Why Presidents Shouldn’t Pick Supreme Court Justices

Given the news about the Supreme Court’s rulings on all sorts of bullshit Trump executive orders, I felt I had to write my thoughts on it, and my thoughts are as follows:

There’s something deeply broken in the way we appoint Supreme Court justices in the United States.

Nine unelected individuals serve for life, with the power to decide the most intimate and far-reaching issues in our society: abortion, voting rights, corporate power, gun laws, and more. And how do they get that power? They’re handpicked by whichever president happens to be in office when a seat opens up. It’s a political jackpot, not a principled process.

That alone should make us question the system.

We’re told this is how democracy works: the president wins an election and earns the right to shape the future of the court. But let’s be real. Presidents have been elected without winning the popular vote. The Senate–the body responsible for confirming nominees–can represent a minority of the country and still impose a majority decision. Lifetime appointments ensure that some justices rule for decades after the society that empowered them has changed entirely.

This is not democracy. It’s oligarchy in robes.

When presidents nominate justices, it’s not about qualifications. It’s about ideology. It’s about legacy. It’s about stacking the court with people who’ll interpret the law in ways that protect power. Every nomination turns into a televised culture war circus. Nominees dodge basic questions with rehearsed non-answers. Senators posture for the cameras. And the American public is left with yet another justice who serves power instead of people.

I have a better way: Independent Appointments

We need to take this power out of the president’s hands. Let’s create a nonpartisan judicial appointment commission, an independent body tasked with selecting justices based on legal expertise, ethical conduct, and a commitment to upholding the Constitution as a living, evolving document.

This commission could include former judges, constitutional scholars, and representatives from a diverse range of backgrounds, not politicians, not donors, and not partisan hacks. Their job wouldn’t be to pick someone “from the left” or “from the right.” It would be to ensure the court serves justice, not ideology.

It works in other countries. It can work here.

Trust in the Supreme Court is at historic lows and for good reason. When people see a court stacked by partisan deals and rammed-through nominations, they stop believing it represents them. And when people lose faith in institutions, the whole system becomes unstable.

We don’t have to accept this.

We can demand a new way, one where the court reflects the people it serves, not the politicians who manipulate it.

It starts by taking the gavel out of the president’s hand.

The Duopoly is a Disease

In the land of the free, we are given a choice every election cycle: Red or Blue. Coke or Pepsi. The illusion of choice wrapped in patriotic fanfare. But beneath the spectacle lies a truth most Americans feel in their gut but rarely say out loud: the two party system is a rigged game, a duopoly that has hijacked our democracy.

The Democratic and Republican parties are not ideological opposites; they are co-managers of an empire. One plays good cop while the other plays bad cop, but both serve the same masters: corporations, lobbyists, and the wealthy. They compete for power the way monopolists “compete”: by making sure no true alternative ever gains traction.

Independent and third-party candidates are routinely locked out of debates, buried by media blackouts, and crushed by impossible ballot access laws. Why? Because both parties know that real competition would expose how little they offer beyond symbolic bickering and bipartisan stagnation.

The duopoly thrives on division. Democrats and Republicans whip their bases into a frenzy over culture issues while quietly agreeing on endless war, corporate welfare, and mass surveillance. It’s no accident. The spectacle distracts us while they pass the same bloated Pentagon budgets and sell off public goods to private hands.

Gridlock isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It keeps meaningful reform off the table. Medicare for All? Dead on arrival. A living wage? Maybe by 2050. Climate action? Let’s ask ExxonMobil how fast we can move. The duopoly ensures nothing truly threatens their donors’ profits.

Leftist movements such as socialists, anarchists, and greens are smeared or ignored not because they’re fringe, but because they challenge the core of the system: capitalism, imperialism, police power. The establishment doesn’t fear chaos, it fears organization. It fears a population that realizes there are more than two ways to govern ourselves.

Likewise, when libertarians call for ending wars or dismantling the surveillance state, they’re treated as dangerous radicals. Any idea outside the red-blue matrix must be neutralized.

So what’s the way out?

Break the machine.

It starts with refusing to legitimize the duopoly. Don’t let “vote blue no matter who” or “lesser evilism” guilt you into obedience. Demand more: ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, ballot access reform, we need mass political education and direct action.

We need to organize outside their system. That means building dual power: worker co-ops, mutual aid networks, radical unions, and community councils that don’t wait for permission from Washington. The future won’t be won in the voting booth alone. It will be built in the streets, on picket lines, and in the quiet rebellion of everyday people saying “enough is enough.”

The bottom line is this: the two party system is not a democracy. It’s monopoly politics. It doesn’t represent us. It contains us. And like all monopolies, it must be broken.

We don’t need better Democrats or nicer Republicans. We need a new system entirely, one that serves people and not profits.

Explaining Libertarian Socialism to a Child

Libertarian socialism is the belief that people should be free from both government control and corporate power. It’s about creating a society where workers and communities make decisions together, rather than being ruled by politicians or bosses.

Imagine a workplace where everyone has a say in how things are run instead of a CEO calling all the shots. Or a neighborhood where people work together to solve problems instead of waiting for the government to step in. Libertarian socialists want a world built on cooperation, fairness, and shared resources without the need for big government or a ruling class.

It’s “socialist” because it opposes capitalism and wealth hoarding , and it’s “libertarian” because it values personal freedom and opposes authoritarian control

It’s about people sharing and making decisions together, instead of having a big boss or a big government telling them what to do.

Imagine if your toys belonged to everyone, and you and your friends decided together how to play with them. Nobody gets to take all the toys for themselves, and nobody gets to be the only boss. Everyone helps, everyone shares, and everyone is free to do what makes them happy without someone being unfairly in charge.

For liberals:

Libertarian socialism is like taking democracy and applying it everywhere, including the workplace. You already believe in democracy for government. But in capitalism, businesses are run like little dictatorships, where the boss has all the power. Libertarian socialism means workers and communities having a say in the decisions that affect them, so workplaces are democratic, wealth is shared more fairly and corporate power doesn’t run everything. It’s about freedom, but also fairness. You get to keep your personal rights, but without billionaires hoarding all the resources and rigging the system.

For conservatives

Libertarian socialism is about real freedom, freedom from both government overreach and corporate control. Right now, big businesses control the economy, and the government props them up while crushing small businesses and workers instead of relying on government handouts or corporate bosses, libertarian socialism means people working together directly to run things, like worker-owned businesses and community-driven solutions. It’s about keeping power in the hands of everyday people instead of elites, whether they’re in Washington or Wall Street.