Letters: Impact of SCOTUS rulings; ‘Unprecedented mobilization’ needed to preserve democracy
Impact of SCOTUS rulings
There is now little hope excepting that citizens of this land will wake up and overwhelmingly defend democracy. Anything less could be ”a blood bath” if Trump loses. If he wins with his nature we will have a repressive dictatorship — please look up “narcissism” and “cult of personality” in Wikipedia!
With the latest ruling, the Supreme Court judges (those that have had an agenda for decades) are allowing the president to become a king (above the law), as long as he does it through official channels. He can literally order Seal Team Six to murder a rival, and anyone else who has the temerity to disagree with him. In examining whether his order is legal, the courts are now not allowed to include any inter-governmental communications into evidence, nor examine motive. How convenient!
Along with this ruling is another ruling delegitimizing all governing agency decisions and their expertise. Climate change and the EPA be damned, let the world go over the brink all for the sake of short-term profits. Trump will have to pay back big oil anyway.
Civil rights will be damned. Women and non-white races will be twice damned. Millions of productive and innocent immigrants deported. Trump if he gets in office can direct agencies of the executive to do anything, and it appears his hand selected Supreme Court members will facilitate all of this.
Our only other hope is if New York state will put him in jail for a decade.
Doug Keith, State College
‘Unprecedented mobilization’ needed to preserve democracy
Last week, the Supreme Court dealt a deathblow to the ability of federal agencies to regulate, among other crucial things, labor standards in the United States. It followed a ruling in which the Court weakened the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to protect workers from employer retaliation against union organizing.
This week’s ruling that the president enjoys immunity from prosecution for “official acts” is a nail in the coffin of American democracy: but only if we allow it to be.
The stakes are larger than any one individual, and go beyond any candidate. We need an unprecedented mobilization — one focused on broad coalitions, not wagon-circling and gatekeeping — to stop a far right takeover of the American federal government. In France, left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire and centrist Ensemble are working together to stop the threat of a fascist Rassemblement National government. They recognize the stakes. So should we.
If we fail to do so, the democratic rights of working people, to say nothing of their workplace rights, are in immediate danger.
But now more than ever, we can’t believe that the threat is averted if working people win at the ballot box. We still face an out-of-control federal judiciary, defiant of any checks on their power, bent on destroying democratic and civil rights, and creating a nation tailor made for the corporate elite.
Winning at the ballot box won’t be the end of the fight for democracy. It’ll be the beginning.
Connor Lewis, State College is President of Seven Mountains AFL-CIO.
Trump has done enough damage
Trump became a one-term president, not because the election was stolen, but because Americans were tired of dealing with the destructiveness, cruelty, and chaos of his historically dishonest and narcissistic administration.
Over 60 court cases, many before judges appointed by Trump or other Republican presidents, concluded that a stolen election was just one of the 30,573 documented lies told by Trump while in office.
Trump took us out of the Paris Climate Accord, contributing to record-high temperatures, monster tornadoes, uncontrollable wildfires and catastrophic flooding.
He lied about the seriousness and dangers of COVID, mocking the recommendations of dedicated health professionals, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of countless Americans.
Trump’s trashing of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, while disparaging our NATO allies, served to embolden bad actors such as Hamas and Vladimir Putin, leaving the United States involved in two wars.
A grotesquely unethical Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with ultra-conservative sycophants, believes machine guns are OK, but a woman’s ability to exercise reproductive freedom is not.
The historic bipartisan immigration bill, which gave conservative Republicans virtually everything they ever wanted to secure our southern border, was derailed by Trump because he didn’t want to lose a desperately needed campaign issue.
With a record like his, why on earth would any reasonable person want to this twice-impeached, four-time-indicted, one-term president, convicted of 34 felonies, motivated purely by self-interest, vengeance, and ego, to return to office?
He’s already done more than enough damage to our nation, our democracy, and our world.
George Polycranos, Port Matilda
