Opinion: The chance to provoke an anxious and angry electorate for campaign cash has often proved stronger than something that once mattered a great deal to the American experiment: a sense of our democracy as a shared responsibility, writes Ron Elving.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said in 2019 he did not support expanding the Supreme Court. Ginsburg herself had told NPR"nine seems to be a good number; it's been that way for a long time." The Constitution does not set a number of justices; Congress can, as it did in 1869 whenGinsburg thought the idea of expanding the court, or"court-packing," was a bad idea when Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed it — unsuccessfully — in 1937.new judges.
As a long-term and worsening trend, this portends grave challenges to our democracy in the days to come. While the rancor did not begin with Ginsburg's death — or even with the Trump presidency — having these events coincide has deepened the shadows on the road ahead.This is not just about what happens on Election Day in November, nor in the subsequent weeks when the outcome may well be contested.
At the time, McConnell said it was good and proper that the Senate ignore the appointee of a president in his last year, even with 10 months to go before the election.
At this moment, many who follow politics are incensed, either by McConnell's sophistry or by the retaliatory threats from Democrats. "We need to revive moderation as a central element in American politics. It is a way to strengthen our democracy, rebuild our societal glue and promote meaningful substantive debate over major issues."
The spirit that impressed him has endured, on most issues, through wars and crises and vast changes in the population. Paul Carrese, a political scientist at the Air Force Academy, notes in a 2015 book calledthat the balancing of religious faith with liberty and tolerance has been an invaluable legacy:"There is more public prominence for religion in America than in any other liberal democracy, and there also is more religious liberty than in states with deep religious cultures.
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