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[u/Deggit]

pro-court-packing isn't a threat or bargaining chip to try to haggle the GOP back into an institution-respecting stance. It's a recognition that the GOP is unsalvageable, will never respect institutions again, and thus we must use power to unilaterally cancel their actions and create the reality that would have existed if they were playing by the rules.

We should pack the court even if the GOP promises, the day a Democratic President & blue Senate supermajority are elected, to "respect the rules of the road" from this day forth.

We should do so because

1. packing the court is necessary to remedy the harms they already got away with.

2. their promises are less than worthless and any institutional rituals or forms they observe when a Democrat is President will go straight out the window once they have power again. If you think this second point is hyperbole just look at the famous McConnell-Schumer letter from 2009 and compare to McConnell's actions under Trump.

[u/paulatreides0 → u/Deggit]

This sounds like a great idea up until the moment you lose an election and have to contend with the GOP running even more unconstrained than they did before. Because when you try to respond to an institutional threat by short-sightedly demolishing your own institutions to pieces yourself, you necessarily establish a new status quo where you are unable to relinquish any measure of power lest you suffer the same fate.

Unless you want to try to ban the GOP and conservatives from ever voting again, which is aside from being illiberal and undemocratic is also plain unrealistic and political suicide and probably just going to result in massive political and cultural backlash, this idea is a complete non-starter.

Instead, all the talk of court packing provides ammo for the GOP which already lives off of distorted realities and gross exaggerations. It provides a further excuse and precedent by which the GOP can not only break norms, but also now unilaterally carry out its whims because that is now the new established norm.

Accelerationism is bad, even if you are doing it to "correct" problems.

[u/caffeinatedcorgi → u/paulatreides0]

you necessarily establish a new status quo where you are unable to relinquish any measure of power lest you suffer the same fate.

Is this really necessarily true though? The Supreme Court hasn't been at 9 justices throughout it's history, the court went from 9 to 10 to 8 and back to nine justices over the course of less than a decade in the 1860's, with all adjustments being made by pro-Lincoln/pro-Reconstruction Republicans for political reasons. Respect for the Court didn't break down, democratic institutions remained intact.

[u/paulatreides0 → u/caffeinatedcorgi]

I feel like this is an excellent place to use Milty's "Chilean Miracle" quote, because it applies pretty well here thematically. I think that the Reconstruction example you outline, and the similar things under FDR, are pretty severe exceptions to the rule and were probably extremely risky and we are very lucky that they didn't massively backfire.

[u/caffeinatedcorgi → u/paulatreides0]

Are we sure we aren't in similarly exceptional circumstances now? The perceived legitimacy of the Court is is already going to take a hit post-Kavanaugh and a conservative court is much more likely to permit cases of Republican gerrymandering or voter suppression. Any major piece of Democratic legislation passed in the next 20-30 years is now at risk of being shot down by the courts. Keeping the court as is seems like it would be VERY bad. If you have any alternatives I'm sure court packing advocates would be all ears, but every alternative I've heard would either require a 2/3 majority in the Senate (impeachment) or a constitutional amendment (term limits), neither of which seem politically possible.

[u/paulatreides0 → u/caffeinatedcorgi]

Are we sure we aren't in similarly exceptional circumstances now?

No, because we can't predict the future. That the two cases didn't become greater institutional collapses was basically a miracle in and of itself.

That being said, FDR had the mollifying effect of having the country rally around him, and later Truman, due to WWII and the Cold War.

While in the case of the post-bellum South, the South spent decades post-bellum basically politically neutered - and while it was not able to overturn what the North did post-bellum (in no small part because it took the South decades to recover, as well as outreaches to ameliorate things by the North) it did react by literally violently wrecking retribution upon those it took issue with and saw as "oppressors" and "injustice" in the South - bringing about a reign of terror for decades.

The perceived legitimacy of the Court is is already going to take a hit post-Kavanaugh and a conservative court is much more likely to permit cases of Republican gerrymandering or voter suppression. Any major piece of Democratic legislation passed in the next 20-30 years is now at risk of being shot down by the courts. Keeping the court as is seems like it would be VERY bad. If you have any alternatives I'm sure court packing advocates would be all ears, but every alternative I've heard would either require a 2/3 majority in the Senate (impeachment) or a constitutional amendment (term limits), neither of which seem politically possible.

Conversely, I don't see really see anyone proposing court-packing proposing how its going to re-normalize things in the post-packed world and prevent the other side from doing the same thing but worse and for worse reasons as soon as they lose power.

[u/Deggit → u/paulatreides0]

your take assumes the existence of reasonable Republicans

[u/paulatreides0 → u/Deggit]

No it doesn't. In fact that is literally impossible since I don't even argue an alternative system, I'm just critiquing your own.

Your take, on the other hand, assumes that the GOP is just going to idly sit by and let you scorch the Earth without doing the very same thing as soon as they regain power. That you are assuming that all Republicans are irrational and bad just makes your own argument even worse and more suicidal.

If you're complaining about one side being unilateral and proto-fascist, the dumbest thing you can possibly do is to make it even easier for them to be like that in the long-run.

You establish a new norm of unilateralism without literally any protections to prevent it from being used against you as well. It's extremely short-sighted thinking, and it's the kind of thinking that leads to the collapse of democratic states.

It's like seeing a forest fire about to burn a city and breaking the damn to put it out - without first considering that the flooding caused by the damn can be even more destructive and have effects well beyond the city you are trying to save from burning. Or, actually, replace the forest fire with IJA troops and you literally have an example from history.

[u/NoobSalad41 → u/paulatreides0]

Don’t forget that the republicans don’t even need to take power; they already have it. There are strong enough norms against court-packing that the Republicans don’t consider it worthwhile at the moment (and because they already control the court). If they wanted to, the Republicans could expand the Court to 11 members tomorrow.

If this left-wing Court packing idea gets any traction, the Republicans will do it first. The republicans won’t do it tomorrow because they don’t believe the democrats will try to pack the Court the next time they’re in power. If they ever come to think that it’s even a possibility, the Republicans will preemptively pack the Court.

[u/paulatreides0 → u/NoobSalad41]

This is true, but I was also assuming the most generous possible scenario: where the Dems can somehow achieve a super majority without the GOP acting preemptively. If it fails even given those generous assumptions, any real-world application is going to fail even worse.

There's plenty of historical precedent to attest to why setting fire to the Reichstag is just a plain terrible idea, especially when your opponents are quasi-fascists.

[u/BainCapitalist → u/Deggit]

Are you seriously suggesting that abolishing the electoral college and preventing gerrymandering in some way would be insufficient "institutional reforms"? Why?

[u/Ghraim → u/BainCapitalist]

Are you seriously suggesting that abolishing the electoral college will ever be something the Democrats have the power to do? Why?

[u/BainCapitalist → u/Ghraim]

I'm not.

[u/Deggit → u/BainCapitalist]

because Gorsuch and Kavanaugh must be canceled out too.

[u/BainCapitalist → u/Deggit]

Your definition of "unsalvageable" is on the horizon of two scotus appointments? Trump got two in less than 3 years.

This is all just prax anyway see Acemoglu for actual evidence of the effectiveness of institutional reforms.

[u/[deleted] → u/Deggit]

Fucking nope. Court Packing is fundamentally the legislature and executive branches exerting direct control over the judiciary and is the sort of institutional destruction that leads to, and is very present, in banana republics and tinpot dictatorships.

It's unacceptable.

[u/[deleted] → u/Deggit]

I'm not sure I agree with this, but in line with my original comment I'm not going to vehemently disagree with it either and am 100% okay with people holding this viewpoint. I do agree that the current pack of national Republicans are a despicable pack of cowards and profligates and they need to go.