June 26, 2022

Progressives Turn Up the Heat on Biden to Do Literally Anything About the Supreme Court

Alternatives to “please vote”.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

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In the face of disaster—because that’s exactly what the overturning of Roe is for countless families, caretakers, future generations, all of us—President Biden seems to have his hands tied. The looming battle ahead, he believes, will fall on voters to fight. “You can have the final word,” the president told Americans in a somber address on Friday. “This is not over.”

But for many of us watching, Biden’s attempt to galvanize amid tragedy had something of an opposite effect. It felt demoralizing. After all, Roe and reproductive rights were on the ballot the last go-around, and this is where we’ve landed—and that’s with (albeit extremely slim) control of Congress. So when Biden, along with Democratic leaders, claims that Roe is on the ballot this November, I’ve got to wonder, is it really?

For me, what is on the ballot will largely depend on how far this White House will be willing to go amid an unprecedented attack that foretells a bigger war on so much else. Lacking filibuster-proof votes in the Senate, the president has already signaled that his executive options are highly constrained. But in the exceedingly rare chance that he changes his mind, here are some neat ideas he could take on, from his fellow Dems, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren who kicked off the Sunday morning news circuit with a booming call to expand the Supreme Court.

“I believe we need to get some confidence back in our court, and that means we need more justices on the United States Supreme Court,” Warren told ABC News. “It’s happened before, we’ve done it before. We need to do it again.”

It looks like a bunch of other popular Democrats want the same thing.

Okay. Biden has expressly rejected that one. What about the filibuster? Could it finally be time to ditch the senatorial tool in order to codify Roe? Doesn’t look like it to Joe. But for a growing number of Democrats, the urgency of the moment has well and truly arrived.

In the coming months, we’ll see if Biden is willing to go beyond “please vote.” 

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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