As with most of what I write about American politics, I pass along American opinions about their own country and government. Most of those opinions are informed. Americans in America,
I think that this is the fundamental problem that we all now have the ability to create content and distribute it widely through algorithm-boosted online media. I don't find much "informed" opinion on the web. What I find is opinion backed by other opinions rather than fact. And its getting worse. It was once easy to identify biased opinion because it stood out from factual reporting. Now everything is opinion. And it comes from both sides so that all that you have in front of you are polar opposite opinions about the same issue. It's harder and harder to apply common sense when analysing these.
It surely does. It manifests mostly against whatever party controls the WH. Today, that is Republicans.
But that is the nature of things. It is only the party that is in power that can act in a way to affect the public's life. Some of those will be harmed, or think they are being harmed, by those actions and they will be the loudest critics.
Degrade its reputation enough, and it loses popular support.
That, IMHO, is why I think Trump is a danger to American democracy. His infantile and extreme tirades against anyone he feels is against him do resonate with a certain element of MAGA. That undermines whatever institution he targets. One's only hope is that those die-hard MAGA supporters never grow to being the nation's "popular support" but remain at a minority. Even a minority, if substantial, can be dangerous.
This is a matter of critical importance: courts have very little power to enforce their decisions, ultimately depending on the polity to deliver the message to politicians (the executive branch in particular) that they better respect the courts, or else.
Courts do have coercive powers beyond mere persuasion. Money judgements and jail are part of their arsenal. In one respect you are right though. In order to effect those punishments, the courts rely on entities controlled by the executive. If the executive simply drags it feet then those powers become meaningless. The problem here quite simply is that Trump is the first executive leader in the US who is prepared to test that type of inaction and has installed secretaries who are extremely loyal to him rather than the Constitution. And let me be clear, by Trump, I mean him and that small core of political advisors led by Stephen Miller who are the architects of this chaos.
If people see enough of what looks like partisan legal warfare, read opinions describing it as such, and then subsequently do indeed see the decisions slapped down by higher courts, sometimes in very strong terms, the collective reputation of all courts suffers.
Again, whether or not these decisions are partisan or not is very much in the eyes of the beholder. Frequently their views are clouded by their own partisanship. And, yes, within that group of beholders the reputation of the entire judiciary may suffer. IMHO, that is a consequence of a poorly educated and schooled populace who can't isolate one decision from the overarching nature of the benefits that a strong judicial system brings to a society. That's my complaint about MAGA - they barely understand first order effects of their positions, much less second or third.
