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Feb 8Liked by James J. Heaney

Thanks for writing up a quick recap of this. I'm curious, have you written in other places about why you say a Biden election would be "being ruled unjustly"?

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Yes, but my reasons are dull and predictable. I kinda read the Riot Act to the lovely Phil H in comments here <https://decivitate.substack.com/p/biden-really-won/comment/41950163>, but I'll save you the click with a quick summary:

Trump would be an unjust ruler because he is *illegitimate*, which is to say that he has no right to exercise power whatsoever, for good or ill.

Biden would be an unjust ruler for the bog-standard culture war reason: in my view, Biden supports grossly unjust policies, and would use his (entirely legitimate) power to inflict injustice upon the innocent.

But this is an era of negative polarization, so everybody thinks that about the other side, so it's an incredibly boring position for me to hold. Even if I'm right, it just not nearly as interesting as the legitimacy crisis provoked by Trump's insurrection.

I've really enjoyed having all these new readers here for the disqualification suits, and everyone with every kind of view is very welcome here. I love hearing from ideas all across the spectrum. I think it's *important* to hear from all over the spectrum, which is why I maintain friendships with both communists and full-blown QAnons.

But I think many of the new readers have not yet realized how intensely committed I am to fetal rights (even though I keep trying to drop hints). This, obviously, STRONGLY colors my view of Joe Biden, especially in a post-Roe world where abortion is always on the ballot. I have often wondered during the past couple months what will happen when everyone discovers (for example) my past articles "There's No 13th Amendment Right to Abortion", "The Correct, Scientifically Accurate Term is 'Embryonic Heartbeat'", and "The Evil That Runs Through Everything." (Here, here, and here: https://decivitate.substack.com/p/theres-no-13th-amendment-right-to, https://www.jamesjheaney.com/2019/07/26/the-correct-scientifically-accurate-term-is-embryonic-heartbeat/, https://decivitate.substack.com/p/the-evil-that-runs-through-everything). I guess disqualification is winding down, so I'll find out soon enough!

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Feb 9Liked by James J. Heaney

Thanks for the response. I did click through to your link in this post to the Dobbs decision and saw you were pro-life there. I wouldn't have realized just how big of a factor that is for you without reading your comment to Phil H and The Evil That Runs Through Everything.

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Feb 8·edited Feb 8Liked by James J. Heaney

I really hope the result is not going to be as harsh as your 'Dumpster Fire" GIF suggests.

Granted, there was always a high likelihood SCOTUS didn't want to touch this case with the Grinch's 39 1/2 foot pole.

But still, there is the text. And as you acknowledge, there is no love lost between the Justices, especially Roberts, and Donald Trump.

Fingers crossed. I'm also hoping Nikki Haley pulls it out as well. Two longshots are better than one, after all.

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There is no harm in hope! Just don't get those hopes *up*, because today went real bad.

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Feb 9Liked by James J. Heaney

I only saw the start of Mitchell's argument, which seemed to go bad enough to be optimistic, the rest I get only from Twitter people. It seems, to misquote Kagan "we're all consequentialists now".

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Yeah, things were going okay for a few minutes there! I was worried about Gorsuch and Kav being soooo quiet, but there was reason to hope early on!

And, then, hoo boy.

Of course, there's always the outside chance that we've all misread this and Trump will still lose. Just... boy did it ever not look that way.

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