Part One:
We speak with David Schultz, government professor at Hamline University, about the legacy of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This diminutive Jewish woman from Brooklyn accomplished a major transformation of American law as it relates to women’s rights. When Justice Ginsburg began her career – first as a litigator and then as a judge – the law said it was OK to treat women (“the fragile sex”) differently than men were treated. The presumption was that officials had acted appropriately unless the woman could prove intentional discrimination. By the time Ginsburg left the bench, the law required everybody to be treated equally. Classifications based upon sex or gender are presumptively unconstitutional.
In addition to her legal philosophy and brilliant mind, RBG brought a *humanness* to the Court, a perspective that looked at the issues through the eyes of the real people who were affected. She saw the *moral values* underlying all legal “cases”; they are not just about dry theorizing. And, as a woman, she brought a lived experience that the male justices simply “didn’t get.” RBG did not view equality to mean that we all have to be exactly the same. In her deeply human way, RBG’s equality meant that, no matter who we are, we should be free to be whoever we want to be, to aspire to whatever dreams we seek. No one should be able to block our dreams because of their own pigeonholes or stereotypes, their own view that our personal dreams are somehow inappropriate or impossible.
Now Mitch McConnell has enough votes in the Senate to confirm whomever Pres. Trump nominates to fill RBG’s seat on the Court. Amazingly, those Senators have committed their votes before Trump has even nominated anyone for the position! The Republican Senators aren’t even going through the charade of the confirmation process: examining a nominee’s qualifications, reviewing their prior judicial record, holding hearings to probe the integrity and judicial temperament of this person. It is heartbreaking to witness such politicization of our courts.
Schultz also offers a personal reflection about a small encounter he had with RBG, which demonstrates her kindness and her deep humanness, qualities which we will miss from the Court and from government leadership in general.
Finally, we discuss the fact that Minnesota is now perhaps the swing state that is most in play in Nov’s election. Both Trump and Biden campaigned in the state last week. Of course, the parties are fighting over the state’s 10 presidential electors –Biden’s chances of becoming president would be greatly diminished if he loses Minn. In addition, Minn has a very close race for US Senate. If Sen. Tina Smith loses her bid for reelection, it would be very difficult for the Dems to take control of the US Senate in 2021.
Why has Minnesota become such a key swing state? Minn has a high percentage of white working-class, non-college-educated people (similar to Penn, Mich, Wis), and those are voters who flipped to Trump in 2016. What will they be thinking this year?
Part Two:
We discuss foreign policy with Mel Goodman, professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. We begin with a look at Trump’s short speech at the United Nations. We’re not surprised that Trump said very little of substance and his words seemed to be viewed by the world as largely irrelevant. Of course, it is concerning and dangerous that the United States is so marginalized and far from the mainstream.
The US does play a major role as arms merchant to the world. We are the leading weapons dealer, and our success at arming the planet has created serious threats of catastrophic violence that could shake our planet for decades to come. From the point of view of the American economy (it’s not just Trump, folks!!), politicians are happy to brag about bringing “jobs” to their constituencies. But that makes them overly protective of our military-industrial-congressional complex (yes, that’s Eisenhower’s original language) and insufficiently supportive of creating jobs that might contribute to the social good – such as infrastructure and renewable energy.
We also discuss the Trump administration’s incoherent policy in the Middle East. The spinmeisters on Trump’s campaign staff talk about US-brokered “peace deals” between Israel and the UAE or Bahrain. But these aren’t peace deals so much as **business deals.** We’re selling weapons to these countries. To complicate matters further, Israel is saying it’s OK to sell these Arab nations weapons as long as they’re not the sophisticated weapons (like F-35s). Who knew that the US defense arrangement with Israel contains a provision that allows Israel to maintain a “qualitative military edge”?
Moreover, whatever economic benefits may flow from “normalizing” relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, Trump’s “deal of the century” does nothing even to address the very different conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people relating to the land that they share between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River (the former British Mandate). And that conflict is not going to disappear, no matter how much Trump fantasizes about “miracles.”
We also discuss the Pentagon’s clear view that climate change is a fundamental threat to our national security, and that American defense policy and budgeting must change to meet that threat. We have become a national security state but we haven’t adopted policies that well serve our national security interests.
