Politics - News Analysis

John Cornyn Posts Incredibly Offensive Tweet to Obama and Twitter Can’t Stop Talking About It

Many Republican-MAGAs are defending the fact that “precedent” did not stop the SCOTUS from “overturning” Plessy v. Fergusen by deciding Brown v. Board of Education. And thus, they say, why wouldn’t the abortion ruling deserve the same treatment?

Barack Obama wrote a tweet lamenting the fact that society had come to rely upon the rights afforded in Roe, indeed, at least 50% of society had to have it in the back of their mind from age 14 to age… whatever, and then as parents and grandparents of girls, and women. Another large percentage, that portion of society that recognizes that women have (or should have) equal rights, men, are furious, too.

Obama’s point is that the SCOTUS goes through a massive test whenever it considers reversing precedent, the first of which is whether society has come to rely upon the last decision. The SCOTUS knew it couldn’t survive that test. Instead, Alito just skipped over that part to start where he wanted, “Roe was egregiously decided from the start.

John Cornyn, who needs to cement his MAGA credentials now that he voted to implement a fraction of gun rights responded to Obama’s tweet with the MAGA reply, Brown overruled Plessy.

Forget Ron’s reply to Cornyn because Ron gets it wrong, too.

There are two critical differences between the two cases and Roe.

One, Plessy v. Ferguson actually expanded civil rights. Believe it or not, before Plessy, there was no guarantee that black children had a right to an “equal” education. So even Plessy expanded rights.

In some sense, Brown did not overrule Plessy so much as say that the premise was not working and that “separate but equal” was inherently unequal. So, in a sense, Brown essentially said that the holding in Plessy simply didn’t work and was wrong from the beginning. But it didn’t overrule the basic premise in Plessy that black children deserved an equal education as white children. Both cases vastly expanded civil rights, not take them away.

The other huge difference, and this is being overlooked by so many people, Brown v. Board of Education was decided 9-0 by Supreme Court justices that were NOT put in place specifically to overrule Plessy. Additionally, their seats were certainly NOT stolen. Thus, when Brown “overruled” Plessy, (to the extent it did), it did so with the maximum force of the SCOTUS, not the whim of one justice who got in because Ruth Bader Ginsberg held on just as long as she could and then just couldn’t, one or two months short. Had our beloved RBG lived, Roe would at least still be the law of the land, even though it would be vastly limited under the Mississippi law.

Do not fall for Cornyn, nor Obama’s tweets. And we can all read between the lines of Cornyn’s tweet, too. Maybe Brown shouldn’t have been decided as it was.

As for Twitter, the lawyers seem to think it was innocent, like George Conway:

But many fought Conway, who is a Republican, and they made good points as well:

And the NAACP is pretty open about what they thought Cornyn meant:

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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