Postscripts, Fall 2022

The Election, the Court, and the Climate

Photo by Carolina Grabowska on Pixels.

I talk with Political Skeptics (August)

My young skeptic friend voted; in turn, I stopped talking agonizing over midterms, stopped talking and reading about the odds, the implications, etc. I rejoiced in Michigan’s “blue wave,” sighed in relief at the red ripple.

But 2022’s results will last just two years; 2024 is already a live topic. We have too many elections too frequently, but nothing can be done about that. So instead of speculating about the next one, I‘m looking for a way to promote structural –i.e., permanent -- change. The State Compact seems to be moribund in Michigan, but ranked choice voting may have a chance.

SCOTUS: Don’t Get Mad . . . (September and October)

After six weeks of writing, of sorting out my thoughts, I finally understood this Court’s central failure: not ideology, neither personal preference nor partisanship, but hubris: ignoring stare decisis (respect for precedent).

To see the centrality of precedent, imagine that Dobbs had been decided sixty years ago, before Roe, before Griswold, before any mention of privacy in Court decisions. We would have been disappointed, of course, but not outraged.

The Court has for more than 200 years given meaning to the abstract Constitutional principles by deciding particular cases in an always changing context. This Court claims the wholesale right to start over. Since our founding, according to David Cole, only Antonin Scalia, and occasionally John Roberts, have claimed such a right. It’s not just the substance of these decisions that are damaging the country; more profoundly, it’s the undermining of what Constitutional law has meant.

More to think about:

• Oliver Wendell Holmes ­­observed in 1881, “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.”

• Again, the court is not partisan, as that word is usually used. It denied a Trump request this October, as it had last January. 

• An interesting parallel: The Michigan State University Board of Trustees created yet another mess this fall. We can try to get rid of – vote out – those who did it. Better though, is structural change. Make the position appointed rather than elected. Voters rarely notice whether a candidate knows anything about the university or the job.

College Admissions: A Modest Proposal (July)

The Supreme Court will almost certainly bar race-consciousness from admissions decisions. Using a lottery at some point becomes a still more useful possibility .

The Court will use a claim Roberts often makes: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” There’s certainly some truth to this; using race reinscribes lines of difference. On the other hand, in the long term, it also helps dissolve them. The issue is complicated.

So, what do we do?  Find other means to work toward justice. For instance:

• Pour energy and resources into improving elementary and secondary education in poorer districts. Finland did it, and now house hunters don’t choose by school district; each is excellent. Tennessee did something similar.

• Privilege first generation college applicants, (or those from impoverished families).  Race-conscious policies often help those who are already relatively well off.

And, most basically, work toward restructuring the Court itself: term limits and staggered appointments especially.

Subtraction and Saving the World (August)

He was buying a car, and interested in good mileage, to save money. I added, more than once, “and to reduce emissions.“ A few days later he heard, from a self-proclaimed expert, that— having passed the tipping point — we were now all going to die anyway. The planet would soon be uninhabitable.

So he turned to me. “You’re my only friend who talks about climate a lot.” (His exact words were “all the time,” but I stand by my translation.) Yeah. I know. I wish more would join me. Especially abou flying and driving less. At the individual level they’re our most substantial contribution to the climate crisis.

But the issue is personal, and challenging. One friend’s grandchildren are thousands of miles away; another’s frail parents live in another state. Still another, 63, has never left the country. I’ve had my share: 25 countries on five continents. So on that topic, I’m becoming quiet.

As always, real solutions lie with public policy, in this case, better public transportation.

For my suddenly spooked friend:

• Things are already, and irrevocably, desperate. Consider Iraq and all the Middle East

• We are not doomed. Things will be bad — that’s settled — but how bad is up to us. Some real if modest progress has been made.

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Coming Next:

Origin Stories, Mine and My Country’s

And maybe later:

• On Having Been Catholic

• Aging in Cyberland

• “Unborn Children”

• Pain: in theology, in health care