Five Old Men

Traditionally, American political parties have had a congressional wing and a political wing, often at odds with each other over priorities.  Now it appears the Republican Party has added a judicial wing, with only 5 members in it, but totally in harmony with the rest of the party.  Unfortunately, that constitutes a majority of the court, a legacy of the Gore/Bush decision.  And that could be the ruination of the rest of the country, for the “five old men” of this Supreme Court, like the “nine old men” of the 1930s Court, seem intent on wrecking any attempts at controlling the excesses of the radical conservatives.  Their decision today to give big money unlimited sway over elections is itself another nail in the coffin of the individual liberty they purport to defend.  Their solution to all the issues of our 21^st century world is to close their eyes and wish they were back in 1910 Kansas where all decisions were in the hands of wise old bankers and Rotarians.  And like their 1930s counterparts, the “five old men” seem divorced from understanding the actual lives of real people.  I’ve previously characterized that problem, in my post on Ernie’s Mannequin, as carrying around two centuries of archaic decisions like a dummy, believing the dummy is alive.

Franklin Roosevelt dealt with that problem in the 1930s by threatening to raise the membership of the Court until it was ”packed” with sufficient justices still in contact with reality to accept progress.  It was amazing how quickly some of the justices thought better of their prior positions.  That’s how the Social Security Act got accepted as constitutional.  Packing the Court is unrealistic today without prior Congressional reforms, but it surely is tempting.

It’s interesting that the “five old men” are, in fact, all men, while three of the four progressives on the Court are women.  The inclusion of women into positions of power has been a hallmark of progress throughout society in the last 50 years.  And the age of the justices means they lived much of their formative years in the era before that became a significant part of our lives.  Perhaps the “five old men” are a better portrayal of the world of “Madmen” than what’s on TV.

However the situation came to be as it is, it’s time for a change.  A court mired in the past, and fiercely defensive of it, cannot deal with the issues of the 21^st century.  Five old men cannot continue to deny progress to an increasingly restless and diverse citizenry without disaster.    The elections this autumn could be a major pivot point, forward or back.  This version of “Madmen” should get no reruns.