The Supreme Court has made harmful decisions, after harmful decisions, and nobody can do anything about it. As things are now, the Supreme Court is too powerful for America to remain a democracy. They have unilaterally taken away the rights of women, made college even more inaccessible, and so much more.
The American people can’t hold this group of nine people accountable like they could hold a politician accountable in theory. Nine people shouldn’t hold the fates of 330 million every time they make a decision. The Supreme Court is an undemocratic institution that must be abolished as soon as possible.
Supreme Pain
The Supreme Court is a group of nine individuals usually appointed by presidents that have legal jurisdiction over every American. They can wholly unilaterally reverse or amend laws. They giveth and they taketh away. Outside of the president himself, they are the nine most powerful people in American politics. They can decide to take away one’s human rights, or they can decide to tax billionaires.
“The abortion bans that have taken effect since June 2022 have inflicted harm on Black, Latino, Indigenous, and other communities of color — communities where systemic racism has long blocked access to opportunity and health care,” according to Planned Parenthood.
Yet, recently after the Republican party secured a five against four, majority in the Supreme Court, only bad things have happened. SCOTUS has too much impact on the American people. The solution can’t be to make sure there are more liberal justices than conservatives. The Supreme Court is too anti-democratic for a democracy. The human rights of Americans shouldn’t be in the hands of nine unelected people.
Supremely Unaccountable
The Supreme Court is composed of nine people, who are elected by the president. The thing about this process is that the position of president is slightly undemocratic as well. Within American politics exists something called the electoral college.
People are chosen to vote on behalf of the population they represent, and then those electoral college votes elect the president.
Along with the electoral votes, there is the popular vote. This is the vote that includes the general populace. When one votes in an election, they vote in the popular vote. Unfortunately, a president can be elected without the consent of the American population.
In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and therefore the consent of the American citizen, however, Donald Trump won the electoral vote securing the presidency. This process makes the democratic foundations of the president unstable. The point of all of this is to say that if the American people don’t have a real choice in who the president is, then they don’t have a real choice in what the Supreme Court looks like.
The Supreme Court can’t be held accountable by the American people, which makes them an inherently undemocratic institution. The idea of democracy, the consent of the governed, is being violated by the Supreme Court.
What’s the Point of the Supreme Court
If the Supreme Court is so harmful to democracy and the American population at large, why is it still here? One may conclude that the Supreme Court exists so that the privileged and the wealthy always have power in American politics.
The current Supreme Court has five men out of nine people and has primarily white people. Along with these, none of them belong to the working class. These are positions of extreme privilege. The Supreme Court can inflict its will, biases, and ideas over all of America. “The Supreme Court should be a body that is independent and insulated from partisanship. Instead, it has become a battleground for political infighting,” according to Brookings Institute.
Age Bias
On top of all of this, all the members of the Supreme Court are over the age of 50, which is a very old age to be when having complete authority over an entire nation.
A few of the justices on the supreme court are over 70 years old, like Justice Thomas. This extreme age status places the justices in positions where they cannot see the perspective of younger generations.
Someone who is 72, may not care about climate change the same way a person who is 22 will. The 72-year-old may not live to see the world burn, but that 22-year-old might have to raise their children on an uninhabitable planet. The Supreme Court must be abolished so that democracy may live.
Written by Kenneth Mazerat
Sources
Planned Parenthood Action: Roe v. Wade Overturned: How the Supreme Court Let Politicians Outlaw Abortion
Second Rate Democracy: The Electoral College: A Peculiar and Undemocratic Tradition
Brookings: Term limits—a way to tackle the Supreme Court’s crisis of legitimacy by Norman Eisen, Sasha Matsuki
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Tom Thai’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inset Image Courtesy of Thomas Hawk’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Second Inset Image Courtesy of Stetson University’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
