I can’t believe it. I honestly believe that the SC is fully corrupt and morally compromised. What is their angle?
Roberts, Barrett, and Gorsuch appear to actually stand up for federalism. They might actually think the postal rule is illegal because it usurps power reserved to the states.
Kavanaugh thinks the rule is probably legal, but it’s too close to the election to implement.
Alito and Thomas dissented. They think the rule should go into effect now.
They save him from the most blatantly, stupidly obvious unconstitutional things he tries to do so there’s a faint gossamer of legitimacy left on the 90% of his bullshit that they find some weak-ass excuse to let through. This makes it more likely that they can lock in and perpetuate the more systemic aspects of his grasping for power.
Plausible deniability.
Remember, trump only knows a ridiculous bully bulldozer negotiation style - “I’m suing you for 11 trillion dollars!!!”
That’s ridiculous, so it all goes on circular fighting for months/years, eventually they settle for $17 million in a “big loss” for trump when he shouldn’t have even had a penny in the first place.
In this case, the damage is already done at USPS and beyond.
- The predominate ballot machine company was just recently purchased by trump loyalists
- Biden was blocked on procedure but didn’t take extreme measures to remove dejoy from USPS or to halt or reverse the damage he did.
- Musk manipulated votes in multiple ways, he now has more money and more criminal liability this time around… So he’ll probably just sit this one out?
- flock cameras are watching you vote this time, scanning your face/plates, linked to a profile with your “estimated threat level” and deploying the limited number of brown shirts they have to most “efficient” areas where “they” are gathering based on flock cross referenced with exit polls and historical turnout for registered voters at a given polling place.
- ice agents may or may not disrupt polls directly, though the threat alone will keep many voters away. Though they may avoid direct voter intimidation beyond a couple early performative shows, they may just cause strategic disruptions NEAR real time targeted key polling places (see above point) and disrupt common car/bus travel routes
- all the above in coordination with news/media and social media companies owned and run by complicit oligarchs with incentive to tell the story the other fascists need told.
- and a now mature cult, pardoned from consequences of a prior failed coup, likely impatiently waiting for another story of national violence to help them unite as perceived victims or bask in the glow of a “victorious” violent act for “their team”.
So scotus does this with nothing to lose. Grandmas in Ohio then trust and defend the validity of voting and believe that checks and balances still in place to supervise an “overzealous” trump. They then refer back to this after the manipulated election to come - “Look! These liberals are never happy? The supreme court denied changes that we still should have had but didn’t need, and they still lost, while cheating, and they can’t accept it” and then broken scotus says your right actually and they rule the other way leading up to '28.
If we are still a country then.
The state of US democracy is dire.
Don’t despair yet, though. Orban was just as criminal as Trump and he was still voted out. People opposed showed up in such numbers that even his cheating couldn’t overcome the will of the voters.
Americans just need to understand the stakes (as you clearly do). Losing your job because you skipped work to vote is terrible, but still better than a liferime under Trump and his ilk.
They’ve not received their payment
They can get their powers removed if they sway the voting population too far against them.
In an ideal world perhaps, but that world is very far from us right now. They really don’t care what you or I think.
They want to give us the impression of a “big victory” so that we’ll forget about the Voting Rights Act overturning and all the last minute redistricting that is still in play.
i.e. they want this to be last big election ruling we remember so that we’ll all look back and say “wuh wuh I guess they won fair and square because we won that case so muh muh”
That … makes sense.
Oh well, lets all breath a big sigh of relief and… completely forget about the overturning of the VOTING RIGHTS ACT from a while back. They’re trying to steal an already rigged election.
This is a fig leaf for when the current fascist government refuses to seat the Democrats that win in November.
No matter how SCOTUS ruled, the plan was to claim any results that don’t benefit Trump are rigged.
The thing is, mail in ballots have historically helped Republicans. Lots of the mail-in voters are rural voters or older people who can’t make it to the polls, both of which lean heavily Republican.
But that was also part of the goal. They wanted to point out that so and so county was missing 40,000 votes and historically voted Republican, so the election must have been rigged, so they wouldn’t accept the results.
But now their story is gonna be that they were prevented from protecting Americans from the fraud, and that the election was rigged.
Either way they plan on contesting the election.
