Culture Friday - A Supreme spectacle

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, January 28th, 2022. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

MONTAGE: "When exactly I should retire ..." // Justice Stephen Breyer's plan to retire // after nearly three decades // the end of an era // for 27 years Justice Stephen Breyer // Stephen Breyer's expected to retire // the Supreme Court Justice the most senior member of the liberal wing // the court's most senior liberal Justice Stephen Breyer made the decision that was widely expected // Justice Stephen Breyer's surprise decision to leave the Supreme Court // Democrats do not want to waste any time // with the midterms coming and a razor thin majority in the Senate // "We want to get this done as soon as possible" // and his departure will give President Biden his first chance to nominate a justice to the high court. // "I'm looking forward to making sure there's a black woman on the Supreme Court to make sure every representation ..."

Well, it’s Culture Friday. Time now to welcome John Stonestreet. He’s the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning!

EICHER: Well all the sudden we’re back in the thick of judicial nominations for the Supreme Court with Justice Breyer’s announcement—this widely expected surprise decision, as we heard.

STONESTREET: Well, you know, there had been predictions and, of course, they were politically motivated that if he's going to do it, he's either going to do it this term or the next term and do it this term, because we're secure in terms of who's going to make the replacement nomination and also, of course, having the Senate majority to get it pushed through. So it really doesn't change anything in terms of the balance. And it actually goes back and underscores, I think two things. First is how important the Trump nominations to the Supreme Court and to the courts at large will prove to be historically. This falls into the elections have consequences category. And so here we are, with a brand new Supreme Court, which makes this retirement announcement really interesting, but also in the long run - and I don't want to say non consequential because obviously it is - but it's just a different thing than what people would have predicted just three or four years ago. The other thing, though, that I'll say is that the courts are clearly the center of the culture wars. And that tells you a couple things. Number one, obviously they really matter. But number two is courts don't change cultural opinion. Sometimes they reflect it, oftentimes they reflect it. But if you win by the court, you die by the court. And so a long term cultural strategy, when it comes to social issues that Christians do and should care about requires more than just putting all of our eggs in the Supreme Court basket, the courts will let us down. And it's not a long term win. It also says a lot about kind of the health of our system of checks and balances of a republic, when that much weight is given to one of the branches of the government. And we know that President Biden has appointed all the justices he could, and this is the first Supreme Court nomination that he's going to be able to get. But in the lower courts, he's been very active. So any attempt by people who care about conservative values to kind of say, well, we won, you know, past tense, because of what the last administration did is missing that now this strategy, which was highly effective for the Republicans are is also being employed by the Democrats. And so it is interesting here to see where this is, where this is headed. I think it'll be another contentious nomination, but it'll be a lot more show than substance, because of the way the balance is. But it does point to how important the courts are. And that says something more deep about who we are as a nation, and how we're making decisions to move forward on controversial issues.

EICHER: Oh, listen, if you think about contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, I think you have to go back to 1987.

For modern times, that’s when everything changed—and I remember this pretty vividly—the year I got married, was a low-level congressional staffer, President Reagan nominated Robert Bork and the man’s last name became a verb—to “bork,” that is to savage a nominee, smear the nominee with modern political oppo research and all the rest.

But here's the ironic thing: the famous Bork hearings, the first “borking” happened in the Senate Judiciary Committee—the chairman none other than, remember? Senator Joseph Robinette Biden. And now he’s president three and a half decades later.

STONESTREET: Well, you know, this is the thing is if anyone thinks that the Republicans or Mitch McConnell invented the hardball strategy at least goes back that far. And each side squeals when the other one does it. I don't think it's healthy. I don't think it actually suggests that we're having, you know, anything resembling a coherent debate. But it's a circus. And you're right to point out the circus goes back decades now. And each side squeals when the other one does it.

BROWN: So hey, John, as, as you've said, the ideological balance of the court is not changing. But this might be an opportunity for President Biden to make good on his pledge to nominate a black woman. And, you know, his ratings, yeah, he's not, you know, doing all that well, in terms of his approval rating. Do you think this will help him in some way?

STONESTREET: I don't think it'll help him. I mean, the Supreme Court nominations, I don't think, help Democratic politicians as much as it helps Republican politicians. And that has to do with who is in the ideological minority. And who is in the ideological majority. I just don't think it will. But it will be interesting to see if he follows through with this promise. I'm even tempted to speculate—and this has nothing to do with the worldview—but whether this will be something he sees as a way to solve his running mate problem that he has, but I'll just leave that at that.

EICHER: The vice president would certainly make for a lively—

STONESTREET: —can I say that out loud, is that a problem?

EICHER: Well, we’ve certainly heard the same theory.

We’ll just direct emails to “j-stonestreet” … no, seriously …

Seriously, though, you made the point that, you know, the one side does it, the other side squeals about it, and vice versa, depending upon who's in control. But isn't there a real opportunity when you have a Supreme Court nomination to have a discussion about the meaning and role of the Constitution, the rule of law, those good worldview questions? With Trump, you had Neil Gorsuch. You had Brett Kavanaugh, you had Amy Coney Barrett and that hearing, in particular, was so interesting. It wasn't as contentious as it had been.

It could happen that way. It could play out that way. But you'll have, I imagine, a real contrast in worldviews on display, we can hope not a “borking.” Isn't that a positive thing?

STONESTREET: Yeah, I think that's a good point, Nick, I think we did see that actually, even from a handful of Senators. I look back to the last couple of Supreme Court nominee hearings. And you did have some really interesting conversation, if you could hear it, if you could get past the noise, about what is the court? What is the court supposed to do about what is the nature of precedent and stare decisis. And these are really important thing, because again, if you like the, the way, the ruling is then a the courts job is to never overturn precedent, if you don't like the decision, then they're courageous, you know, in the same way that you know, those who overturned some of the racist policies and racist laws, where it's not hard to see, I think among all the different activities of government officials, particularly senators, it's this is where you see the most kind of blatant political posturing is in these sorts of nominations and these sorts of hearings. So you got to get past the noise in order to get there. But there is such an important constitutional debate that needs to be had, there clearly is a way that these things can educate the public. You know, I think of Ben Sasse, and some others who have used these kinds of platforms in which to try to educate the public. I'm all for that, let's have a real conversation, as opposed to the kind of the faux outrage, walk out of the room, you know, refuse to whatever, but you do got to get past an awful lot of noise to be able to hear that. And maybe that's one of the jobs that we can have is to find the conversations that matter and amplify them for the rest of the country.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks, John.

STONESTREET: Thanks so much.

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