News this week that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy plans to retire this summer was met initially in newsrooms with shock and gasps.
Now that there’s been time for the story to sink in, and members of the press have had more than minutes to contemplate that President Trump will again fill a Supreme Court vacancy with a justice of his choosing, the story is being treated by news media with a sort of existential dread normally reserved for end-times preachers.
The Huffington Post, for example, ran the headline Friday “LAST HOPE: FLOOD THE COURT?” with an accompanying article arguing that Democrats must someday pack the Supreme Court by adding to the number of justices and appointing new leftist activists.
“Democrats can’t get their ends ― a decent society of mutual respect and shared prosperity ― by ignoring the means of power,” the piece claimed. “Playing nice with fascist enablers in Washington will not stop fascism.”
Earlier than that, on Thursday, the same website displayed a wire clothes hanger on its front page, a clear allusion to the widespread fear that Kennedy’s retirement will lead to the overturning of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion. One thing this retirement has definitely made clear is that journalists in the U.S. do not reflect the national mix of opinion about abortion and, indeed, mostly seem to think that abortion on demand and without restriction is a sacrament and the most important pillar of American life.
This comes after the Huffington Post also ran the words “CODE RED” and “DARKEST HOUR” on its front page.
MSNBC legal analyst Midwin Charles also argued Thursday that, “Abortion is not the only issue that conservatives are itching to dismantle.”
“If you are LGBTQ,” she said, “if you are a person of color, if you are a woman — so basically if you are not a straight, white male in America, right now, you are probably freaking out.” (It’s worth noting in conjunction with this appeal to gender identity politics that that polls on public opinion about abortion at least have consistently shown for decades that women and men don’t diverge outside the margin of error in their opinions on the subject. Men tend to be slightly more pro-choice.)
HuffPost and Charles are joined in their fear by the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin, who is telling anyone who will listen that Kennedy’s retirement absolutely means abortion will soon be outlawed in most of the country.
“You are going to see 20 states banning abortion outright — just banning abortion. … Roe v. Wade is doomed. It’s gone, because Donald Trump won the election,” he said on CNN.
At the New York Daily News Thursday morning, the message was similar, if not more concise. The paper’s front page headline read simply, “WE ARE F*#%’D.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement, giving President Trump the chance to appoint a second judge. https://t.co/bYil5UUR4O
An early look at Thursday’s front… pic.twitter.com/sMqbfavkXY
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) June 27, 2018
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews warned elsewhere that, “This is going to be the fight of the century. I think it’s going to be almost like Spanish Civil War stuff. You watch the next few months.”
Then there’s NBC Think, which published the University of Washington’s Scott Lemieux, who argued Thursday that Kennedy’s retirement “cements his legacy as an enabler of Trump’s pro-business, racist, anti-woman agenda.”
Even disgraced former anchor Dan Rather, the OG of fake news, got in on the white-knuckling act, tweeting, “Justice Kennedy retiring… If you are deeply disturbed, absorb the shock. But respond with even more determination. If you see this as a fight for the future of democracy, let those in power know that the will of the majority can still hold sway.”
Again, if you think this stuff is a bit over-the-top, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Wait until Trump actually nominates someone to fill the vacancy.
