Reality and the political reality of the courts
The U.S. Supreme Court seems out of touch with reality. It appears to be setting policy for a country that has been around for a long time. The agenda of its decisions is determined by ideology rather than practical issues. I suspect that many people who are ideologically opposed to abortion rights and other forms of freedom exercise these rights privately. When I was a PhD student in political science and public policy, one of the topics I was most interested in was the political agenda-setting process. I’m interested in the general focus on how it becomes a political issue, what makes some issues legitimate, and what makes others illegitimate. I am well aware that one way the power elite maintains power is by not making decisions – simply taking issues off the agenda and legitimizing them.Issues such as gay marriage and rights, gender and racial equality, drug legalization, contraception, and abortion reflect and reinforce 19th-century social and cultural realitiesth and early 20sth century America, unable to gain political agenda status. But American culture and society have changed, which has forced a change in political reality. Public policy is beginning to reflect this reality. But something has changed.U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v Wade And overturn New York City’s strict restrictions on concealed weapons, creating a new political reality far removed from social and cultural reality.
In authoritarian regimes, political realities can redefine cultural and social realities. In democracies, it is political reality that must give way to social needs. If Supreme Court theorists can somehow change America’s social and cultural reality, we’ll know if America is still a democracy. If political decisions could turn back time and right-wing extremists could re-impose their preferences on the resisting majority, we would know that majority rule is dead. I’m betting on the preservation of American democracy and the dominance of practical reality over the new political reality of the courts. Government is not the only center of power in American life. Institutions such as private companies and universities also exercise power. For example, Disney will pay for employees who need to perform family planning services, such as abortion, for travel that is not available in the state where they work. Other companies will do the same. State and local governments are moving in two directions: some toward radical courts, and others to ensure that political realities match social realities.
Some of the cultural and social realities of America have changed over the past century, and this has happened as a result of technological change. The invention of the contraceptive and the abortion pill is an example of this change. Automation, computers, mass media, and social media technologies have led to the growth of a brain-based economy and the decline of a muscle-based economy. This ultimately leads to gender disparities in the world of work and fewer demands for gender equality at work. Global travel and the global economy allowed some white Americans to witness the world’s racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity; the slow beginnings of racial integration in the U.S. military and the migration of African Americans northward provided opportunities for the fragile beginnings of racial integration in the United States.
Beginning in the second half of the 20th century and continuing today, these forces of globalization, technology and communication have transformed our culture and society in tangible ways. Everyone has gay friends and family who don’t keep their sexual preferences a secret. Interracial couples and more diverse social circles are common. The Proud Boys and similar white supremacist groups didn’t like it, but these trends couldn’t be stopped. Hitler tried unsuccessfully to establish a race-based regime. America will never be a white majority again. Our day-to-day experience with people of different races and cultural histories shows that all kinds of human beings have more in common than nothing. This experience is our reality, no matter how political efforts can keep people apart. The social nature of the human species will continue to lead to interracial and intercultural relationships and friendships. There are no walls or xenophobic policies to stop this. Traveling used to make it easy for us to socialize, so we hooked up. See how travel has resumed quickly as COVID fears ease and you’ll see evidence of our desire to engage with each other.
Birth control, abortion, surrogacy, the use of medical technology to achieve difficult births, and unconventional and intentional family structures cannot be stopped by courts, laws, and political action. These behaviors are common in America and accepted in our culture. For example, public opinion data shows that while most Americans support regulation of abortion, they also support women’s right to choose. Jan Wolfe, in Wall Street Journal About Clarence Thomas about Overthrowing Roe v Wade Note:
“When the Supreme Court quashed constitutional right to abortion, most justices focused on what they called a “gravely wrong” ruling that established that right in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Justice Clarence Thomas took a broader view.In his agreement with the majority, he wrote that if the legal basis of Roe v. Wade was wrong, then Basis for other rights Not listed in the constitutions recognized by the courts in recent decades. These include the right of married couples to use contraception, the right to same-sex love relationships, and, in 2015, the right to same-sex marriage. Justice Thomas’s position raises the prospect that new challenges to those rights will soon be quashed in abortion cases. “
This extreme ideological view is far removed from the actual cultural background that Americans experience.Efforts to regulate popular behavior and restore values ​​and culture may have been more common in the late 19th centuryth by the middle of 20 yearsth The century either fails or leads to political instability, which in turn affects America’s Economy Welfare. American companies find themselves sandwiched between employees and customers who hold dominant cultural values, while state governments — now the U.S. Supreme Court — are creating public policies that are out of touch with the reality they experience. Like Disney, they will create workarounds and ensure that anachronistic public policies are neutralized.
As cultural and social life in the United States continues to evolve, so does the political divide between red and blue states. That means some states will have policies that keep pace with evolving norms, while others won’t. I would be fascinated and surprised if teen abstinence rates in red states were different from blue states. People who are attracted to the cultural values ​​of red countries may migrate to those countries and those who are attracted to the values ​​of blue countries may migrate to blue countries, we will have two very different political systems controlling the country, and increasingly Dysfunctional policy agendas and political institutions in Washington. Some of these population movements are already underway. My point is that these cultural and social shifts are deeper than political ideology. Still, red states will allow businesses to operate without regulation, and due to anti-tax ideology, taxes will be too low to adequately fund public infrastructure whose revenue streams need to be subsidized and unsuitable for privatization. They will also be slower to develop modern, decarbonized and more efficient energy systems, and end up with more expensive and less reliable energy and transportation infrastructure.
This is not a new story. States like Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Arkansas are much poorer than states like California, New York, Florida and Texas. Economic history, geography, political culture, and leadership explain these differences. It will be interesting to see if the corporate power in Florida and Texas moderates the red state trend that these two states have begun to exhibit. If red-state governments ban gay marriage, contraception, racial equality and the teaching of true American history, they could find themselves so out of touch with American cultural and social norms that they struggle to attract people and businesses.
The point is that the process of political agenda setting and the political realities that follow cannot be divorced from economic, social and cultural forces. If the Supreme Court does not adapt to this reality, it will find its legitimacy and, ultimately, less power. Reality and political reality must eventually synchronize. If America’s political system fails to reflect social realities, the result will be political instability. Given modern disruptive technologies, such instability in a country as powerful as ours would have devastating global effects. I don’t believe we’re going to kill ourselves, so I have to believe that this radical court’s counter-strength will be able to curb the impact of its public policy.
