Somehow I missed this Ganesh essay. It is a cliche a ridden exercise of a kind of defense of the American Republic, that was simply swallowed whole by the imperatives of the National Security State apparatus. The F.I.S.A. Court, the product of the political conformity, not to speak of the cowardice of Senator Church, passed in 1978.

F.I.S.A. was representative of a two tiered ‘Justice System’, the simulacrum of ‘Justice’. This betrayal of American Constitutionalism and the Bill of Rights, rendered the Republic a dead letter.  Should I call this the republican remainder or just window dressing ?  Secret evidence , indictments, trials, aided by secret National Security Letters, the tools of an utterly corrupt National Security State Apparatus: the utterly incompetent FBI, CIA, NSA, etc., are just further evidence of the political/ethical destruction of the Republic, and its central value of freedom, that comes into conflict with the ever expanding Empire, that has become a political/ethical pathology.

The crimes of American Imperialism almost begins in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine, although the genocide against Native Peoples and Slavery were the cornerstones of  that Republic. That Doctrine made the Western Hemisphere the protectorate of American violent paternalism.

Ignoring historical context of the expunged Republicanism,  Mr. Ganesh analysis operates on the most superficial level of the Nixon and Clinton cases. His essay’s celerity and argumentative coherence are apparent, but is lacking in historical depth. A strategy of obfuscation, that operates as an apologetic for an Empire. That is now being led by a Know-Nothing who captured the Electoral College, but lost the popular vote by four million votes.

Democracy, as the political singularity in Ganesh’ s essay has to contend with the reality of  ‘Shelby County v. Holder’ that eviscerated the ‘pre-clearance clause’ from the Voting Rights Act. The States that comprised The Solid South are no longer compelled to seek the approval of the Court, to any change in their voting laws. Those states controlled by Republicans steeped in Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy’ are the 21st Century’s  Dixiecrats.

The ‘Democracy’ that Ganesh celebrates is in fact, an idea and practice, under siege from the Neo-Confederate/ Originalists quartet on the Supreme Court. And their fellow traveler Anthony Kennedy, soon to be replaced by a jurist in the mold of the political romantic Bork.

Old Socialist

https://www.ft.com/content/932712ca-6eec-11e8-852d-d8b934ff5ffa