Recent Supreme Court Nomination & The Most Recent 2020 Presidential Debate

There are three tiers for the federal court system. The lowest being the U.S. District Courts, the second tier is the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the third and highest tier is The United States Supreme Court. There is only one Supreme Court that exists in the United states, under Article 111, Section 2 of the constitution, it states that there is only one national Supreme Court. Within The Supreme Court there is one chief justice and eight associate justices, therefore in total there are 9 justices. When The Supreme Court reviews cases they do not usually hear evidence, rather they go over the written record of a case. Attorneys can present oral arguments before the justices being "a conference" where they discuss the case privately. The opinion of the Court is usually written by the chief justice if they are a part of the majority decision; a majority decision is established during the conference and is made up of 5 justices in favor. The Court's decision is written and may conclude concurring opinions or it may include dissenting opinions; the dissenting opinions however do not change the majority decision made during the conference. The Supreme Court Justices are recommended by many people (other judges, state political leaders, senators etc), however the president is the one that considers the recommendations and chooses the person that will be reviewed by The Senate to be approved. Historically presidents choose someone that favors their beliefs in order to leave behind a trace of “why” they were voted into office in the first place. Ruth Ginsberg, a supreme court justice, passed away as of last week. The presidential elections have already begun, however our current president Trump has already selected someone to be considered. Ginsberg was the second woman to be appointed to The Court and served for 27 years. She has done a lot of remarkable service over her time and including launches a Women’s Rights Projects. It is not customary to nominate a justice during an election regardless of this, Trump is nominating Amy Barret. She is a social conservative and stands on a lot of issues the exact opposite of how Ginsberg did. Barret is a danger to all women seeking equality and protection of their individual rights. For example, she wants to Roe v. Wade case, in which the Supreme Court’s ruling protecting a woman’s right to get an abortion. Many can say this is not a surprise that this is Trump’s choice as a justice because he is known for disrespecting women constantly. From his words and actions, it is easy to assume Trump does not want to encourage progressive women or allow the current movement for women’s rights to continue. The reason her being in The Court is bigger than just a conservative view. If she were able to create a national law, it would be used in the future as a precedent. I saw a quote this week how Ginsberg opened doors for other women to walk through, including women like Barret, and Barret is going to close all those doors behind her for future women. I agree with this, and think her presence in The Court will be detrimental towards future generations of women. Another hot topic of the week was the presidential debate. I was able to watch the recording and prior to watching it myself, it was impossible to ignore the recaps and memes that flooded social media shortly after it was over. I wish I could say I was dismayed, but I was not. Trump not only acted as if the rules of a political debate didn’t apply to him, he steam rolled the whole debate. It felt like a joke and it was selfish, the point of the debate from my understanding is for voters to understand both candidates' stances on important topics. I felt like it was hard to hear stances as a voter because of the gaslighting and personal attacks that went on throughout the debate. I can say Trump showed a lot of true colors, attacking Biden’s son, not being able to say white supremacy is an issue or say he is against it (when he told people to stand by it felt like a threat of civil war) and it’s ironic he made fun of Biden for wearing a mask so much and then tested positive for Covid-19 the next day. My biggest concern about Trump is he doesn’t believe he needs to serve according to the rules, that he uses psychological manipulation on the stand and doesn’t have any sense of remorse. It is already known that Trump is on good terms with tyrants like Putin and Kim Jung-un; to me it truly looks like he wants to follow their lead and is a danger to the American quest for freedom. I do not believe Trump has any intention to protect citizen’s rights or any human right because he does not feel his could ever be taken away regardless of how his choices affect others. The theme of the debate to me was unfiltered disregard for America’s people and ego to be invincible. Anyone that views the role of being a leader of people as a self serving title rather than a service position is a danger to society.