Former Judge J. Michael Luttig said something a few nights ago on MSNBC about the state of the American government today and especially about the state of the American judiciary. He is very critical of the Trump administration for all of the obvious reasons, and he is very critical about Congress for all of the obvious reasons. He is harshly critical of the current Supreme Court.

But Judge Luttig has nothing but praise the the United States District Court judges and, I think, the judges of the appellate courts. They, he says, form the only branch of the government standing up for America.

As to the Supreme Court, we know we have two conservative justices for every liberal justice. And we recognize that this is not the Supreme Court we should have. Not only not the Court we deserve or would like, but not the Court that should exist.

We were cheated out of one justice who would have been appointed by Barack Obama, but for Mitch McConnell’s unprecedented refusal to allow hearings for the nominee, much less to allow the nomination to come to a vote. He took the spurious position that the nomination should belong to the next president, to be elected later that year.

And then, four years after that, to add salt to the wound, McConnell completely reversed his position without a hint of embarrassment and pushed through the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett with unprecedented speed, even though she was nominated only four weeks before the 2020 presidential election. That’s just what happens when you control the Senate, he said. Mitch McConnell is just a bad guy.

And the McConnell Supreme Court (mistakenly called the Roberts court, at times), often surprisingly and very consistently, has backed positions taken by the Trump administration, much being done on its “shadow docket”, without normal process and even without written opinions. Before this past year, who even knew the Court had a shadow docket? For shame!

But the Supreme Court has often been a problem, even before Trump packed the Court. There have been many harmful and unnecessary decisions in recent years. Decisions decimating the Voting Rights Act and stating that the courts should not interfere in partisan gerrymandering disputes. Decisions expanding the definition of free speech, defining corporations as “people,” and cutting off limitations on corporate contributions to political campaigns. And, of course, decisions defining the Second Amendment in absolutist terms, restricting restrictions on guns and other weapons.

Statistics that I have seen show that 80% of homicides in the District of Columbia are the result of gunshots. Other statistics show there are many more guns in the country than there people.

Yet, along with his stated, but undoubtedly insincere, determination to cut homicides in the District, Trump’s recently appointed US Attorney, Jeanine Pirro, has stated that her office will no longer prosecute anyone found to be illegally carrying a firearm. How does this make sense?

One year, it’s at a grade school in Connecticut, then it’s a high-school in Florida, then a grade school in Texas, and now a church school in Minnesota.

The Court’s position on the Second Amendment is different today than it had been for most of this country’s 249 years, and probably one day will be reversed again. But not soon.

Of course, in the best of possible worlds, government officials would all recognize the problem and sit down to try to resolve it. In this country, today, we are unable and unwilling to do that. We can not reach any agreement that crosses party lines, even if the lives of children are at stake. For shame!

On whom should the blame be put? On the MAGA Republicans, who are truly deplorable (remember what that description led to?), or the non-MAGA Republicans, who are scared to death? Or on the Democrats, who made some mistakes during the Biden years, and who nowvl often seem hapless and divided?

Or do we put the blame on ourselves? A recent Bulwark opinion suggested that somewhat over 40% of Americans support fascism, whether they know it or not. This might be our ultimate problem. A problem to which there is no apparent answer.

But we do need to find one. And that really means the Democrats must get their act together, something that becomes very difficult when it seems they don’t even know what their act is.

Or should we simply blame all of it on the bossanova?