I have been in the US since 1997, and I have seen plenty of disfunction or ugliness of the US politics, mainly on the executive branch and legislative branch. Things from the Bill Clinton Lewinsky scandal, mainly his lying and the subsequent impeachment, to George W Bush’s mishandling of Iraq war and probably a lot of people already forgot, the hurricane Katrina and the devastation, 2008 financial crisis and who still remembers TARP, Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson. More recently I still remember the election night in 2016, I told my brothers that I am worried that as ethnic Chinese I felt América may have elected a “Hitler”.
But I always think the court (the 3rd branch of the government) is usually rational, even when my former colleague commented back in 2000 / 2001 that the Supreme Court “elected” (or selected) president Bush. I recall the court even intervened in the TikTok and WeChat ban during the waning days of Trump administration. I don’t care much about TikTok but felt the need to use WeChat mostly for communication with my family back in China, and some Chinese friends here in the US.
A few weeks ago, there was the leak of opinion, and on Friday, this is final.
The impact will be felt more on the poor and the vulnerable.
Btw, last 2 days I can say that I saw unprecedented tweets on this topic and related ones. I have been on Twitter for a while (14+ years to be exact). I think it maybe a good idea to be off social networks for a while for the sake of mental health.
Back to the court topic. In 2017 I took my wife and 2 young kids to the DC, and one of the places I took them is the Supreme Court. I thought at that time, relatively speaking, court is apolitical and usually rules that can stand the test of history. Note I didn’t care much about the White House because I didn’t like the guy in the WH then, and also after 9-11, ordinary people can no longer get close to the WH (which I realized in year 2010, when I took my in-laws visiting DC). I recall seeing fences. Congress got bad reputation as far as I am concerned, because I didn’t like their vote on the Iraq war, their numerous “kick the can down the road” in terms of deficits, and more recently I cannot stand some republicans (and demeanor, as well as their political savvy on court confirmations, and how they win election and stay in power, think Karl Rove and Mitch McDonnell). One example of those guys are so out of touch of ordinary people’s lives can be seen here.
Who needs the justice system the most? Just like the government, the poor and the vulnerable because they just don’t have enough resources themselves or in the community.
Other good Tweets (threads) or articles:
黑暗的一天 (徒步的骑手)