Jacobin Radio: Harry Litman on Bush vs. Gore, Marc Cooper on US Election and Chilean Plebiscite

Suzi talks to Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, about the grim possibility that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s citing of Bush v Gore to support a recent Supreme Court decision could portend a replay of the Court’s notorious halting of the Florida recount to decide the 2000 election. Kavanaugh’s invoking of Justice Rehnquist’s widely derided opinion to justify the Court’s interfering in a state election -- in a case about extending the ballot deadline in Wisconsin -- signals that the high Court could once again, in 2020, swoop in and save the day for a Republican president. Harry Litman explains. Marc Cooper, journalist now writing the Coop Scoop Newsletter, gives his take on the election, looking at comparisons and possible parallels between the historic plebiscite a week ago in Chile on Pinochet’s constitution, and the US election, a referendum on Trump and his handling of the pandemic. Chileans voted by a huge majority to throw out the Pinochet Constitution and for a Constituent Assembly with gender parity to write a new one, without the participation of the politicians. It is a plebiscite with huge consequences – and Marc Cooper also thinks the US election is another consequential plebiscite, which he explains.