September 21, 2020

By Thom Hartmann

Ruth Bader Ginsberg has died, and while everybody is focusing on abortion, the Supreme Court, if it falls into hard-core conservative hands, could do massive damage to the entire spectrum of life in America.

Ever since the 1930s, Republicans have been trying to either destroy or privatize Social Security, and a hard right conservative majority on the Court could make that happen.

Since the 1960s, Republicans have been yelling that Medicare and Medicaid are actually forms of socialism. While a conservative Court will almost certainly destroy Obamacare, it’s also likely to end Medicare and Medicaid.

In the early 1930s, the Supreme Court ruled that both minimum-wage laws and child labor laws were unconstitutional. Expect these to once again become issues.

Since the Reagan revolution, Republicans systematically torn apart our nation’s public schools, with the state of Michigan, where Betsy DeVos has been focusing her efforts, now about half privatized. With a conservative Court, we could even see the end of a functional public school system nationwide.

Are you concerned about how climate change is driving wildfires, massive flooding storms, and hurricanes? A conservative Supreme Court could rule that laws or policies to reduce carbon emissions are an unlawful violation of refiners and other fossil fuel companies rights to do business.

Expect, with a truly conservative court, to lose your right to be protected from being ripped off by your bank, insurance company, Internet service provider, and even your utilities (if they are for-profit corporations).

They could roll back the right of LGBTQ people to get married, and the right of labor unions to even exist, and endorse privatization of the Post Office.

All of these are positions that are currently held by various high profile conservative think tanks and movement leaders. They all reflect positions David Koch ran for vice president on in 1980, and that are now embraced by hard-core conservative Republicans, including some currently in Congress.

Conservatives don’t just want to take America back to the 1950s; they want to take us back to the 1920s. We all must encourage Democratic members of Congress to do everything possible to hold the line against Trump putting another radical right winger on the Supreme Court.

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of The Hidden History of the War on Voting and more than 30 other books in print. His most recent project is a science podcast called The Science Revolution. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.