The Norms Respecters Have To Be Stopped

It was a week after the 2024 election, after the algorithms had convinced enough people that we lived in an apocalyptic hellscape that could only be solved by a sovereign in the form of a clownish former gameshow host, that I ensured Bad Faith Times subscribers the incoming regime wouldn’t be able to do anything they pledged to do. 

The Department of Education, I said with the confidence of a true moron, isn’t going anywhere. I said Elon Musk’s DOGE lark was nothing but a fancy, tech-heavy blue ribbon national debt commission run by the world’s foremost fascist. There was simply no way Tulsi Gabbard – a foreign agent by any definition – would be given control of the nation’s spy apparatus. 

Thanks to all those who support BFT. Consider subscribing for $3 or $5 a month, or leaving a tip!

“Unless the new administration plans to dissolve Congress or use military violence (or the threat of violence) to implement its changes to the federal government, there’s a lot of ballgame left before the Deathstar can be built,” I wrote. 

This is where you, chomping on a cigar behind the commissioner's desk, ask me to hand over my blogging badge and gun and tell me I'll never work in this town again. And that's fair.

My dooming knob was not turned up nearly far enough in those halcyon days following a catastrophic election that felt an awful lot like the Business Plot. The Trump regime functionally dissolved Congress on his first day in office when DOGE hackers, escorted by armed troops, stormed into federal agencies, fired people, canceled federal spending, and stole sensitive data for untold millions of American taxpayers. It was a coup, though we did not call it one. 

My Education Department prediction looks downright adorable in hindsight. 

“Sadly for the Big Boy, eliminating the Education Department would require congressional approval. That's not going to happen; members of Congress like keeping their jobs,” I said like a big fucking idiot. “Trump will damage the department as much as possible, naturally, but he can't unilaterally end it. This is not common knowledge. It needs to be. I'll be terribly wrong about this if the Trump people plan on ending the department by force. I suppose this is not outside the range of outcomes for an administration that is so openly hostile to democratic norms.”

The Supreme Court’s Bad Faith Is Going To Kill Us All

The right can invent alternate political realities to their blackened hearts’ content, but without judges to play their sly bad faith game, none of it matters. None of it has teeth. This is why the right wing for the better part of a half century has been singularly focused on

Bad Faith TimesDenny Carter

I should have listened to myself, and realized the Supreme Court – a captured institution undermining American democracy more than any other entity – would play Trump’s game in destroying the department. John Roberts this week gave Trump the green light to end the Education Department – one of the Court’s most flagrant anti-constitutional rulings in a series of anti-constitutional rulings. It doesn't matter that You Can't Do That.

And yet, through all this shockingly honest, in-your-face authoritarianism, all this ignoring of basic democratic principles that have held sway for centuries, there are folks on the left who believe Democrats should commit to norms-based governing and play by the rules that Republicans have so happily stuffed headfirst into the wood chipper. The blood and guts of our former political norms are flying around, we’re splashing in the gore of the norms, and well-meaning people are saying as earnestly as possible: We can fix this, we can put the norms back together if we just try hard enough. Hey look, there's an arm!

We already tried the Return To Norms thing. The Biden years were one long wish that American politics could normalize with a Washington lifer in charge of shit for a while. The plan was to try to make some progressive gains, get stymied by John Roberts at every turn, and never, ever lose another presidential election. It wasn't much of a plan.

This week I posted on Bluesky – which I've somehow done 19,000 times over two years – about the increasingly desperate need to expand the Supreme Court and neutralize the republic-killing power of the justices appointed to the Court to roll back the gains of the 20th century and transition the United States into a post-democracy phase. I said in my post that if a Democrat planned on saving the country by packing the Court, they should not publicize that plan on the campaign trail. It freaks out normies: Only 34 percent of Americans support Court-packing measures. A nine-seat SCOTUS is for some reason considered sacrosanct. So lie your ass off about it and pull the ripcord on Day One of your administration. 

I was immediately greeted, as I usually am, by good-natured liberals who pointed out how difficult it would be to add a handful of justices to the Court, and want their Democrats to be as explicitly as possible about their various policy goals – a major disadvantage in this, the Time of Vibes. 

These folks are saying the left should play by rules that no longer exist. They say we should not tie one hand behind our back, but two, while our opponents create evermore destructive brass knuckles in this one-sided fistfight.

My reaction to this reply was one of total confusion. You're still pretending there are rules to be followed? How can anyone believe that?

Yes, it would be quite the haul to name and vet and confirm three or four or five (it should be at least seven, to make it worth your while) justices to the highest court in the land. Unless, of course, a Democratic president said fuck it, we’re expanding the Court the quick way and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. 

Pack SCOTUS during a congressional recess; presidents have seated federal judges this way. Be underhanded. Be outright dishonest. Bury that shit in a budget bill somewhere and pass it and say, oh by the way, we have seven new Supremes and they’re going to undo every right-wing, anti-American ratfuck policy Roberts and Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito have put into place. And also, fuck you. 

For as much as liberals – and folks who are generally opposed to the disintegration of American democracy – want a Supreme Court that will unwind the fascist horror Roberts has wrought, they are (mostly) dismissing the idea of violating basic norms to make it happen. Ignoring norms, they say, is a Republican thing. We’re better than them. Meanwhile, they grip the political rulebook in their sweaty hands and point and say, no, don’t you see, dogs can’t dunk the basketball, as Air Bud skies over their heads over and over again. 

There Is No Law Anymore. There Is Only Power.

To refuse to wield power from the bench is to give up the fight against the right wing.

Bad Faith TimesDenny Carter

The past few years has seen slow but real momentum in elected Democrats finally accepting the idea that nothing can change as long as the far right has a death grip on the only institution that really matters. Back in May 2023, a bunch of House Democrats introduced a bill to expand the Court from nine to 13 justices (not enough!). The urgency of these congressional Dems was real. 

“The Court has descended into extremist politics, and we need to save this arrogant Court from itself. It has become too partisan, so that it no longer reflects the country as a whole. The path is clear – we must expand the Court to save our democracy,” said Representative Hank Johnson. Activists who supported the legislation acknowledged that the anti-democracy impetus of the radicalized Court had to be addressed before any progressive gains could be made. 

Activists have sounded the alarm too, trying their best to convince folks there is no other choice now but to reform an institution that has been hijacked by bad actors who hate the United States.  

“To address the injustice of stolen seats and broken trust, we must expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court and confirm fair-minded jurists committed to equal justice for all,” said Kimberly Humphrey, Legal Director of Alliance for Justice. “The current situation requires congressional intervention. Court expansion is not simply about a rebuff of bad decisions; it is necessary to restore fairness, integrity and respect for the rule of law at the pinnacle of our justice system. The nation's highest court has been captured and rigged by radical extremists that flaunt a commitment to their partisan agenda with extreme rulings departing from long-standing precedent and repeated inaction after several new bombshell allegations of ethics violations.”

Upstart Democrats running for Congress against entrenched lawmakers who seem utterly detached from the reality of our fascist moment have been clear about the importance of expanding and reforming the broken Supreme Court. That includes Bad Faith Times favorite Alex Rikleen, who said, quite accurately, that “Democrats who promise major initiatives but who won’t commit to court reform are telling fairy tales.”

This, you might point out, is all very norms based. That's true. I'm not convinced that's the best path to bringing back legitimacy to the deeply illegitimate Court. I point to congressional efforts to do something about the Court to show there is widespread recognition, finally, that there is no option in reforming SCOTUS. It has to be done, one way or another. My hope is that all avenues to accomplishing this – even the sneaky ones – are considered the next time pro-democracy forces have their hands on the levers of power, assuming those levers haven't been snapped off.

Liberals adamant about returning the country to Normsville refuse to see that Normsville was nuked a long time ago. There’s nothing left, just shadows scorched into the pavement of people who used to reside there and play by the same agreed-upon rules and regulations, some written, not unwritten, happily managing the empire. Norms are dead. Republicans killed them. There is no denying this. At least there shouldn't be. Stop trying to make norms happen.

Thinking beyond the restrictions of what used to be American political norms is part of the reason I've written speculative fiction about what might happen if democracy advocates used their imagination to defeat the fascism that has spread using the mechanisms of democracy itself. It's dangerously naive, I think, to rely on rules that have been blowtorched by the people in power today. We're going to have to get weird.

In no way is the current Supreme Court sustainable if the US is to beat back autocracy. The right's worst impulses have been approved and validated again and again by justices who have helped create an unreality in which far-right solutions are the only answer. All other issues pale in comparison to making the Court a legitimate, law-abiding institution again. It has mutated into an anti-democracy monstrosity only through norms-breaking, and it can only be molded into something viable through norms-breaking. The norms respecters have to stand down if we are to have any chance.

Follow Denny Carter on Bluesky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.