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ask-nyc-boroughs · 2 months

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Colonial Florida, Carolinas, & Georgia

CW: depictions of violence

Just sharing some information on some of the southern states I have worked on.

I’ll start with Carlisle “Carl” Graves/ South Carolina & Margaret “Maisie” Ferguson / North Carolina. They’re half siblings. Carl’s father is probably some sort of English county personification (most likely Dorset), and his mother is an English woman with some French Huguenot heritage from Barbados who migrated with her family to South Carolina. Given the fact she’s in the tidewater south and given her class, having a kid out of wedlock was taboo so I imagine his father arranged for her to marry a man, who is of a northern English / Scottish background. They end up moving to North Carolina’s back country to be with his family, and have Maisie. In my lore, there is some discrimination, or prejudice especially in this period against personifications born to human parents. I imagine most settler colonial personifications have human parents, but the few that don’t like Carl, that has 1 personification parent, I believe that gives him some social clout. Also I decided to make North Carolina younger because tbph South Carolina was the seat of power and colonial North Carolina didn’t really get going without South Carolina. I also don’t go by earliest permanent settlement for a state-level oc, it doesn’t always make sense to me for a variety of reasons.

Anyways Carl is a bit controlling, and he’s more of a tidewater southerner, and Maisie loves her brother but doesn’t appreciate his controlling behavior. Also one final note on carl, he can come off a bit cold but he’s quite the stereotypical ideal of a southern gentleman. Charming. Polite. Etc. Maisie is more of an Appalachian ngl. I’ll discuss Maisie another time. But Carl’s , and his friend/neighbor, Curtis Bartlett/ Georgia childhood was marked by constant fights with the Spanish and their colonies especially Louisa Flores / Spanish Florida.

Obvs, that isn’t a great situation for a kid to find themselves in, and it does impact Carl’s controlling behavior and also makes him rather jealous of Alfred later. Alfred wasn’t always the US in my lore, and Carl believed that he would’ve been elected/ selected by his peers to represent this new country given Carl’s history and background. Also one other thing is prior to the Revolution, Alfred was not universally liked by his states. Actually he’s never been universally liked by his states lol. Anyways Carl does resent Alfred for a number of years.

I split Florida into two because it didn’t make sense to have 1 continuous Florida given the fact that most Floridanos (the Spanish settlers) leave during Florida’s British colonial period. Louisa ends up having a kid with an Anglo-American settler from the colonial backcountry, this kid is Elena/ Elaine Moore, who comes to represent the US state of Florida. I think Louisa hides the fact that Elaine is her kid for both their sakes since Elaine comes out really pale in comparison. I’ll discuss Elaine more in the future, she is 110% Florida woman tho lol, but sometimes you’ll see me draw her with much lighter skin and that’s cause like if Elaine isn’t going outside and tanning highkey she passes as a white woman.

White passing and its history is something I want to explore more in my lore, but yeah that’s all I’m gonna leave it with the basic info on these southern states. I will say out of all them, Maisie / North Carolina & Carl / South Carolina are major players in my Nor’easter lore lol

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martizta · 11 months

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Here are mochis of my state OCs (+ Staten Island)

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meetthemidwest · 2 years

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I was drawing something cursed about the Lumberjack War but unfortunately my computer decided that sounding like a geiger counter wasn't enough, it had to act irradiated as well. So instead have some pre-Revolutionary War art I made in the middle of the night while reading my old APUSH notes and having an existential crisis.

Anyway friendly reminder that another very important day is coming up this month and I know it's fun to hate on the French but sometimes you gotta take a step back and wonder if maybe they were on to something

#statetalia #hws maryland #hws pennsylvania #hws massachusetts #hws connecticut #hws rhode island #hws delaware #hws virginia #hws ohio #hws georgia #hws south carolina #hws north carolina

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mazyb0i · 14 days

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In South Carolina, spending time with family :3

DW tho, still working on art (and ignoring hw/hj)

#ignoring homework #living the dream #just kidding #really tired #7 hour drive #artist #artist issues #overwhelmed #chronic fatigue #help me #lol #vacation

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umbralstars · 3 years

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Charles (SC): That's it! I'm moving to Walhalla and ain't none of y'all ever gonna see me again!

#hetalia #aph south carolina #hws south carolina #statalia #charles brown

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aph-oklahoma-46 · 4 years

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Transtalia Week 2020 Day 4

Day 4: Not being accepted

@the-transtalia-blog Wow, so this got a little depressing. And very long. So, uh, enjoy me projecting onto David and beating them with the angst baton.

Tennessee = David (Nonbinary person, they/them) Kentucky = Henry (Cis man) North Carolina = Nolan (Cis man) South Carolina = Nora (Cis woman) Missouri = Miles (gnc Cis man) (only mentioned) Virginia = (I don’t actually remember their name, sorry Sybil)(Nonbinary) @hws-germania‘s oc (only briefly mentioned)

TW: Transphobia, including misgendering, deadnaming, invalidation, etc.

Day 4: Not Being Accepted

“So… I was thinking about changing my name.”

Henry looked up from where he had been pulling up bits of grass to braid together and blinked.

“Oh? Do you not like Fiona anymore?”

“I just… It doesn’t feel right. That doesn’t feel like my name.”

“… Ok. What were you thinking of changing it to?” Henry sat the length of braided grass in his lap and leaned back against the tree, waiting for an answer. His red-haired friend had tucked her knees under her chin, hugging them. She had been watching him, seemingly gauging his reaction, but now she looked down and pressed her forehead to her knees.

“Well, I was thinking… I kind of like David.”

Oh? Oh…. Nodding, Henry sat up again. That was really not what he’d expected. “Do, um… Do you want to change anything else?”

Fi- David peeked up from over… his? His arms. Tears had started to gather at the edges, and Henry did not like that at all. He shifted away from the tree, crawling over to David to sit next to his friend. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand and rested it on David’s shoulder.

“It’s ok if you do. I like David, too. I like you… even though you definitely cheated on the race over here.”

That got a giggle out of David, and he raised his head and wiped his eyes. “Thanks, Henry. And I did not cheat, I’m just a better rider than you!” David poked Henry in the ribs with a grin. “But, um, yeah… I think there are some other things I wanna change.”

Henry nodded. “Ok. I’ll help, if you want.”

David smiled, and Henry felt warmth come with the grin. He was sincere; he and David had been the best of friends since they were children, and they had always understood that if one of them needed something, the other would do whatever was needed to help. That wasn’t going to change just because he and David might, even if David’s changes might be… bigger than expected.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David stood in the parlor and he (that really didn’t feel quite right, but neither did “she,” so…) could feel the eyes directed at him. He was so glad that his siblings weren’t visiting today, so they could have this talk with just the three of them.

Well, four, counting Henry, but he had tucked himself away in the corner as emotional support and was adamantly trying to avoid drawing too much attention to himself. David would have almost found it funny, if they weren’t so nervous; they had learned a long time ago that the Carolinas were not fond of their- his choice of friends.

Hmm… that wasn’t so bad. Can I call myself that, though? I’m just one per-

“What do you want to talk about, Fiona?”

David was shaken from their thoughts. They blinked over at Nora, who was sitting next to her brother and staring at David unblinking. Ever since they were little, David thought that look was creepy. Of course, Nora didn’t mean anything by it, she was just an intense person and when she gave her attention to something, she gave all of her attention to it.

Which was really unpleasant for David right now.

They shifted their weight to their other foot and took a deep breath, before speaking, “Well, first off, I wanna talk about changing my name. I don’t wanna be called Fiona anymore.”

Both Carolinas nodded, and Nolan commented, “Alright. It’s not uncommon for a personification to change his or her name, especially since we live so long. Times change, and things go in and out of fashion.”

“What would you like to change your name to?”

David glanced over to Henry, who was standing in the corner by the door. Henry nodded, and David grasped onto the reassurance that he offered.

“I, uh, I want to be called- I want to be called David, please.”

Both twins blinked. Neither spoke for what felt like hours, but David knew was probably seconds. Then Nolan cleared his throat and said, “David? Well, that is a very good name, but… I’m not sure it’s the best choice.”

Nora added, “Yes. We realize you must be looking for a change, Fiona, but perhaps you should consider a less… drastic change, hm? If you’re looking for a name that is less feminine, Logan is a lovely name for men and women.”

“It is. Are you trying to display your boyish tendencies? We know you were irritated with Madam Willingham for scolding you as a tomboy. She really should… Well, she should mind her own business, if you ask me, but Logan is a fine name for a lady who is not afraid of a little dirt and sweat. Or Riley.”

In spite of how they had prepared for this reaction, David felt themself (themselves? No, that’s not right, there’s only one of me…) deflate a little. In contrast, they could sense Henry bristling behind them. Henry normally was very calm, and it really to some doing to get him riled up, but god, the twins sure were good at it.

I should really say something before he do-

“I really don’t think that is what David meant.”

Nora and Nolan pivoted toward Henry, and David, despite the twisting in their gut, sighed at the thought of having to drag Henry out of another shouting match with their siblings.

“Really? Well, please, what do you think she means?”

Henry opened his mouth for a retort, then closed it again. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before responding, “That’s not my place. They can tell you.”

David held his breath at the wording. Nora frowned and Nolan quirked a brow, but neither addressed how Henry had referred to David, so David let out their breath and decided to move on quickly. They wanted this to be over with.

“I, er, well, Henry is right,” they stumbled. “I’m not trying to let people know I’m a tomgirl, or boy or whatever. I… I’m not a tomboy or a tomgirl. I…,” David sighed, and continued, “I don’t want to be called Fiona, and I don’t want to be called a girl anymore. That’s not what I am.”

Again, there was silence, but this time, the twins were much more obviously thrown. David waited for what they would say and prepared for the worst.

“Fi… David,” Nora said. “If you do not want to… be seen as a girl anymore, or if you think you would prefer to act and dress as a man, then… well, Nolan, I think we can work with that.”

“Yes… yes, we’ll go to the tailor tomorrow and see about having some new clothes put together. Just a few outfits, in case you reconsider this, ah… decision.”

“No.” David wasn’t quite aware of speaking.

Nolan hesitated. “No?”

“No. I mean, yes, I would appreciate new clothes, but I don’t want to be seen as a man. I don’t think I am a man. I don’t feel like a man.”

Nora shared a look with her brother before fixing David with a firm look. “We’re not really sure what you mean, then, dear. Are you going to act as a man or a woman, Tennessee?”

A cold feeling gathered in their stomach.

David swallowed.

“Neither. Or both? I am neither. But…” they trailed off at the looks they were receiving from both siblings. Nora always looked unimpressed, even when she was entertained, sometimes. She discovered early on how to garner respect among her peers as a young woman involved in the politics and finance of her state. But even Nolan, who was not particularly warm but was still less severe than his sister, was fixing David with a withering stare.

“Don’t be silly, Fiona. You are not a plant, or a chair, or a rock. You are a young lady, and if, for the moment, you fancy trying your hand at a man’s life, then feel free; we will help, within reason. But do not start running around with some fanciful ideas of… whatever it is you’re thinking.”

“Yes! Why, if-,”

“Do you want to leave, David?”

David almost jumped at the hand on their shoulder. Henry stood next to them, looking directly at them and ignoring Nora and Nolan’s spiel. David just stared at Henry for a full thirty seconds. They hadn’t realized that was an option.

Nora and Nolan were equally dumbfounded by Henry’s interruption. They stared at the pair standing by the door, somewhat shocked at being cut off and very irritated at Henry’s audacity to suggest walking out in the moment.

“Excuse me, but I thi-,”

“I think that you should kiss my ass, but looks like none of us are getting what we wanted, huh? I wasn’t talking to you.” Henry turned back to David and waited for an answer.

David couldn’t walk out in the middle of this. It was rude, and the problem would still be here later. All that walking away would do was postpone the unpleasant.

But David nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They didn’t notice they were crying until Henry wiped their face. They were already in Tennessee and had stopped to rest and decide where they were going to go. Henry was sitting next to them by the road and put his arm around their shoulders.

“Um, I really… I’m not gonna say everything is ok, because it isn’t. That, what they said and did, that shouldn’t have happened.” He paused and rubbed his face. David had left with Henry, and before they did, the Carolinas had made it very clear that until David had made up his mind and started “thinking clearly,” neither David nor Henry was welcome in that house. They had also threatened to write to Virginia about how terrible of an influence Henry had been by encouraging their sister to run off and confuse her about her gender and such, but Henry assured David there was little to worry about on that end.

“But, y’know, everything doesn’t have to be ok. Hey, look at me, please?”

David looked up at him and placed a hand on the one Henry had yet to take from their face.

“You’re ok. Ok? And I’m ok. And we’re ok, and that’s what matters right now.”

“Wow,” David laughed, “how very humble of you to add your whole self into that.”

“Well, I mean, if you wanna trot off alone, that’s cool. I’m just stating facts, my friend; I’m doing fine, you’re doing fine, or you will be, and that’s the important part.” Henry grinned. “Besides, are you really gonna tell me I’m not fine? Because let’s face it, I’m pretty fine.”

David rolled his eyes. “I think you’ve spent too much time with Miles.”

Shrugging, Henry stood up and helped David to their feet. He thought for a moment, then suggested, “We could head to his place, speaking of. Him and his older brother will probably be much more welcoming about this than those two d- *ahem* than the twins. Or we could just hang out here, or go to Kentucky, or Virginia, or… I don’t know. It’s your crisis, you choose.”

“Well,” David mused, “I’d rather avoid anywhere the twins will be willing to march into to scold me more, so Miles is probably the only option left at that point. They like him even less than they like you. Speaking of, thank you for not getting into it with them. I’m glad we just left, instead.”

“Hey, if being polite to them will make you happy, then…,” Henry made a pained face and swallowed, “then I will bite my tongue and not tell them where they can stick their fancy fucking teacups.”

Laughing, David shook his head. “Thank you, dear. Alright then, let’s be off.”

#transtaliaweek2020 #transtalia #hetalia #statetalia #hws states #aph states #tw: transphobia #aph tennessee #aph kentucky #aph north carolina #aph south carolina #I'M SORRY DAVY

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properpacksblog · 2 years

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U Wanna Hit The Shelf , I Can Show U The Route ... Bring Me 50... In Los angles For A Limited Time!

#quavo migos #takeoff #box chevy #south australia #hws south italy #north carolina #south carolina

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bustedbernie · 3 years

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If your state has one dominant city and educated and diverse suburbs, the trend is clear. Atlanta, Phoenix, the Twin Cities, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Denver, ABQ, Baltimore... the list goes on. But then you have states whose populations are not so concentrated, like Texas, NC, Florida, Ohio, they're not keeping up the pace and are even backsliding. Philly and its suburbs are growing so I think 2016 was a fluke, but MI and WI might be in real danger of becoming the next Ohios.

Yeah, I worry about Michigan and Wisconsin. Wisconsin in particular seems to suffer some big brain-drain. Detroit “coming back” as an arts center in conjunction with nearby UM, I think has some good hope at staving that off. But it really depends. I do think though, that it is why we really need to develop democratic gains in the “Sun Belt” to help make that less of a threat.

As for Texas, I think the trendlines still favor democrats down the road. This election showed some of the key suburbs around Dallas as trending blue. The state itself is becoming more urban. If Fort Worth can go the way of San Antonio, Houston and nearby Dallas, I think it could bode well for us. Meanwhile, many rural counties in Texas remain some of the most “dead” counties or “dying” counties in the country. I really do not understand how so many Texans continue to support the GOP when so many Texas counties are anemic at best. I’ve talked to people who say, “Well, we got the new prison in Childress that brought jobs...” or “the wind ranch is doing well.” And those types of things might keep up some counties, but overall, you can’t drive through Texas without going through 100 dying towns. Especially juxtaposed with how active and colorful some Texas cities are, you’d think people might think a bit differently. Idk. I guess that’s my tangent hah. Racism explains a lot of that phenomena in any case, so I suppose I shouldn’t act surprised. But Texas remains a worthy place to invest in. If a liberal like Beto can come within a couple percentage points, I think that says it’s worth it all by itself.

As for Florida, it is tricky. Some trends bode well for us and others not so much.. Florida democrats have been among the loudest at deriding the effects of “the Squad” on their messaging and ability to both attract voters and turn them out. The analysis also seems to show that gun control, “defund the police,” and perceptions of being “weak on corruption” hurt us in Florida. Rick Wilson who helped Run HW Bush��s campaign in ‘88 and helped found the “Lincoln Project” seems to think that Democrats need to be more willing to get down and dirty in Florida and forget about both policy and ideology. He also added this in the “Palm Beach Post” about the socialism issue and in particular, Castro, who Bernie Sanders hurt us with in that state:

Wilson wasn’t so sure how far Biden can carry other candidates if the party as a whole does not find a way to extinguish Republican rhetoric, particularly surrounding the issue of socialism.

“Democrats would have won the state, but no one had the stones to go down to Miami and say, ‘Castro is a monster who should burn in hell,’” Wilson said. “It would be the easiest thing in the world to do it, but they won’t because it would piss off their base. But if you don’t say something bad about socialism, you are handing the Republicans a sword to cut off your head in South Florida.”

Wilson said that, in addition to running an unorganized ground game, Florida’s Democratic Party seems to lack a general understanding of values statewide.

So I’m also unwilling to write off Florida, but we need to acknowledge what Florida is (a red state with a few blue counties), we need to work harder registering people, and we need to create better messaging for places like it.

I think aside from those places, we also need to think of what we can do in North Carolina. Charlotte and Winston-Salem seem to be breaking for us. I’m not sure if NC is another case of Virginia 2004, but we CAN win it. I’d say we need to focus in these places before we think about Ohio or Iowa. But most states have a large city where we can at least make local gains (Omaha for example). Creating a framework for that would also be helpful.

#Anonymous

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elf-zhyza · 3 years

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props to the kids from South Carolina who mailed Eret their math hw

#dsmp

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mariacallous · 4 years

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7, 8, 15, 22, 25.

7. What was your first word as a child (that wasn’t a variation of “Mom” or “Dad”)?

Tragically, my memory isn’t that good and according to my mom, Mama and Dada were the first (in that order)and that she didn’t remember the first non-parent name word but that I “caught on pretty quickly though” and that if it was something significant or common, it likely involved Bush (HW) and/or Desert Storm (which I almost typed as Desert Strom, and how I wish we had sent the Senator from South Carolina to the desert permanently and a long time ago) My niece’s first word was Shit, apparently - which makes sense, considering how much time she spends around my dad.

8. What’s a job that you’ve had that people might be surprised to find out you’ve had?

I did freelance social media for a skincare company

15. What coffee drink would you describe yourself as?

Irish Coffee - various parts bitter, sweet, sharp, and sometimes surprisingly boozy. Not to everyone’s tastes but also somehow fairly common.

22. What was your “phase” when you were younger? (i.e., Mythology Nerd, Horse Girl, Space Geek, etc)

Oh, I had more phases than the fucking moon. I was definitely a myth bitch (any and all kinds but especially greek and roman - I remember that I would be reading my book of greek myths during church services when I was much younger.) but I also did the whole Space Case phase as well - I used to want to work for NASA (I still do, but in the public affairs and policy side). I had the angry pseudo-emo phase (atheist/agnostic and angrily and moodily talking to parents) and the whole Innocent Devout Altar Server phase.

25. Puzzles?

To more seriously answer the question, they’re okay. I don’t do jigsaw puzzles hardly ever anymore, but I do word puzzles and so forth.

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cogitoergofun · 4 years

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The Republican convention that nominates Donald Trump for a second term will be the greatest event in the political history of cancel culture. What Trump is cancelling is nothing less than the Republican party as it has existed before him. He ran in 2016 in the primaries on cancelling the GOP and in 2020 he ratifies his triumph. After the election, political scientists and historians will study his obliteration of the Republican party as his greatest and most enduring political achievement.

The Republican party has been on a long journey away from being the party of Abraham Lincoln, accelerating since Barry Goldwater and rightwing cadres captured it in 1964 in reaction to the civil rights movement. After Richard Nixon embraced the southern strategy and won the nomination in 1968 with the help of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the Dixiecrat segregationist presidential candidate in 1948, the party increasingly radicalized in every election cycle and became gradually unmoored. In 1980, Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair, the place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. Surrounded by Confederate flags, he hailed “states’ rights”. As brazen an appeal as it was, Reagan felt he had to resort to the old code words.

Central to Trump’s unique selling proposition is that he dispenses with the dog whistles. His vulgarity gives a vicarious thrill to those who revel in his taunting of perceived enemies or scapegoats. He made them feel dominant at no social price, until his catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Flouting a mask is the magical act of defiance to signal that nothing has really changed and that in any case, Trump bears no responsibility.

[...]

From Reagan onward, even as the fringe moved to the center and took it over, the party did not anticipate that it was slouching toward Trump. Conservatives have consistently failed to grasp the unintended consequences of conservatism. Even when Reagan fostered the evangelical right, George HW Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the supreme court, George W Bush invaded Iraq and neglected oversight of financial markets that collapsed, and John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, Republicans believed they were expanding the attraction of the conservative project. When Newt Gingrich, Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh methodically degraded language, it seemed a propaganda technique to herd supporters. When the dark money of the Koch family and the wealthy reactionaries of the cloaked Donors Trust bankrolled the lumpen dress-up Tea Party to do their bidding on deregulation of finance and industry, the munificently funded conservative candidates did their bidding as retainers of privilege.

#republicans #donald trump #trump administration #us elections 2020 #us politics

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phroyd · 5 years

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Trump’s Horrible Legacy! - Phroyd

Many Americans watching the turmoil in US institutions and political norms are yearning for the day when Donald Trump is no longer president. But whether he leaves after 2020 or 2024, Trump has built a legacy in one vital area that can be expected to stand for decades, long after his Twitter feed has fallen silent, analysts across the political spectrum agree.

That legacy comprises the 89 judges, and rapidly counting, that Trump has nominated, and Senate Republicans have confirmed, to serve at all levels of the federal court system. They are taking up posts from the district courts (53 Trump nominees confirmed out of 677 total) to the appellate courts (34 out of 179) to the US supreme court (two out of nine). Put together they form a kind of conservative judicial revolution that could impact all aspects of American life.

In the past week, Trump’s judges tally notched up by three, with the confirmation to appeals courts of Chad Readler, who previously ran the legal effort to dismantle Barack Obama’s healthcare law; Eric Murphy, who undermined voting rights, marriage equality and reproductive rights as a state solicitor in Ohio; and Allison Jones Rushing, who has past ties to an anti-LGBT group and who at 37 years old is the country’s youngest federal judge, a lifetime appointment.

As with previous Trump nominees, Readler, Murphy and Rushing were confirmed over the impassioned protests of progressive groups who warned the judges were out of step with the country on crucial issues including immigration, abortion, climate change, LGBT rights, healthcare, voting rights and more.

The overarching concern, said Daniel L Goldberg, the legal director at the Alliance For Justice, is that Trump’s judges will now shape American life according to the narrow conservative vision of the elite, predominantly white and male groups guiding Trump’s hand as he makes his picks – a vision that is divergent not only from the political left but also from the center.

“I don’t think most Americans realize, long after Donald Trump and his repeated attacks on the rule of law – on the independent judiciary and our constitutional rights – long after Donald Trump has left the scene, his judges will still be interpreting the constitution and our laws for the next two, three, four decades,” Goldberg said.

“And for millions of Americans, who rely every day on critical protections for workers, for clean air and water, for healthcare, for critical rights for women and LGBTQ Americans, there’s going to be an attack coming from our courts on some of our most precious rights and legal protections.”

The Trump judge-confirming machine has arguably been run better than anything else in his administration – perhaps because he has had relatively little to do with it. Unlike past presidents, Trump has turned the job of picking nominees over, almost wholly, to the White House counsel’s office, which in turn has worked from lists drawn up by the Federalist Society, the country’s premier network of conservative lawyers.

The Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has done his part by clearing long-standing hurdles in the nominating process, including one by which home-state senators from either party could veto an undesirable pick. On Wednesday, Politico reported that McConnell planned to go further, by ending a rule requiring 30 hours of debate on each judicial nominee.

“This is a Republican hijacking of the third branch of government,” said Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, in reaction to the news. “[McConnell] will be setting a new precedent that it is OK to change the Senate rules in order to get more of your preferred judges onto the federal bench.”

Republicans would argue that Democrats changed the rules first. In any case, the current state of play has worked well for Trump, who has succeeded in confirming 24 judges to appellate courts during the first two years of his term, about 50% more than Obama (15) and George W Bush (16), and a third more than Bill Clinton (18), George HW Bush (18) and Ronald Reagan (19).

“The nomination of judges has been one of the few bright spots of the Trump administration by a long shot,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law specializing in the supreme court and constitutional law.

While Trump’s supreme court picks, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, have received a lion’s share of the public’s attention, his appeals and district court picks could have more influence over the life of the nation, because of the relatively limited number of cases the US supreme court hears.

“The appeals courts are crucially important, because every year they resolve 50,000 or so cases, and the supreme court decides fewer than 100,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at Richmond School of Law specializing in federal judicial selection. “And so for 99.9% of cases, the court of last resort is the appeals court in your region, and so it really is critically important.”

Blackman said “conservatives are by and large happy” with Trump’s judicial picks.

“The Kavanaugh and Gorsuch nominations are sort of the icing on the cake,” Blackman said. “But I think the real action is in the lower courts, which most people don’t even know about.”

The power of federal judges in American life is tremendous – and has also worked in favor of progressive ideals. In rulings cheered by progressives since the 2016 election, judges have ordered families separated by the Trump administration at the border to be reunited; blocked the Keystone XL pipeline on environmental grounds; vacated an executive order to weaken federal unions; blocked Trump’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census; upheld a Trump ban on bump stocks for semi-automatic rifles; and sentenced former Trump aides including Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort to prison.

But federal judges have not always been antagonistic to the president. In the past year, the supreme court has allowed Trump’s ban on transgender troops in the military to stand, upheld a revised Muslim travel ban, complicated abortion access in California and approved a Republican-led voter purge in Ohio that disproportionately targeted racial minorities, among other measures.

But so questionable has been the quality of some of Trump’s nominees that even Republicans have taken pause. On Wednesday, Senator Susan Collins of Maine voted against Readler, saying that his attack on Obamacare amounted to an attempt to deny health insurance to those with pre-existing conditions. Republican senator Tim Scott opposed the nomination of Thomas Farr, who defended a North Carolina voter ID law that a federal appeals court said was enacted “with racially discriminatory intent”, and of Ryan Bounds, who wrote controversial undergraduate newspaper columns at Stanford University including one comparing campus diversity efforts to Nazi Germany.

Trump’s nomination of Matthew Spencer Petersen, a federal elections commissioner who had never tried a case, fell apart embarrassingly at Peterson’s confirmation hearing when he could not answer basic legal questions. Trump’s nomination of Texas lawyer Jeff Mateer fell apart when it emerged that Mateer had endorsed “conversion therapy” for LGBT individuals and called transgender children proof that “Satan’s plan is working”.

Despite those stumbles, Trump has succeeded in placing enough judges to begin to shift the ideological makeup of the judiciary, including on two appellate courts. Under Trump, the 11th circuit (Alabama, Georgia and Florida) has gone from a Democratic majority to a 6-6 split, and the 3rd circuit (Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware) went from a 7-5 Democratic majority with two vacancies to what is likely to be a 7-7 split.

On the question of how the courts might be changing, Tobias said “we just don’t have that much data yet.”

“The longest anybody’s been on the bench is two years, and most of them much less time than that, so it’s really hard to draw conclusions, but they will begin to make a difference I think in the coming years, that’s for sure,” he said.

As for long-term change, Tobias noted that in short order, Trump most likely will have filled every vacancy among the 179 active circuit court judges.

“Trump is not going to have a lot more nominees at that level unless he is reelected,” Tobias said. “I think it depends on whether Trump has a second term.”

Phroyd

#trump administration #donald trump #law (us)#us politics #us news

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