projection to me, but as the Supreme Court has shown, the projection and denial is going all round.

I read this yesterday, and Glenn Reynolds posted his reactions to this piece.  One reaction was to be "unimpressed".

The major aspect of projection is that it denies something that is within oneself.

Plain denial is also the refusal to see what is there.

How can conservative justices support Obama's usurpation of the Constitution?  Well, it might well have started a long time ago.  Maybe the Bush-Gore election controversy, where this Atlantic piece picks up on, is just one strand in a long strand that is coming unraveled.  It looks like The Atlantic's piece was projection, and the conservative/libertarian response is just plain old denial.

Obama won't follow the law, which he is bound to do under the constitution.  That's the coup.  It is ongoing, but evidently, nobody at the highest levels seems to get it.

I followed the 2000 election controversy pretty closely.  No way Gore could win that one, but if the Supreme Court hadn't stepped in, it was going to have to go the Congress.  In such a case as that, the House picks the winner, and the Senate picks the Veep.  That meant Joe Lieberman would have been veep instead of Cheney.  The House was Republican, so there's no way Gore could win the presidency that way.

The Supreme Court just stopped the counting which could have gone on past the "safe harbor" deadline, which was very close at hand at the time of their decision.  The counting wasn't going to get done in time to get in before the safe harbor deadline, which would have thrown it into the House- by law.  The Republicans controlled the House, (as Gore must have known), but the Senate was 50-50.  Gore would have broken the tie in favor of Lieberman, weakening the incoming administration.

The Supreme Court then may have acted politically, but at least they were following the election law.  They don't seem to be very interested in doing that anymore.

As for the rest of the article, it is pretty much the standard political fare.  The author's major rhetorical thrust was the Bush v Gore decision was a type of long running coup, but it was Gore who was trying to steal the Vice Presidency if he couldn't get the Presidency itself.  That's my take.

The main point to me is the total breakdown in authority that is outlined in the Constitution.  There are three co-equal branches, but at the moment, the only branch that seems to matter is the Presidency.  That looks like dictatorship.   The President must follow the law, or what good is the Constitution anymore?  Why have a Congress pass a law that the President won't enforce?  Why have the Supreme Court decide the controversy, if the President decides to ignore the part of the decision that he doesn't like?

At what point will this President be restrained?  If he gets re-elected, what can stop him?