Trump had a chance to overshadow American politics for decades

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the American chief judge who turned unlikely at 87 to become the icon of the younger generation of politicians, has died. With her death, Donald Trump had the opportunity to leave a disproportionately large mark on American history, regardless of the outcome of the November election. Whatever the outcome of the November elections, Trump will remain president until January 20, 2021 and will undoubtedly enjoy the support of the Republican majority Senate until January 6.

That is, in principle, you have plenty of time to nominate a Chief Justice for the third time in your four-year term, and your candidate is chosen by the Senate. Since the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is a nine-member panel, it is easy for a third of the justices to be appointed by Trump. This gave Republicans an unexpected opportunity to secure a conservative majority in the Supreme Judicial Body for years, or rather decades, in the Supreme Court, which is already very sensitive to its independence.

Why? If we look at the SCOTUS age tree, with Ginsburg’s death, the old president will be Stephen Breyer, the most liberal liberal faction in the minority, which has now merged into three members, reaching the age of 82 this year. And while the other two liberals, President Barack Obama’s two nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, are only sixty years old, the oldest of the conservative wing, Clarence Thomas, is only 72 years old. Samuel Alito 70, Chief Justice John G. Roberts 65, Trump’s two nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are only 53 and 55, respectively. Even if Trump is replaced, his successor, Joe Biden, will probably not be able to nominate more than one judge, including a liberal, that is, without affecting the ideological makeup of the court.

Already if the Senate votes for the Trump candidate.

And why not vote? Republican senators blocked the acceptance of Barack Obama’s third presidential candidate for President of the Supreme Court in 2016 on the grounds that the second-term president had nominated him in election year, eight months before the November vote, arguing that the new President, with a new electoral mandate, should have a new one. nominate a candidate. The same, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, who has become an outspoken critic of Trump and has become the president’s main fan, is now saying why they shouldn’t elect a chief judge now if they have the path and opportunity.

Graham, in 2016, when he and his Republican senators prevented him from nominating an Obama candidate, he told reporters that “my words will be used calmly against me” if he decides otherwise. Then on Tuesday, Democrats’ favorite Republican senator Mitt Romney, a former presidential candidate still in conflict with Trump, also announced her vote to support Trump’s election ahead of the November presidential election.

However, his turn is understandable somewhere. Apparently, he and his Republican comrades also see polls that make Trump quite likely to be defeated, but it is no longer inconceivable that the Republican Party will even topple its Senate majority because of Trump’s promising electoral performance. That is, they may lose not only the right to nominate with Trump’s defeat, but also the opportunity to force the expected winner, Joe Bident, to elect a centrist compromise candidate with his majority in the Senate.

SCOTUS is an essentially American institution. Born into the intoxication of the Enlightenment, the founding fathers guaranteed the separation of powers not only at the level of words but also in the constitution. This created a completely independent executive, legislative and judicial branch, the first of which is headed by the President, the second by the two houses of Congress, and the third by the Supreme Court, where judicial independence is guaranteed by an appointment of by lifetime. The latter does not only work in principle.

While it is a fact that some presidents appoint judges who are sympathetic to their party, they are no longer committed to the other two powers after their election, as they are practically immovable from that point on. It may have happened that John Roberts, who at the time of his appointment had been hailed by the left as a Bush puppet, had become increasingly centrist and a fluctuating vote in a body that had meanwhile become a conservative with overweight, surprisingly often lined up next to the liberal wing. He is not his designee, but the debtor of his own historical imprint, he is working to become one of the great figures in the history of the United States.

But if there is already a two-thirds majority conservative on the board, it will no longer be compensated if a conservative judge sometimes votes against your side on controversial issues. However, on many basic issues, the opinion of judges is divided on an ideological basis. To name just two:

• On the issue of the possession of weapons, conservatives, following the traditions of textuality, interpret Habitat No. 2, which supports the right to bear arms, in a very broad way, from which they deduce that bearing arms is an individual right that allows anyone to have a semi-automatic assault rifle in their home.
• In the case of abortion, where the opinions of liberal and conservative judges are divided on what we consider the beginning of human life, conception or birth; and if the right of the fetus to life prevails over the right of the fetal woman to dispose of her own body.

The gun possession case is brought to court over and over again. And in the case of abortion, the debate is escalating again, as conservatives see an ideological shift in court as an opportunity for the 1973 Supreme Court decision to recognize the right to abortion, the legendary Roe v. To override Wade.

Although the field of supporters and opponents on the issue was fairly balanced even in 2009, since then there has been a clear majority of those who believe that abortion should be legal in all, or at least in most cases. In 2019, 61 percent of Americans supported this, according to a Pew Research poll. However, SCOTUS, made up of two-thirds conservative judges, can still ban abortion across the country.