Who is left and who is right

Matt Yglesias offered one of his counterintuitive takes at his Slow Boring substack recently that that I found worth thinking about:

American politics has been shifting leftward for years. 

I know some people find that absurd. But imagine if [Republican House Speaker-in-waiting] Kevin McCarthy gave a speech this week where he said “after we retake the House this fall, we’re going to fight against wokeness by kicking gay soldiers out of the military and curb inflation by privatizing Social Security and cutting Medicaid and K-12 school funding.” That would be the best news the DCCC and DSCC have heard in years! But it would just mean McCarthy was reiterating his support for Paul Ryan’s policy ideas from 10 years ago. Meanwhile, Biden’s positions on virtually everything are at least a little bit to the left of Obama’s.

I think he is correct that Dems have moved left in many respects. 

This very broad coalition has to cover a lot of bases; we are a magnificent mix struggling to preserve a democracy in which citizen participation gives majorities some power. This coalition also struggles between and among its constituencies. This mystifies GOPers. Our internal battles look like "moving left" to a mono-cultural Republican party of old, white Christian nationalists. And they do move us somewhere new, in uneven fashion. 

But Matt's take is belied by what we saw in the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Republicans haven't moderated their most repressive aims; they merely expect to shift the battle away from the people to their packed court. At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern saw all too clear portents in the Republican grilling of the next Justice that, after decreeing that women are just vessels for fetuses, they hope the Court will come after the notion of a right to sexual privacy and individual choice, starting with gay marriage and moving on to contraception.

During Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings this week, GOP senators have, predictably, condemned Roe—but not as much as might be expected. Instead, many senators have turned their attention to a different precedent that’s likely next on their hit list once Roe likely falls this summer: Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision recognizing same-sex couples’ constitutional right to marry. 

Loathing for Obergefell emerged early on Tuesday, when Republican Sen. John Cornyn launched a frontal assault on the ruling, then sought Jackson’s reaction. He began by criticizing “substantive due process,” which holds that the “liberty” protected by the due process clause protects substantive rights, not just procedural ones. The Supreme Court has used this theory to enforce “unenumerated rights” that it deems fundamental, including the right to marry, raise children, use contraception, and terminate a pregnancy. Along with equal protection, it served as the basis of Obergefell. According to Cornyn, however, this doctrine is “just another form of judicial policymaking” that can be used “to justify basically any result.” 

... In case it wasn’t clear what these senators were up to, Cornyn made it explicit on Wednesday afternoon. “The Constitution doesn’t mention the word abortion,” he lectured Jackson, “just like it doesn’t mention the word marriage.” ...

Look for these attacks on the lives of us all to be labelled "protecting religious freedom." As a person who identifies with a religion, I am offended.

This packed Supreme Court will be an obstacle to human freedom -- and to the desires of majorities of us -- until it isn't. How that happens I don't know, but if we preserve democracy, it will happen.