I agree with you, but I’m personally predicting a Biden/Abrams or Biden/Harris ticket which has the real threat of victory. Biden’s life support would be cut, and we’d have a president Abrams/Harris/Bottoms who would have the potential to seat at least 2 SCOTUS judges.
Our rights (if they can even be called that after the constitutional rape of the past century) are resilient, but there’s a very real possibility we could get played like a fiddle in the next four years.
I think you're terribly mistaken, the last 60 or so years (and the Warren Court in particular) have been
greatly beneficial for American constitutional rights, especially in the case of the First Amendment.
Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) explicitly overruled
Schneck v. United States,
Whitney v. California, and
Dennis v. United States, three cases from the early 20th century that vastly expanded the government's powers to censor speech. In
Brandenburg, the Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot prohibit the mere
advocacy of violence, and reaffirmed this in
Hess v. Indiana (1973).
Importantly for us,
Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) struck down anti-indecency provisions of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. This was the first case where the Supreme Court ruled that the internet deserves the full protection that was given to the print media in prior rulings; that the government's interest in protecting children "does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults".
Clearly, the Supreme Court has no problem issuing unpopular opinions.
Virginia v. Black (2003) struck down a state law against cross-burning because it placed a burden on the defendant to demonstrate that such burning did not constitute criminal intimidation, causing a chilling effect on protected speech.
Snyder v. Phelps (2011) held that public speech on a matter of public concern cannot be the basis of a civil suit concerning emotional distress; the Court ruled in favour of the Westboro Baptist Church after they were sued for picketing the funeral of a dead Marine.
Texas v. Johnson (1989) and
United States v. Eichman (1990) ruled that the government's interest in preserving the U.S. flag does not outweigh the individual interest in symbolic expression in desecrating the flag.
Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) ruled that public schools cannot restrict symbolic speech that does not cause a substantial disruption.
United States v. Stevens (2010) held that the federal government may not impose a blanket ban on videos depicting animal cruelty.
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) struck down part of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act as overbroad; the provisions which were struck down prohibited virtual child pornography.
Indeed, if you look ideological breakdowns in various First Amendment cases, you'll find that liberal justices generally err on the side of free speech. In cases where the Court erred on the side of restricting speech (see
United States v. O'Brien,
Morse v. Frederick and
City of Erie v. Pap's AM), liberal and libertarian judges were the ones who offered vigorous dissenting opinions. Conservative justices generally take a more favourable and expansive view of federal powers and executive authority.
So I'm not concerned at all by the impact of a Biden win on American jurisprudence and civil liberties. Independent judicial review is still healthy and alive in the United States as far as First Amendment issues are concerned.
