After the suspense of waiting for Trump's Primetime Pick, we now know who it is. It's Neil Gorsuch. Nice guy Neil. Just because he was picked by Trump doesn't mean he'll be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Neil Gorsuch is slightly more conservative than Antonin Scalia, the justice he would replace. But he is also being appointed much earlier in his career. If appointed he would be the youngest supreme court justice on the court. Gorsuch believes in strict interpretations of the constitution. He thinks that slaves should be legal. I'm only kidding. I'm a budding comedian. Gorsuch wouldn't like me that much. He would support me if I were a non-budding comedian. Enough of that, he also believes human life is intrinsically valuable. He stands firmly against assisted suicide and is not keen on abortion. On abortion, some like Nanci Pelosi, see his positions as being "hostile towards women's rights."
But for all you depressed demmies out there, there is some hope. America is not lost. If appointed, he'll eventually shift to the left. Wait?
What? Yes maybe you already know this, but I just learned this today so I must muse about it. Hard-right conservative justices tend to mellow out as their time on the court increases.
A picture tells a thousand words, a graph tells ... more
This graphic comes from FiveThirtyEight.com
Looking a little deeper, according to FiveThirtyEight, there are a number of factors that cause this. I've narrowed the list down for easier consumption.
Justices want to be good justices and because science. SCOTUS justices don't want to be remembered as bad justices. Conservative views in the court often get bad press and go down in the books as bad decisions. Some examples of unpopular decisions include the Dredd-Scott decision, Plessy V. Ferguson, Burwell V. Hobby Lobby.
They want to have friends. All of the friendly get-togethers around the D.C. area features some of the finest Democrats in the USA. “Justices may be subject to influences by the Beltway cocktail scene and want to be perceived as reasonable and moderate,” according to a Supreme Court Scholar. So what you're saying Mr. Supreme Court Scholar Sir is that they change their identities and personalities to have friends.
Finally, because science, ala Michael Scott. Should have had dredds, catch my drift. Studies have shown that as we age we become more liberal. This liberal-ness can be associated with our increase in acceptance of non-traditonal values like gay marriage, etc. But I'd imagine this changes from generation to generation. Perhaps after another generation everyone will have such a personalized non-traditional identities that people begin to become more conservative as they age.
The other interesting thing is that the average weight of the Supreme Court comes out a little bit left of center. Maybe if anything the appointment of Gorsuch would make the court more fair. Maybe?
I think you could have a career as a budding comedian, no joke. Also, I found that graph you shared extremely interesting. I never recognized the slow movement to the left over our lifetimes. It seems to contrast with the stereotype of old people stubbornly holding on to a certain set of values of how things are done. Anyways, this was a super interesting post. Keep the jokes coming!
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