Since it’s already a partisan political issue, it’s a bit late for that.
But let’s assume for the moment that, as a scene out of a heroic novel or play, Our Heroes in the House decide that there is no price too high to pay for the principle involved.
Really? Are you prepared to write off your own life, those of all of your family, all of your acquaintences, maybe a few hundred thousand others? Washington hardball isn’t Joe Biden’s game of fast pitch followed by beers together in the clubhouse. That “hundred thousand lives” is a fraction of the cost of a bad call in Washington 15 years ago. It’s also in the ballpark for John Roberts’ decision to hand the Medicaid expansion to Republican politicians in Red States – who, like the North Carolina legislature yesterday showed their own priorities by voting to override the veto of defunding the expansion in NC despite the fact that it would actually increase State spending and cost lives in NC.
Fortunately you and I aren’t making that call. But never forget, those are the real-life stakes.
I remember Vietnam. I lost classmates in Vietnam, and only the luck of the draw kept me from being in that hellhole. Currently, as a matter of policy preference, we are choosing to throw more lives than the USA lost in that war away every couple of years, and they aren’t soldiers. They’re children and other civilians. Give Republicans another four years in control of the Senate and White House and your demonstration of the importance of the rule of law will be at best a footnote in history when we have a 7-2 Federalist Society Supreme Court and similar proportions throughout the judiciary, along with a total green light to go full-throated with vote suppression, outright disenfranchisement, North Carolina style gerrymandering, and whatever else may be cooked up. Which, if it wasn’t already clear, would mean a nearly perfect right-wing lock on the Senate as well.
The Rule of Law is cold comfort when you have lost any effective say on the law.
