Trump didn’t win the popular vote in 2016. He didn’t win re-election in 2020. But when you’re a star, they let you do it.

Realistically when the attempted coup happened everyone he ever appointed should have been removed from office as well.

Indeed. It's insane that after all Trump did to burn down our government, his 3 cringey lifetime SCOTUS appointees will get to stay and influence core matters of state for the next several decades.

1. The only formal mechanism to remove them would be impeachment, which the Republican Party has shown zero interest in - naturally, as they're delivering exactly the results the GOP wants. Heck, the GOP wouldn't even impeach *Trump himself*, immediately after Jan. 6, and he had blood on his hands.

2. Another remedy that's been discussed, but also has no chance of passing in the current political environment, is "packing the court" by adding more justices (FDR's threat) or by reforming SCOTUS in some other way. 18-year term limits, for instance, would bring regularity, predictability, and democratic responsiveness to the changing out of these hugely consequential roles.

We're still not out of options, though. Consider these guerrilla tactics:

3a. Federal retaliation against states that are hell-bent on undermining women's rights. Defunding revenue sources, cancelling projects, relocating field offices to friendlier states - those sorts of things.

3b. Blue states pursuing "nullification," i.e. passing laws that directly contravene SCOTUS decisions, and continue doing business as usual when they're inevitably stricken down. New York may already be doing some version of this on gun control. SCOTUS has no real authority, other than persuasive authority, to enforce its own decisions. To the extent their decisions reflect Republican insanity, the Biden Administration won't do it for them.

3c. "Unpacking the court." Taking a chisel to SCOTUS's authority. Congress stripping SCOTUS of appellate jurisdiction to hear certain cases, which the Constitution explicitly allows Congress to do. As President, Biden could use his bully pulpit to state that this SCOTUS has gone renegade as a result of the 3 Trump appointees. That as far as the Biden Administration is concerned, their votes don't count - Roe v. Wade is still good law, and the Dobbs decision has no legal effect.

If Biden had a bit more of a progressive backbone, he could have done so. Instead, he pretty much wrung his hands in response to Dobbs and did nothing other than implore Democrats to keep voting. But if this right-wing SCOTUS continues on its warpath, then a future high-stakes confrontation with a more progressive Democratic President over some issue or another is inevitable.

Keep in mind that Biden is a catholic. He doesn't want the church to stop giving him their magic crackers.

I hope they're investigating Clarence Thomas and not just his wife. If he had more involvement in Jan 6 that could be grounds for removing him from the bench. I know, at least, Alito may have been involved as well but I'm not hearing much about SCOTUS in re to the insurrection past Mrs. Thomas' text messages.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_annulled_elections

Just pause to consider for a moment on how many levels our system of government is deeply flawed to produce the result of overturning Roe v. Wade.

1. Trump lost the 2016 election by 3 million votes. In any other country that calls itself a democracy, he would not have won the election and would not have been inaugurated.

2. By happenstance, Trump got the chance to appoint 3 SCOTUS justices in a mere 4 years, the last one confirmed to a lifetime appointment mere weeks before the 2020 election.

3. Trump lost the 2020 election — in a popular vote blowout of 7 million, which even the undemocratic Electoral College couldn’t save him from losing.

4. For the first time ever in American history, Trump *rejected* the clear and unambiguous election results, attempted to cling to power violently, and trashed the peaceful transfer of power.

5. President Biden was elected in 2020 on an explicit platform of protecting abortion rights. Not only that, but the incoming U.S. Senate and House were both Democratic and pro-abortion rights, as well.

6. Abortion rights remain broadly popular in 2022, with about 60% of Americans being “pro-choice.” This percentage hasn’t changed much at all in the past few decades. Most Americans were happy with the status quo remaining untouched. There is nothing in recent election results or polling that would justify a major shift in abortion policy.

7. In spite of all these reasons for caution, a bitterly divided 5-4 SCOTUS nevertheless overturned 49 years of its own precedent to greenlight the stripping away of abortion rights and access in a huge chunk of the country.

8. Despite being firmly pro-choice, the elected Democratic President and both chambers of Congress have basically no recourse to this.

Here in America, we’ve been conditioned to accept that SCOTUS does what it wants, and the rest of us suffer what we must. But to put it bluntly, this is not how it would work in any other functioning democracy in the world, period. The fog of our system’s design flaws must be nearly impossible to penetrate by international observers.

I believe “pro-life” policies will become even more unpopular in the light of day as the needlessly cruel outcomes they produce become impossible to disguise. I do believe “pro-life” will eventually fall to the democratic process the way Prohibition did 100 years ago. But in the meantime, so much needless suffering will be incurred by American women who didn’t ask for it.

I admit I was completely hypocritical about Roe. I was perfectly happy for SCOTUS to legislate from the bench because it was a right I supported. Now that abortion issues have been returned to the states, we will have to do it the right way. Some states have already added language to their constitution to enshrine reproductive rights. Amendments are the way to protect rights, and that is our task now.