Portarossa

Portarossa t1_jedwfgl wrote

Reply to Should I read The Martian by Andy Weir even if I’ve already watch the movie and remember most plot points? by CaregiverBig7228

I'd probably just read Project Hail Mary to start with. It's very much the same tone with a fresh new plot.

If it works for you, then I'd go back and read The Martian. I enjoyed both, personally, but you might as well get the one that has plot twists (for you, having seen the movie) rather than the one where all the main beats are going to be familiar.

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Portarossa t1_iynquj5 wrote

Reply to comment by TheBrennanCenter in We're Tom Wolf,Eliza Sweren-Becker, and Ethan Herenstein. We work on democracy reform at the Brennan Center for Justice. Ask us anything about the Supreme Court’s upcoming case Moore v. Harper and the “independent state legislature” theory. by TheBrennanCenter

Respectfully, that really just sort of kicks the can down the road. (That's probably on me; I could have worded it better.) What is it that made these Justices suddenly so open to promoting this idea in their opinions? Have the Justices changed their views on it (or at least found it suddenly more 'acceptable' to start discussing it openly), or was it baked into the nomination of people like Alito, Thomas and Scalia (and now the new batch of Trump's nominated Justices)?

I guess what I'm really asking is how far back this goes. It's easy to view the modern GOP as just throwing any old shit at the wall to see what sticks, as long as it keeps them in power -- and I definitely think there's a strong case to be made for that -- but it also kind of feels like it's been seeded for a long time, and we're now seeing the direct result of that because the Trump administration fluked/scammed their way into three SCOTUS seats in four years. (I guess the parallel would be with the overturning of of Roe v. Wade, where it seemed to fall apart very quickly but there's also evidence that the GOP have been setting up their little chess pieces for a long time through things like the Federalist Society.)

When we're looking for a cause for this -- and with the understanding that situations are nuanced and events are very rarely caused by only one thing -- is it a 'modern' (post-2016) issue, or do we need to be looking a lot further back into history to get the context for this?

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Portarossa t1_iynote2 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in We're Tom Wolf,Eliza Sweren-Becker, and Ethan Herenstein. We work on democracy reform at the Brennan Center for Justice. Ask us anything about the Supreme Court’s upcoming case Moore v. Harper and the “independent state legislature” theory. by TheBrennanCenter

Are there legitimate criticisms to be made of the Democrats? Yes, absolutely. Is 'they do the same thing lol' in any way a meaningful comment that's built on anything except edgy grumbling, contrarianism, ignorance or some magical cocktail of the three? Not even close.

At least start paying attention if you want to be taken seriously.

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Portarossa t1_iynhdcj wrote

Reply to We're Tom Wolf,Eliza Sweren-Becker, and Ethan Herenstein. We work on democracy reform at the Brennan Center for Justice. Ask us anything about the Supreme Court’s upcoming case Moore v. Harper and the “independent state legislature” theory. by TheBrennanCenter

If you could pinpoint a moment in political history that led to this being treated as a serious threat to democracy rather than a fringe theory that no one really ever thought would come to pass, what would it be?

Where's the branch in the timeline that got us here?

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