Government

A State Of The Union, Of Sorts

Turns out democracy dies in people repeatedly saying existential threats are no big deal.

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President Biden Arrives Back At The White House

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

While President Biden has been present for over 30 State of the Union addresses, he will be giving his first Presidential one next month. To ensure that he doesn’t go off the cuff and authenticity check Black people again, I’m sure that he (and his staff) will give extended thought to the points he will need to address to make Joe Manchin happy.

And while February is only a month away, today is the anniversary of our failed coup d’etat. I figure now is just as good a time as any to do a wellness check on the state of our democracy. Consider my hot takes on the public’s overwhelming doubt in major branches of the government a primer for topics I would like to see discussed at the Congressional podium.

The Judiciary

Despite their lip service ranging from that goofy moment Amy Coney Barrett waxed poetic about the Supreme Court being impartial at a Mitch McConnell honoring ceremony or Chief Justice Roberts’s recent finger wagging at lower judicial behavior, Supreme Court justices are not doing an adequate job of recognizing the need to assuage concerns about their neutrality. And this is bigger than abysmal SCOTUS approval rating polls. The turtles go all the way down. People learned that judges are doing insider trading. Or that slurs just kind of roll off some of their sedated tongues. Or that they’ve been imprisoning Black children for decades over nonexistent crimes. We are in the middle of a damned rule of law crisis. And while it increases the gravitas Con Law professors have to approach students with when they answer a final exam question with “It Depends,” a politicized Supreme Court letting 50 years of jurisprudence death rattle in a shadow docket is so bad, I worry that addressing it with snark will draw attention from how big a break in good faith and legal norms it was. It’s just been really bad optics all around for gavel wielders and the folks who are tasked with writing about them. It would be great to use the State of the Union to address the new trends in legal (mis)behavior and attempt to reset norms. Anything better than that crappy SCOTUS commission that was more costly and less productive than well-meaning venture capitalists hyped up on energy drinks and their parents’ money spitballing ideas for a new NFT LLP.

The Executive

Seriously, it’s 2022. Why are Nazi police officers still a thing? And how long are we going to just ask for their resignations (read: not getting fired) when an assistant police chief does clear Nazi stuff? What this cop actually did is worse than the article lets on — no worries though, Twitter is a thing.

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Oh, and like the whole gassing civilians who protested police brutality. It’s like that scene where Lafayette coaches Jason on how to get high on vampire blood. But with like, police brutality. Wait, just in. Biden is actually trying to EXPAND qualified immunity.

It is as if someone in the room suggested, “Hey, remember that Merrick Garland guy? Since he’s Attorney General now, maybe we can let him loose to start cracking down on §1983 violations!” and everyone else responded by making them even harder to effectively litigate.

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The Legislative

In all honesty, I’m not too sure on what Biden can do here. With the right running on a platform of “Let’s move righter” and Democrats moving running on “Hey, at least we aren’t them!” the obvious has happened. Elections boil down between a lesser of two evils pick of a right-leaning Republican or a Democrat trying to grab at moderates and independents, which makes the middle cede right. And when it comes down to it, which do you think the President will care more about — the fault in our representative model or sitting tight and assessing until midterm elections? It can be tricky to remember with the accusations of Biden and Co. capitulating to SJW dictates, but don’t forget — communist socialist anarchists (because no one seems to know what these words mean anymore) are not in the office. Biden was VP to a war president, Kamala was a top cop who thought officers shouldn’t wear body cameras (not that cameras stop cops getting caught killing people, but they have generally reduced officers’ use of force ), and dude just okayed a $778B military budget while his staff laughed at the suggestion the government could just fund COVID testing for everyone (like all the other countries have). Maybe he could show his hand for the policies he and the party actually stand for, rather than more faux BLM solidarity photo-ops and police re-entrenchment.

None of this screams “progressive,” let alone Marxist. The Democratic party’s identity crisis has been foretold for years now and they need to get their shit together if we want to make it out of a rule of law crisis where banning knowledge is trendy. The ideological conflict over presidential candidates is trickling down into state and local elections — federal and state legislatures and judiciaries are being impacted accordingly.

My hopes are not high but I would be happy to be wrong. Maybe Biden + Co. will provide a robust and comprehensive plan of action that, unlike the COVID stipend they ran on, they will actually keep.

While we are watching, other nations will be trying to figure out if our democracy is collapsing in real time. Just don’t play a drinking game where you take a sip of beer each time he redirects to how good the economy is doing. By February, we will likely have a new strain of COVID and the hospitals won’t be able to treat your acute alcohol poisoning.

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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