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

Suzi talks to Harry Litman (https://www.latimes.com/people/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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Cooper), journalist now writing the Coop Scoop Newsletter (https://www.patreon.com/coopernewsletter), gives his take on the election, looking at comparisons and possible parallels between the historic plebiscite (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/world/americas/chile-constitution-plebiscite.html) 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.