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A reminder that the right-wing legal movement that has groomed Amy Coney Barrett and managed her ascent to the Supreme Court has a much broader agenda than overturning the Affordable Care Act and Roe v. Wade. A thread. 1/15
The most immediate threat, along with the election itself: Trump admin is coming before SCOTUS next week asking it to do away with the Affordable Care Act, stripping health care coverage from millions of Americans in the midst of a pandemic. 2/15
Trump’s religious-right supporters are intensely focused on overturning Roe v. Wade. Some anti-abortion hard-liners believe God anointed Barrett to serve on the Supreme Court and end abortion in the U.S. 3/15 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dominionists-say-god-has-anointed-amy-coney-barrett-for-the-supreme-court/">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/domi...
The religious right is also counting on Barrett to help them overturn the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision in Obergefell, stripping same-sex couples and their families of legal recognition and protection. 4/15 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/amy-coney-barrett-puts-reversal-of-marriage-equality-clearly-within-sight-says-anti-equality-national-organization-for-marriage/">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/amy-...
But Obamacare, Roe, and Obergefell are just for starters. Federalist Society ideologues and their allies in the Republican Party want a right-wing Supreme Court to pull the constitutional rug out from under the New Deal and Great Society. 5/15
In other words, they want a judiciary dominated by the kind of right-wing judges Trump and McConnell have been jamming into lifetime judgeships to shred the social safety net by drastically limiting the authority of the federal government. 6/15 https://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/how-trump-judges-are-trying-to-repeal-the-new-deal/">https://www.pfaw.org/blog-post...
When Trump took office and basically outsourced judicial vetting to the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, right-wing strategists started licking their chops over the chance to reverse a century of what they see as federal overreach. 7/15
In 2017, after Trump named Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a White House aide enthusiastically told religious-right activists that getting a second nominee would let Trump create “epic, titanic shifts.” 8/15 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-and-gorsuch-have-the-right-wing-thinking-big-really-big/">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trum...
At the same event, a McConnell aide said right-wing justices could “fundamentally change the country” by undoing New Deal and Great Society programs created when Democrats had wide congressional majorities. 9/15
Trump judges have already unleashed a wave of harmful rulings and opinions on a huge range of issues, as documented by People For the American Way’s “Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” project. 10/15 https://confirmedfears.com/ ">https://confirmedfears.com/">...
Btw, every time you hear a Republican whining about potential “court-packing” by Democrats, remember that McConnell and his aides publicly gloat and joke about how they slow-walked Obama nominees to create vacancies for Trump. 11/15 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-on-capitol-hill-right-wing-politics-as-spiritual-warfare-obedience-to-god/">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reli...
Dismantling much of what the federal government does to address poverty and access to education and health care is a long-term project, reflected in a bit of Federalist Society dark humor: “Rome wasn’t burned in a day.” 12/15 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/a-trumped-up-judiciary-threatens-social-security-medicare-and-the-rest-of-the-20th-century-social-safety-net/">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/a-tr...
They’ve been at this for a long time: Here’s a People For the American Way Foundation report from 18 years ago on the Federalist Society’s founding, funding and growth: 13/15 https://www.pfaw.org/report/the-federalist-society-from-obscurity-to-power/">https://www.pfaw.org/report/th...
And in case Trump fails to get a second term, and Democrats are able to blunt the impact of his judicial nominations, right-wing activists have other strategies up their sleeve for rewriting the Constitution and reversing a century of progress 14/15 https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/10/16/will-corporations-the-christian-right-and-the-tea-party-get-to-rewrite-the-constitution">https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/10/1...
It& #39;s a sad and enraging day. Let& #39;s use our anger as motivation to do everything we can over the next week to get Trump out of the White House and Republicans out of the Senate majority. 15/15
BONUS: Clarence Thomas will reportedly administer the oath to Barrett at the White House tonight. Barrett will be a powerful ally in Thomas& #39;s efforts to remake constitutional law https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/a-quiet-army-in-himself-trump-judges-are-giving-clarence-thomas-the-judicial-troops-to-remake-constitutional-law/">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/a-qu...
BONUS 2: @jackmjenkins on Amy Coney Barrett& #39;s likely use of "religious liberty" as a de-regulatory force that would undermine the Establishment Clause, nondiscrimination law, and more https://religionnews.com/2020/10/22/what-putting-amy-coney-barrett-on-the-supreme-court-could-mean-for-religious-liberty/">https://religionnews.com/2020/10/2...
