Roe vs Wade - judicial activism, or back to normality?

There has been a firestorm in the US over a leaked memo from the Supreme Court which appears to suggest that SCOTUS may well issue a decision that will effectively overturn Roe vs Wade, and has since been confirmed as genuine. Roe vs Wade, the case from 1973, means that all states must allow abortion in some form. This case opens the door for states to pass draconian legislation, and in the case of Michigan would mean that they would revert to a 1931 law that makes no exception for rape, incest, or medical emergencies. Other laws, such as Texas's 2021 'Heartbeat Law', which banned abortion after 6 weeks and criminalised those who assist women seeking terminations.

The Supreme Court of the United States.

The rationale behind Alito's decision in the case is that abortion is not mentioned in the constitution. This fits in with the dominant thread of conservative justices in recent times of strict constructionism, or textualism. This judicial ideology, simply put, means that decisions should be based on the specific text of the constitution, as it is written. For example, Antonin Scalia said that although he was personally against flag burning as a form of protest, and would have allowed it as a legislator, it also should be allowed under the constitution due to the clear wording of the 1st Amendment, where it would be considered protected speech.

So, abortion, the right to which is based on a small aspect of the 14th Amendment (that of the right to privacy), is now under threat in the biggest of all Western democracies. The removal of the precedent set in Roe, which has been chipped away at for years, means that the principle of states' rights is being pushed by conservative justices and legislators. This is certainly consistent, and is one of the key tenets of modern Republican thought. However, it is also true to say that there are a range of issues where conservatives have been less keen on states' rights, such as in cases of marijuana legalisation or assisted dying (euthanasia). Many are now asking, given that other rights such as same sex marriage and aspects of racial equality such as integrated schooling are based on the 14th Amendment, could Supreme Court action on these be forthcoming?

Sign held by a protester. Obergefell refers to Obergefell vs Hodges, and Lawrence refers to Lawrence vs Texas, which struct down restrictions on male homosexual sexual relations.

In fact, John Hart Ely, the constitutional scholar, went so far as to say that strict constructionism wasn't really a philosphy of law, but was really about reaching popular political decisions for a specific party. A clear example of this is the famous Supreme Court case, FEC vs Citizens United, struck down decades of electoral law, in favour of virtually uninhibited donations in politics. Therefore, far from preserving the text of the constitution, and applying it in a limited fashion, such justices are truly conservative activists.

 The justices who look set to strike down Roe have also been appointed in a hyperpartisan fashion. Three were appointed by Trump, who won with 3 million fewer votes, and two by Bush, whose first win was also won with a minority of the popular vote. Additionally, Senate Republicans have certainly pushed the approval process to its very limit, in the form of holding up the approval of Merrick Garland in 2016, and pushing through Amy Coney Barratt in 2020. Now, this long game of Republican legislators looks set to pay off in a way that is devastating for women in America and around the world.

Comparing the protection of rights in the US and UK

 I intend to write something good about this at SOME POINT, but Helen Lewis, who writes for the Atlantic and others, has done my job for me.

In this piece she compares the protections in the UK Equalities Act 2010 with the judicial protections in the US, most obviously Roe vs Wade, Brown vs Board and Obergefell vs Hodges. One of the key passages is "this is what you get when you can’t pass new primary legislation: endless judicial chicanery and sleight of hand. Across the US, there is majority support for gay marriage, for abortion rights, for laws to prohibit firing people for being gay. But under the current system, these rights are fragile, and will always be fragile—the whim of a handful of lifetime appointees."

So, the US political system and the level of gridlock, hyperpartisanship, and systems such as the filibuster, mean that judges are handed enormous power. And the stakes being so high, with this huge power being handed to, in effect, a minority of the US population, means that this will continue to be a huge battleground.

You can, and should, read the whole piece here. 

Representative democracy vs direct democracy

 One of the topics listed for AQA's UK Politics paper this year is the vaguely titled 'nature of democracy' section. A glance at the mammoth UK/US textbook reveals that this is referring to the section on representative democracy and direct democracy, what constitutes them, how effective they are, and whether the UK would benefit from a move towards direct democracy.

A thing that is worth challenging, although not technically a mistake, comes about when students consider how effectively representative democracy actually provides representation to its citizens. Most students seem to look at this *only* through the lens of descriptive representation; that is to say, whether parliament looks like the electorate. A good place to look at this would be parliament's own numbers, which state that there are 220 women MPs  out of 650, so just over a third (about half for Labour), with about 10% of MPs being from an ethnic minority vs 14% of the population. HOWEVER, this is not the main point of representation! What this means is how good are UK MPs at representing their constituents? UK citizens enjoy remarkable access to their MPs compared to a lot of countries, and politicians routinely travel back to their constituencies on Friday to deal with constituency issues. Political betting (quite a long time ago) pointed out that whilst people on the whole disliked MPs, they often liked their MP, in this article.

- As an aside the UK has JUST changed voter ID laws, making it the case that approximately 1.1 million people will lose the right to vote. Also, the Electoral Commission has lost its independence, putting it under direct government control. This is very relevant!

Here are some points about representative democracy that are worth remembering:

- Edmund Burke is probably the key person an examiner wants you to know, as the proponent of the trustee model of representation (as opposed to the delegate model). He said that " his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living." This means that an MP should make their own judgement on your behalf - NOT just doing what you think.

- You should look at how effectively our system encourages participation. What are recent general election turnouts? What are recent figures regarding political party membership?

- What is the level of education in our political system? How well informed are voters about political issues? Do they understand how UK democracy works?

- What is the level of accountability of our politicians? Between our (up to 5-yearly) elections MPs have very limited levels of accountability, and of course the overwhelming majority of them represent safe seats that means the chances of them losing are virtually nil.

- Other factors you might want to consider are legitimacy, civil rights, and the rule of law. More information about these can be found on page 146 of the excellent AQA Politics textbook (Lemiuex, Hammal, Fairclough and Bennett).

So would using a system with greater direct democracy improve on any of these areas. To know this it is important to know what we already have that includes this, and what else it could include.

Firstly, we should certainly know the results and details of referendums that have occurred in the UK. Some of these seem to demonstrate very positively about direct democracy, such as the high participation levels achieved in the EU referendum, as well as the 84% turnout in the Scottish Independence referendum. However, there are many examples of issues with referendums. This includes the 34% turnout of the London mayoral referendum, and 42% for the Alternative Vote referendum. Also, the Welsh Assembly referendum only passed with 50.3% of the vote, with a turnout of 50.2% - hardly a ringing endorsement, with only just over a quarter of the country voting for it. 

Another aside - Farage and others are now pushing for a referendum of 'net zero' (the push for zero net carbon emissions). Hopefully this never happens.

It should be remembered that the government controls what we have referendums on and when we have them. As such, this is an informal add-on to our system, rather than a formal system such as in Switzerland, where they have frequent referendums, which can be gained via citizen petitions. 

Voter information send out in Swiss referendums.

Other forms of direct democracy in the UK include:

- e-petitions, such as the one that led to a government enquiry into the Hillsborough disaster. This is an example of a genuine form of direct democracy that has been bolted on to the UK's system in a formal way. It should be noted that the government does, however, have no requirement to hold a debate on issues that gain sufficient signatures, such as the petition to cancel Brexit.

- Recall petitions. In certain circumstances, such as where an MP has received a criminal conviction, a petition that gets over 10% of votes in a given period can result in a recall election. Labour MP Fiona Onasanya and Conservative Christopher Davies have both been ousted from their seats in this manner.

- We now have directly elected mayors in a large number of locations, such as Liverpool where Labour Joe Anderson was succeeded by Jo Anderson. However, in Bristol they have voted to get rid of their directly elected mayor!

- Police and Crime Commissioners. These were supposed to give some local control over policing. I suppose it has, but when the turnout in 2018 was 26% it can hardly be said to have animated anyone.

- in the US they have some other things, like ballot initiatives which are local or state referendums on new laws. Some of them have led to major changes on issues like drugs or euthanasia. Anyone can get something on the ballot with enough signatures. They also have elections for all sorts of things, like school board members, giving voters direct control over all sorts of areas (which isn't always a good thing). Some states also have their own system of referendums, which effectively enables them to veto laws.

We seem to be moving towards some piecemeal mixture of direct and representative democracy. However, the prospects of citizen determined referendums are unlikely, or at least a long way off.

Hopefully whatever comes up is in some part answered by this post!

Are you better off? The impact of personal finances on elections

This Thursday sees a raft of local elections in the UK. As I have explained already, there are a lot of factors at play in these, with only *some* of them being local issues themselves. For a start, sometimes it has more to do with which specific areas are up for grabs (i.e. if it is in an area you did well in 4 years previously, it could be that you make limited gains, and the headlines become about a lack of success for your party). The saying is that all politics is local, and that is partially true, but to an extent this locality may be more about individual experiences, as I will go on to explain.

Recent polling has found the Conservatives behind in every area of policy and Boris Johnson trailing Keir Starmer across almost every personal characteristic. This is, obviously, very bad news. Whilst the Conservatives have trailed in the polls before, their leaders have often had leads in polls like 'who would make a better Prime Minister?', and the Tories have generally, except for a while under Tony Blair, had a strong lead in terms of voters' views of the economic competence of the parties, while Labour have generally had a better reputation with voters for their handling of public services such as the NHS.

What may be making a huge difference is the personal impact that recent economic changes have had on ordinary voters. This can be most notably seen in two key ways - recent tax changes that increase the National Insurance payments for a huge proportion of the population, and more obviously the huge increase to the cost of gas and electricity that have come in from April. Often people may view the economy as good or bad, but these changes mean that everyone has had a direct impact from these changes, and, rightly or wrongly, many people will blame this impact on the government.

Ronald Reagan famously asked voters "are you better off than 4 years ago?" back in 1980. It was a powerful question, which cut through to how they felt the direction of the country was impacting them. Keiran Pedley in the New Statesman points out the huge level of pessimism voters are feeling about the economy. Most expect things to get worse, in terms of petrol and energy costs, and this includes 51% of those who voted Conservative in 2019. The Tories have to convince voters that they should back them, despite the current way they are perceived and despite the impacts that the general public are feeling. This, and other scandals surrounding Rishi Sunak, have already seemingly destroyed him as a potential successor to Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson, up to now, has been a consistent winner. Labour are not universally trusted on the economy (2019 Tory voters only marginally think Labour would do better), but are in a strong position. His record is going to be seriously tested on May 5th.

Should we have referendums on everything?

 

I taught a young man when I first came to my current school who was very passionate about politics. Eventually he would find his way to the Corbyn-era Labour Party, but before this he stood for election in 2015 in a local constituency, for a party whose main political idea was that we should have a none of the above option on ballot papers. When speaking to the candidate, my former student said that he felt there should be far greater levels of direct democracy in the UK, perhaps using apps or internet voting. In short, he wanted a referendum, or citizen input on everything.

Firstly, one interesting impact of such a policy would be to shift the nature of our political system completely. We currently have, as in most countries, a representative democracy, where your representative makes decisions based on their best judgement, rather than specifically adhering to what you, or their other constituents, want. Your representative would become a delegate, going back to their constituents to determine what they want.

There are certainly some points in favour of this - proponents of referendums would point out the high turnout in the Scottish independence referendum or of the vote to leave the EU. This increase in engagement could be very good for politics in general. Others may feel that politicians are out of touch, and on a range of issues the true views of the electorate aren't really shown. A good examples of this, other than Euroscepticism, may be the death penalty, where there are limited calls for it in general from politicians, but large numbers of the British population are in favour. This blog from the London School of Economics suggests that we would be well served by following the Swiss model, where voters are able to have referendums on any topic where they get sufficient signatures. Trevitt argues that this leads to an increase in citizen engagement and will make politicians more responsive to the public.

However, there is also evidence that referendums can have very low turnout, and lead to problematic results. Even in the 'golden era' of referendums in the late 1990s, some of the New Labour changes gained approval but on very low turnout. In London the turnout to approval the new mayoralty and assembly was only 34% and Wales approved its own assembly on a very low turnout of just over 50%, with just over 50% of that number voting yes, meaning barely a quarter of the Welsh population had approved the assembly. I remember, but have never been able to source, a cartoon from the time where a Welsh dragon mumbled a yes, while Tony Blair leaped for joy and shouted YES in the background. And this shows a further problem of referendums - that they are often open to manipulation, in terms of timing by those in power. Often, rather than being a symptom of a strong government, they are, in fact, a signal of a weak government without the authority to act.

Hugely varying turnout in elections.

There are far more referendums now, around the world, than ever before. They are a tool for pushes for independence, and according this Guardian article by Henley, Carroll, and Rice-Oxley, suggests that this is evidence of a pick and mix approach to modern politics, where people expect to be able to have their views heard on all issues. Whilst turnout in Switzerland has often been around 40-45%, Ireland has often had far higher turnout and has been successful in totally transforming the nature of the country. They are normally used on binary issues, with the theory being that you should use them to finalise binary issues. For example, when Ireland voted to legalise same-sex marriage, that was fairly cut and dried. However, issues can drag on, as seen by Brexit, which took (at least) 4 years after the vote to be at a point remotely close to being finalised.

Ultimately, despite their flaws many people may still support referendums due to them being a more 'democratic' form of electoral activity. I would disagree. The vagueness of Brexit meant that the actual nature of it took a long time to decide, and can hardly be in any realistic way be described as the will of the people. Finally, the best argument I've heard comes in the form of a question - the most Googled question in the UK the day after the EU, and one that shows that sometimes it may be better to leave decision making up to those with expertise. And what was the question? "What is the EU?"

I also used the following page in this blog: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/never-mind-ballots-referendums-uk 

UK Local Election Preview

Local elections in the UK are a bit... messy. Whilst the US has mid-term elections scheduled 2 years after a presidential election, in Britain they are a bit more variable. Firstly, as general elections are not at fixed times (sorry Fixed Term Parliament Act) it means that they can occur at various times throughout a parliamentary term. Secondly, there are a huge number of different types of council, with different term limits and type of election, and even a different electoral system in Scotland (STV, with votes for 16 year olds!). There are normally at least some council elections every year, but with some years having a far greater number.

Locations holding local elections in 2022, from this wikipedia article.

There are county councils, London Boroughs, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Authorities, District Councils, and mayoralties up for grabs. Some locations are electing all councillors, some half, some a third. It is certainly a confusing picture, and some may question their importance.

However, these elections are often seen as a important benchmark for how the government and opposition are performing at the time. In 1995 the Conservatives lost 2,000 local councillors in the first elections faced by Tony Blair as Labour leaders. Similarly, the Conservatives foreshadowed their 2010 electoral victory by being the largest party in local government for several years ahead of them gaining control of Number 10. For this reason, a lot of commentators have been considering whether, given the problems of the Conservative Party at present, this could be a damaging election for them. The Tories are behind in the polls, have had the partygate scandal dragging on from December, and have history against them, in the form of being a long standing party in power in the middle of their term.

Still, there are caveats to this. Turnout is often very low in council elections, and this can have odd effects. Whilst this can mean that those that turn up have more reason to dislike the government, it is also true that older voters, who have the highest turnout, have hugely favoured the Conservatives and Brexit in recent elections. As the elections are not in all boroughs it could mean that the results are also not fully reflective for the mood of the country. 

There are other things at play here. as well. A Conservative Party determined to keep Boris Johnson will likely play down any losses as being roughly what they expected. However, a Conservative Party determined to remove him may well see their opportunity to strike. 

What is the best electoral system?

Before I should start, I should say that my inspiration for this blog post comes from Stephen Bush's old post regarding the best and worst electoral systems. I have long been using his analogy of the Additional Member System as being 'the Thierry Henry of electoral systems', even if I think that he is, actually, wrong. You can read the original here.

Bad electoral systems

Supplementary Vote

Less simple than First Past the Post, and less fair than Alternative Vote, with full rankings of candidates. The principle is the same as AV, but on this you just get to rank your number one and two candidates. So you don't really get a lot. The chances of the leader changing with this system are pretty slim. But it did nearly happen in 2012, with Boris Johnson vs Ken Livingstone in London. But, like, what's the point?

The American Electoral College system

Is it sort of fun? Yes. Is it unique? Yes. Is it so awful no-one has wanted to do anything remotely like it for 240 years? Also yes.

Every state has a number of votes based on their number of Representatives + Senators. Winner takes all in each state. It's fun and nuts in all kinds of ways. But also rubbish and should change.

First Past the Post

Yes. It is bad. I can hypothetically see that if we all lived in a cave this might be the system we'd come up with, but I would also like to think that given the massively disproportional effects of it, and the negative impact on minority parties and political culture in general, we could see how this needs to change. Delivers big majorities, except for when it doesn't (2010, 2017).

Simple but effective, or simple and rubbish depending on your views. The Harry Maguire of electoral systems.

 

OK electoral systems

Alternative Vote

 I sort of wanted to put this in with the bad - I'll get on to that - but I suppose the idea is good. Keep a majoritarian system, but use ranked choice voting to reallocate wasted votes. An example: in my constituency, the High Peak, the Conservatives received 24,800 votes, Labour 24,200, the Lib Dems, 2,700, and the Brexit Party 1,100. As no-one received over 50% of the vote, the bottom canidate is knocked out, and their votes reallocated to their second preferences, and so on, until a candidate gets over 50%.

It was criticised in the AV campaign as letting the loser win, and I suppose that is possible, but the objective is to create a system that most of the constituency are happier with.  You could argue this makes you freer to use your first vote more wisely, but evidence from elsewhere seems to indicate that this makes voting even more tactical. It can actually hurt minority parties (as this LSE blog shows).

French two-round system

Sorry Jeremy Thorn, but I think this system is poor, at best. So you have two rounds, meaning a chance to change your mind after the first election. However, because the first round of the election is such a free-for-all, it can mean the chances of an extremist candidate getting through to the final two is relatively high, as has happened with Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen, former and current leader of the French far right party the National Front/National Rally.

Proportional Representation  - list form

It's fine, but SO impersonal. Parties are able to centrally control who is on their list, and they are allocated a number of seats depending on how they've done. We had list PR in the UK through European elections, which did prove some of the good and the bad things about it. New parties like the Brexit Party, or smaller parties like the Greens or Lib Dems were able to succeed in EU elections, but so were extremists like the BNP (and arguably UKIP, depending on your perspective). It will lead to permanent coalitions, yes, but also could lead to the possibility of Party for the Animals or DENK being part of one of those coalitions in the Netherlands, so fingers crossed.

I like how Israel has it for the whole country though, with all of Israel being one giant constituency. Free-for-all madness fun.

Good electoral systems

Mr Thorn benevolent dictatorship

Churchill famously said that 'it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time', but then also said that the best argument against it was a 5 minute conversation with the average voter. Well, in the tradition of 18th century liberal thinkers who didn't really like the idea of ordinary folk being in charge, I'm here to sort it all out.

The number of seconds between the establishment of a Mr Thorn dictatorship and a truth a reconciliation commission being formed to investigate the injustices Arsenal have suffered over the years is something like zero. But also, I would like to offer my regular History teacher reminder that dictatorships only tend to survive when they deliver for their key support groups (and it is unlikely that Arsenal fans constitute such an influential demographic).

Additional Member System

Right - it's the previous gold standard. Some/half/most MPs are elected through FPTP and then a number of MPs are elected through PR. What this means is that you end up with a local representative AND a system that is broadly proportional. Right?

Well, the thing I can't get past is the question around what the 'top-up' MPs actually do. If you look at Scottish elections, where the SNP tend to win almost all of the FPTP seats, there is certainly an element of 'well, you couldn't win properly could you?'

Single Transferable Vote

The Dennis Bergkamp of electoral systems; technically excellent, accurate, and does the little things well. The excellent Politics in the Animal Kingdom video by CGP Grey is here. STV combines several seats into larger districts (a little like PR). But unlike PR, individual candidates can still be selected by those communities. Unlike PR, minorities are catered for, making it perfect for an area such as Northern Ireland, where who represents you makes a huge difference. Unlike FPTP, there are no wasted votes, as additional votes for a winning candidate or votes for a losing candidate can be reallocated. It's great, I love it, and... we'll never have it, because Nick Clegg wanted it.

Age and Educational Attainment in Voting Behaviour

 I saw an interesting piece of polling the other day, posted by Mike Smithson of politicalbetting.com (Mr Thorn does not endorse gambling). In this he posted the stark gap in voting intention based on educational attainment, with a huge Conservative lead amongst those with no/low educational qualifications and a huge Labour lead amongst those with degree level qualifications or higher. You can find the original article here.

There are lots of interesting theories about why this might be. Most obviously, this could be about recent political events. Voters without qualifications were disproportionately more likely to support Brexit, and are also far more likely to favour Conservative policies on immigration and crime. There may be a link between the experience of attending university and more social democratic policies, relating to immigration, Europe, crime and other issues. Traditionally, this would have been unlikely to be the case, with voters from working class backgrounds previously being those least likely to gain higher-level academic qualifications, and also being far more likely to vote Labour, so this is a clear example of dealignment.

 Another (linked) interesting thing I saw this week was a map demonstrating the oldest and youngest constituencies in the country (below). It is a further reminder that not only are the preferences and voting patterns of older and younger voters different, but that this does not simply play out in turnout. Namely, there are some seats that are specifically dominated by younger voters and some (a lot more) dominated by older voters. As you can see, the younger seats tend to be in bigger towns and cities, and older towns are often in coastal areas. These also closely correlate with support for Brexit and Conservative/Labour voting patterns.

 

 https://twitter.com/undertheraedar/status/1505828056312676352

 

It Was the Sun Wot Won It - Newspapers and general elections

One major impact on voting that we must consider is that of the media, and there is no stronger manifestation of that influence than that of the traditionally powerful British newspaper industry. Famously, in 1992, the Sun savagely attacked Neil Kinnock, depicting his head in a lightbulb, and writing "if Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights." This anti-Labour stance seemed to work, and the Sun rejoiced with the headline "it's the Sun wot won it".

Britain's most popular newspapers, by far, are the Sun and the Daily Mail, both of which lean significantly to the right. Normally Britain's most successful and popular newspapers do favour the Conservative Party, who also normally win elections. However, during Tony Blair's tenure as Labour leader, the party was able to win support from some of these papers, including the Sun and the Mail, and even the Express in 2001. Whilst this was in itself controversial - the Labour Party was criticised by many on the left for pandering to these papers, and it is seen as evidence that the party went too far to the right - it also seems to provide some evidence that the support of such newspapers is, in itself, decisive.

This chart of party support came from a 2010 Guardian article you can find here.

However, other data may refute this. For a start, how many people changed their minds based on what newspapers say? Most people have made up their minds prior to electoral campaigns, as around 60% of people still say they have a very strong or fairly strong affiliation with one of the parties. Still, this means that volatility (changing parties between elections) is far higher than previously, where party affiliation was previously very strong, as this article from the BBC shows.

Endorsements in the 2019 General Election. I'm not sure the Morning Star will be supporting Labour under Starmer...

So even while one may doubt whether newspapers determine the vote of the increasing numbers of undecided voters they are certainly still capable of having a significant influence. Whilst they may not swing voters in the short term, they can still have an effect in the long term - one only need look at the long-term effect of anti-EU and anti-immigration stories over several years. Newspaper are still blessed with a power to set the agenda, where TV news will often follow stories set by the print media. As well as this, newspapers are still perceived as being hugely important by politicians, where senior politicians will still court the owners of papers, and try to gain their favour (though Ed Miliband tried this with the Sun not long before they published the famous photo of him failing to eat a bacon sandwich).

Was it the Sun wot won it? Well, maybe. But it could well have been the attitudes that were formed over several years rather than one headline.

What factors affect the power of the president?

Joe Biden has not had an easy start to his presidency. Whilst he had some success with the vaccine rollout in the US, and he has not been dealt an easy hand in terms of current events, with the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has also not given allies a lot to point to in terms of clear successes. 

That said, it would have been hard to get anything done anyway. Whilst the Democrats have a sufficiently healthy majority in the House of Representatives (currently 222-211, with 2 vacant seats), their lack of majority in the Senate, which is effectively 50-50, has given West Virginia's Joe Manchin III and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona a veto over Democratic legislation, and in effect Biden's whole agenda. But what else could have an impact?

House or Senate composition

As we have said, this makes a huge difference. When Obama was able to command a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, in 2009-10, he was able to pass Obamacare (the PPACA). When he lost this in the 2010 mid-terms it meant that Republicans were able to block a lot of Obama's agenda for the rest of his presidency. Whilst the House swung to the Democrats in the second half of Trump's term, the in-built Republican advantage in the Senate means that Trump was still able to successfully put through three Supreme Court picks. Biden may have a more difficult task in this regard.

The Supreme Court

SCOTUS, and the court system in general, does have the potential to frustrate a presidential agenda. The court is now, with Amy Coney Barratt, split 6-3 in favour of conservative justices, or justices that routinely vote in a conservative manner.  This 6-3 vote split was seen in January 2022 when the court struck down Biden's workplace vaccine mandate. In 2020 the court voted 5-4 (pre-Coney Barratt) to block the Trump administration from ending the DACA scheme, for immigrants who arrived during childhood, with John Roberts joining the liberal justices of the court.

Public opinion

One only need look to the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s for evidence of this. Nixon should, in theory, have been in a strong position, having been elected with a landslide in 1972. However, the long-running Watergate scandal sapped his popularity, and would have left him as a lame duck, without the ability to take action on any of his agenda, as well as making successful impeachment a certainty.

Additionally, it should also be said that the popularity of the president can also impact the extent to which even representatives and senators from their own party wish to be associated with them. Democrats from swing states, in mid-terms and in Obama's second term, distanced themselves from him, and Trump was not mentioned in the campaign literature of many Republicans in 2020.

The economy and events

Whilst Bill Clinton was also affected by scandal, and was faced with a hostile Republican House of Representatives, he also presided over a lengthy economic boom, which hugely improved his popularity. By contrast, the state of the economy in 2008 may have contributed to Obama's victory over John McCain, and long term sluggish wage growth in the US may have been important in Trump's victory over establishment-candidate Hillary Clinton. 

Trump frequently mentioned the success of the stock market during his time in office, but 2020 also saw the impact of Coronavirus in America and around the world, and many analysts argue that it was this that prevented Trump's reelection, in spite of a successful economy. Wars and other crises can also make or break a presidency; Bush was hugely popular for several years after 9/11 and during the early stages of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, whilst Lyndon B. Johnson also suffered for his handling of the war in Vietnam.

Conclusion

Not one of these things in isolation is enough to furnish a president with a strong hand, nor is it enough to fundamentally weaken them. But the United States has a complicated political system with a range of powerful actors, and significant checks and balances. Given that the president can still undertake great actions, even without the approval of these other branches, I am reminded of what the Earl of Manchester said about Charles I; "If we beat the King ninety and nine times yet he is still King, and so will his posterity be after him." Many things can block a president or reduce their power, but what they can do is still considerable, and the eyes of the country and the world are still on them.