We don’t need Congress, we just need the Supreme Court

earthpressnews
Last minute The world stood up after Putins decision in

A 7-year-old child learns how to use a gun at the National Rifle Association’s annual general meeting on May 28. © AFP PHOTO “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it is the only way you can change the world.” Margaret Meade, an American cultural anthropologist. It may sound like a resonant sentence to the progressive forces seeking change in American society. However, the conservatives who tried to resist change also tried to change the world with the same logic as in the quote, and the success is on the way again in 2022 after 2008. Among the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States over the past 20 years, what would be the ruling that fulfilled the aspirations of the conservatives in the United States? It can be called ‘DC v. Heller’ of June 2008. It was the first ruling to interpret the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as guaranteeing the arming of individuals with firearms. A political movement started in 1968 by a minority of the National Rifle Association (NRA) to prevent President Lyndon Johnson’s gun control movement came to fruition 40 years later. The conservatives in the US have another long-standing aspiration. This is to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed women’s right to abortion. It seems that the political movement that the Christian conservatives started in the 1960s and 1970s when they organized the National Right to Life Committee will soon end up overturning the Roe v. Wade ruling. The political process from the grassroots organization of conservatives in the United States to the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the right to abortion and the right to arms is very similar. First of all, conservative positions in the United States on the right to abortion and the right to arms have always been in the minority. According to a poll conducted by Professors Steven Jessie (University of Texas-Austin), Neil Mahotra (Stanford University), and Maya Sen (Harvard University), 62% of respondents said that Roe v. Wade should not be reversed (see Figure 1). ). More than half of US Democrats and independents oppose the repeal of the Law v. Wade ruling, and 41% of Republican supporters oppose its repeal. Public opinion regarding gun control is similar. Gallup in the United States has asked whether gun controls since 1990 should be tightened at current levels, should remain the same, or should be weakened (see Figure 2). The public opinion that gun control should be further strengthened has always occupied more than half of the past 30 years, except in 2008-2014. Although public opinion supporting the abolition of the right to abortion and the protection of the right to arm a gun was small, it was politically successful. What is the second commonality between the right to abort pregnancy and the right to arm a firearm? The point is that they chose ‘culture and identity’ as a way to gain political victory despite the minority opinion. Professor Matthew Lacomb (Barnard University) analyzed the NRA’s comments in his book Firepower: How the NRA Politicized Gun Owners. As a result, 80% of the commentary focused on shaping the identity of the gun owner. Identity is formed through a positive attitude toward the group to which one belongs and a negative attitude toward the other group. The NRA emphasized that ‘the exercise of the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment (the possession of firearms) is truly American’. He also emphasized the importance of gun ownership to reduce crime and fight the government. The opposing groups that unite the group ‘we’ are politicians, media and lawyers. They were defined as enemies trying to usurp sacred rights. The opposition to the right to abortion was a strong opposition movement. In the 1960s and 1970s, conservative forces united to oppose the civil rights movement and the progressive social movement in the United States represented by feminism. It is a well-known fact that conservative churches emphasized Christian identity and produced single-issue voters who voted only on abortion issues. No matter how liberal public opinion prevails, there is another object to which the conservatives have politically mobilized their identity. It’s a reaction against educated urban women, especially feminists. Using data from the 2020 American National Election Study, we analyzed the relationship between feelings about feminists and public opinion about abortion. Look at

. The horizontal axis measured the emotional temperature for feminists on a scale of 0-100. Higher values ​​are more positive for feminists and lower values ​​are more negative. The vertical axis is attitude toward abortion. The percentage agreeing to the two most conservative options, ‘absolutely opposed to abortion’ and ‘only allowed for extremely exceptional reasons such as rape and incest’. Only 35.4% of all respondents agreed with these two options. However, dividing this into feelings toward feminists reveals that the two variables are closely related. For feminists, 63.6% of those with an emotional temperature of 0-25 and 50.3% of those with a temperature of 25-50 had a conservative attitude toward abortion. The third commonality between the right to abort pregnancy and the right to arms is the strategy of the conservatives. Conservatives have focused their efforts on making change through the Supreme Court rather than legislation through Congress. It is difficult to legislate minority opinion in Congress. However, the Supreme Court of the United States is made up of only nine members, and since they serve for life, they are less sensitive to public opinion than Congress and the President. No matter how liberal public opinion prevails by ’60 to 40′, it is a different story if the conservatives prevail by ‘6 to 3’ at the Supreme Court of the United States. The strategy of mobilizing the identity of the conservatives and concentrating on the Supreme Court was a great success. According to the research by Professor Jesse, Mahotra, and Sen, introduced earlier, from 2021 when Justice Barrett was newly appointed, the ideological index of the US Supreme Court began to diverge significantly from that of the American public. By 2020, the Supreme Court’s Ideology Index was similar to the average of the American public, but in 2021 it was similar to the average of Republican supporters. The effect of the conservative judgment is considerable. The case of DC v. Heller (Guaranteed Gun Arming of Individuals) illustrates this well. The Second Amendment received great public attention after the June 2008 judgment in DC v. Heller. Interestingly, whenever there is a gun debate, the Second Amendment discussion naturally follows. We analyzed how often Google searches for the Second Amendment.
shows this well. If there is a mass shooting since 2008, the number of searches for the Amendment increases accordingly. In particular, the increase in search volume following school shootings is more pronounced. The number of incidents at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, and Rob Elementary School in May of this year is striking. In the end, if a mass shooting occurred after the DC v. Heller decision, gun control advocates and proponents alike would have no choice but to argue over the Second Amendment. The Founding Fathers of the United States focused on preventing ‘tyranny of the majority’ when designing the Constitution. According to this principle, the US Constitution emphasized checks and balances, and introduced a system such as the Electoral College. These institutional designs have contributed greatly to protecting the rights of minorities. It was also a key principle for the coexistence of people of various racial and religious backgrounds. However, over time, it also revealed the problem of overrepresentation of the minority. The project on the right to abort pregnancy and the right to arm the conservatives is a good example of this. Republicans have only won one national vote in a presidential election in the past 30 years. Nonetheless, thanks to the institutional design of the Electoral College and the Supreme Court, Conservatives have a 6 to 3 lead in the Supreme Court and are more likely to overrepresent the minority opinion in the future. What to do with the majority who are not represented by that much share? Should the massacre victims and women who will lose the right to get pregnant in the future stay still? In the United States, legislation that reflects the majority voice is slow, and they are still planning new change strategies. You will be preparing to relive the adage that only “a small group of thoughtful and dedicated citizens” can change the world.

ssn-general