So...Mitch McConnell's brazen move to deny Obama the opportunity to put Merrick Garland on the bench has no yielded quite a few decisions that will role back various progressive efforts and concerns. They have decided that the Muslim ban isn't a Muslim ban. Anthony Kennedy's reasoning, in particular, is a stretch.
They have also, in this session, allowed various gerrymanders to stand. And struck down a California effort to regulate "crisis pregnancy centers."
I do believe that Trump loses his re-election bid. He's historically unpopular in terms of the intensity of the opposition to his presidency. But the Democrats' inability to control Congress is a structural problem that will require massive electoral wins in those contests in 2018 and 2020. Being able to control redistricting in 2010 has paid massive dividends for the Republicans, especially in insulating them from public pressure.
During the first Gilded Age, the court was a bastion of anti-reform tendencies, striking down minimum wage and working conditions laws, child labor laws, neutering the 14th amendment and watering down anti-trust laws. Legislatures were able to overcome that eventually, but the damage that conservative ideolgues in black robes are doing to efforts to make a more just and compassionate America are real.
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