This could have been the highlight of the week in Washington: that President Joe Biden on Saturday morning signed the new law on measures against the mass shootings in the United States. A small triumph for the political system and for the Democrats and Republicans who, against all odds, managed to reach a settlement with certain tightening of the gun laws.
But when Congress finally hammered out the arms package, the White House was busy with the abortion issue and the announcement that the Supreme Court would abolish the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
The arms deal contains certainly very moderate restrictions on the right to bear arms. The background checks are tightened for 18-21-year-olds who want to buy weapons. The states are given greater opportunities to seize weapons from people who are perceived as dangerous to themselves and their surroundings. The fight against arson is intensifying. And the United States is investing $ 11 billion in the fight against mental illness and $ 2 billion in strengthening security in its schools.
But it was still a sensation that representatives of the Democrats and Republicans managed to bridge the political differences, with only months left until the autumn midterm elections, and also in one of American politics’ most polarizing issues. In the Senate vote on Thursday night, all 50 members of the Democrats and 15 of the 50 members of the Republicans supported the proposal. In the House of Representatives, 14 Republicans on Friday voted in favor.
Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell believes the deal to strengthen school security and crack down on mental illness could attract key suburban voters – in plain language, the center-right voters who turned their backs on Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
The question is how the same voters react to what can actually be described as the Supreme Court’s new conservative crusade in the United States.
On Thursday, the court chose to tear up a more than 100-year-old law in New York that restricted the right to carry firearms in public. On Friday, the verdict “Roe against Wade” fell after almost half a century.
Striking, states Carrie Sverino, who is chairman of the conservative organization Judicial Crisis Network. In an interview with USA Today, she states that member Clarence Thomas belonged to a deviant minority when the abortions were discussed in the Supreme Court 30 years ago. Now he belongs to the solid majority – it shows the extent of his influence and the success of the conservative struggle, according to Severino.
Clarence Thomas has been bidding its time for decades. He and his associates claim that it is previous generations of lawyers who have politicized the Supreme Court with radical decisions such as “Roe against Wade”. Now they have shown that they are prepared to act on a broad front to change the law. The abortion decision is the beginning, not the end.
Conservative judges are now portrayed as “extremists” by politicians such as Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. Polarization in the United States is gaining momentum. Central politics arose for a moment and disappeared.