[dillondoyle]

Reading the wiki below in a comment below specifically about the court I see parallels in the US - which is scary.

Though lawful, Republicans ignored their own 'rules' and just refused to 'seat' nominee (by not holding a hearing despite having almost half a year of time left). To be fair can argue wouldnt be confirmed even if they held a vote, but then why didn't they allow that? They then flipped those rules again when it suited their agenda.

It's not totally the same, but reads similar to me.

IDK if it's more scary that I personally believe Dems should exercise the same power to balance it back out. Though that would probably just cause a loop of reciprocating action towards chaos unless Dems can fix issues like the electoral college, redistricting, or add new states to balance the power towards more representational Democracy. Not many other remedies I can think of though.

The court in the US has huge power and they are doing similar things as in Poland such as rolling back abortion rights, LGBTQ rights (I argue this in the recent private school funding ruling and I wouldn't be surprised if they use more 'religious discrimination' to legally allow discrimination against the groups these religions despise).

This goes to your point about power of religion.

I would also add power of media to spread flat out lies (worse, that they are smart enough to realize what they are doing) to further their agenda. While not government funded, the Republican admin and Republican elected basically dictate and actually organize the coverage. Crazy to me.

[vorpalhex]

Please don't hijack a discussion on foreign politics to drop your hot take about US politics.

Baseless fear mongering is not new but it does feel more common. The supreme court is not dramatically out of wack nor have they "rolled back abortion rights". They specifically rejected a particular emergency appeal because of issues with immediate harm.

Preventing state discrimination in charter school funds is not a rollback of lgtbq rights, which are stronger than they have ever been, nor are charter schools mandatory.

Media is not republican controlled and the vast, vast majority of media coverage in the US is liberal in leaning.

Please stop doomsaying.

[dillondoyle]

Well you're right that the MS ruling is not totally final yet, they have currently banned abortion for ~ 14 million women, at least for the time being. And the MS ruling will likely - at a minimum - allow states to severely restrict or fully outlaw abortion in all but deadly cases.

[champagnois]

>>Though lawful, Republicans ... refused to 'seat' nominee...

[Party B] followed the rules. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to appoint a judge, and so no judge was appointed. [Party B] is under no obligation to assist [Party A].

>> They (Party B) then flipped those rules

[Party B] changed no rules. [Party B] had the votes to appoint a judge, and so a judge was appointed. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to oppose it.

[dillondoyle]

Republicans changed an actual written down rule - the 'nuclear option.' Republicans did not have the 60 votes needed. So they changed the rules.

Beyond that factually, like a lot of things in the US govt, rules can be institutional momentum and tradition instead of actual laws. For sure that's debatable use of the word rules but I think in practice for the last century a lot of these unwritten machinations of government moved along without politics getting in the way.

The Thurmond rule is an example of this specifically on SCOTUS confirmations.

Logically or legally right or wrong, Republicans didn't even allow an up or down vote. I think there was a small chance 5 Rs could have voted for Gorsuch maybe not. Obviously not 14 to break cloture.

Trump is the king of destroying the un-written guardrails which have protected the country.

[dillondoyle]

* i was just looking at comments and realized I typed gorsuch when i meant to be talking about obama nominee Garland