New Orleans      When it comes to the rightwing ideological crew, the US Supreme Court is living in their front pocket.  Anytime a couple of attorneys general from the deep reds get a wild hair and decide to take a shot at making law before the courts, there always seem to be some justices that are ready to hear the case.  More than hear it, there are six of them ready to throw every decision and precedent from the last fifty years out the window and pretzel themselves into shape and try to rationalize some semblance of something to justify their votes.  We’ve seen that over and over again as the Trump appointees engage in payback for their lifetime sinecures.

The list is getting longer.  First, they tried to shelve abortion to put women in their place again as breeders first, and people later.  More recently, we have seen them reject affirmative action that considers race as one of many factors used in college admissions.  Seems some institutions were dangerously trying to diversify their student bodies, especially in the elite, born-on-third-base schools.  The Court can’t have elite bastions of privilege a little less rarified, so enough of that.  As if that’s not enough said on the subject, the runny-nosed working class and lower income strivers that also wanted to get an education, but had to go into big time debt to make it happen and are walking around with tens of thousands of dollars of weight on their shoulders now, won’t be allowed the break being offered by President Biden.  The Court majority wants to keep them barefooted and out in the yard weighed down by debt, rather than letting them try to get up the ladder and closer to folks like themselves.   EPA has been trying to make sure we have clean air and safe, pure water, but what the heck, we can’t have even simple things, so the Court, having come from their ivy towers and now ensconced behind their marble pillars, doesn’t say that we don’t deserve nice things, just that we might not deserve to live.   The Wall Street Journal, the Republican Attorneys General, and the hardcore Trumpers are all applauding these great “victories.”

What the Court and its peanut gallery are failing to follow in this rush to politicize every decision is that for every victory they hand their overlords among their donor friends and political sponsors, they also hand the other side huge and potentially powerful campaign issues.  When they help the rich and privileged, the bankers and corporates, they might be forgetting that there are great masses of people who they are hurting.  All of them don’t vote, but many do.  In fact, too many to suppress, which is another problem for their crew.  Take away women’s right to choose, and they vote against you en masse.   Take away affirmative action, and harden the block of Black and Hispanic voters against you.  Refuse to allow working class students’ debt relief and make admissions class-based and bring the working families back as voters in the Democratic column.

Actions are met with reactions.  Bad news is still bad news, but even an unaccountable Court and its fan clubs may find voters still have the last word, at least until this court figures out a way to take that from them as well.