MSNBC’s resident historian Michael Beschloss lost his mind as he reacted to the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade. On Friday’s installment of The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, he accused the Court of throwing acid in people’s faces, pushing the country towards an “almost civil war on the issue of abortion,” all because they can.
Ruhle was upset that the Court did not consult polling data before issuing its opinion when she asked, “you know who doesn't have to fight aggressively or get reelected? Supreme Court justices…So, when we keep hearing about how unpopular this is or how the Court is really losing the faith of the American people. Do these justices care? They’re on the bench for life and they got exactly what they wanted.”
Beschloss didn’t explicitly say no, but it was clear that is what his answer was. He began by accusing the Court of acting more like Donald Trump than George Washington, “You know, look at the tone of that decision today. George Washington would have said, if you've got power, like a five-person majority. You always exercise it with restraint. You always try to bind the country together. That seems to be what John Roberts was trying to do, which was to introduce a change in abortion rights and narrow them, but with this decision, it sounds like just Donald Trump.”
Nobody is foolish enough to believe that Beschloss and Ruhle would have been satisfied if all the Court had done was uphold the Mississippi law, because Beschloss proved incapable of forming a legal argument, “This decision was intended to throw scalding acid into the face of people who feel strongly about abortion rights. It was intended to shock.”
Beschloss then claimed that big reversals need big majorities. Using Brown v. Board of Education as his reference point, he declared, “You have to do it with language that’s general, introduce justice with mercy. And so as a result, that was an overwhelming majority for Brown v. Board of Education, helped that social change to be accepted. But what this was, did this morning, I think, pushed our beloved, bleeding country in the direction of almost civil war over the issue of abortion.”
As a historian, Beschloss should know better to ignore the blowback Brown got from southern Democrats like Orval Faubus. Intellectual honesty aside, Beschloss continued, “One day after it made another decision on gun safety. This is not a Supreme Court trying to heal, this is a Supreme Court of a radical majority. Essentially saying, look at how much power we have even though we are about a third in terms of the country in terms of sharing our views. We’re going to just shove it in your face.”
And by shoving it in your face, he means that Democrats will now have to do what Republicans have had to do since 1973: convince voters.
This segment was sponsored by Otezla.
Here is a transcript for the June 24 show:
MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle
6/24/2022
11:42 PM ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Michael, you know who doesn't have to fight aggressively or get reelected? Supreme Court justices.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Right, right.
RUHLE: So, when we keep hearing about how unpopular this is or how the Court is really losing the faith of the American people. Do these justices care? They’re on the bench for life and they got exactly what they wanted.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: That's exactly it, that's the central question here. You know, look at the tone of that decision today. George Washington would have said, if you've got power, like a five-person majority. You always exercise it with restraint. You always try to bind the country together. That seems to be what John Roberts was trying to do, which was to introduce a change in abortion rights and narrow them, but with this decision, it sounds like just Donald Trump. This decision was intended to throw scalding acid into the face of people who feel strongly about abortion rights. It was intended to shock.
Compare that to, for instance, the decision on Brown v. Board of Education, 1954. Saying that you couldn’t do separate but equal anymore, you couldn’t have a segregated society. Earl Warren said privately as he was talking to justices, you know, this is going to be a big social change to say that the government is now saying there has to be integration. You can't do that with a 5-to-4 majority. You have to do it with language that’s general, introduce justice with mercy.
And so as a result, that was an overwhelming majority for Brown v. Board of Education, helped that social change to be accepted. But what this was, did this morning, I think, pushed our beloved, bleeding country in the direction of almost civil war over the issue of abortion. One day after it made another decision on gun safety. This is not a Supreme Court trying to heal, this is a Supreme Court of a radical majority. Essentially saying, look at how much power we have even though we are about a third in terms of the country in terms of sharing our views. We’re going to just shove it in your face.
