Civil Rights: a Reactionary Wind Is Blowing in the US
The early months of Trump's term have been characterized by chaotic activism. The succession of emergency decrees on immigration, promptly suspended by several federal courts, has led to a state of uncertainty over the legal status of certain categories of residents who can now be considered non-citizens subject to deportation. The dismantling of Obamacare, the health care reform passed by his predecessor in order to seek universal coverage for Americans, is back on the GOP agenda after two failed attempts to bring the bill to the House of Representatives. Finally, filling the vacant seat at the Supreme Court was done at the cost of bending Senate's rules, in order to overcome the announced filibustering of the Democratic minority. More generally, this chaotic movement is fueled by a counter-reformation strategy that affects almost every policy put in place during Obama's presidency: health, finance, the environment, civil rights, and gender rights in particular.
➜ Political polarization
While in Western European political systems, irrespective of their ideological orientation, there is consensus on civil rights, witnessed, for example, by the widespread recognition of civil unions and gay marriages, which mitigates the cultural clash on these issues, in the US political polarization is growing due to radically opposed views on civil rights.
Trump's presidency takes sides and promises consequences for existing rights. First of all, there is the question of the right to abortion, which the new administration is trying to limit. The debate on abortion never really went away. At the time of Obama's first term, the emergence of the Tea Party and its right-to-life positions seemed to announce a battle over reproductive rights. Although the movement is now marginal and distant from mainstream Republicans over many issues, the latter do not forget that their electorate is sensitive to the subject. At the state level, laws are being passed targeting planned parenthood clinics that provide birth control and abortion. At the federal level, on the other hand, the granting of public funds to women's health facilities that practice abortions has always been cause of fierce debate.
➜ Between originalism and natural law
Trump has two major allies: a GOP-dominated Congress, and right-leaning Supreme Court. His appointment of Neil Gorsuch, a staunch conservative who adopts an originalist stance in the interpretation of the Constitution, could mark the beginning of a legal re-assessement of the historic ruling that gave women freedom of choice, Roe vs. Wade. The conservative component of the Court considers it a wrong ruling, and has sometimes spoken about overturning it. But conservative justices face a major obstacle: the impracticability of obtaining Justice Anthony Kennedy's vote; although he was appointed by a conservative administration, he shares liberal sentiments on civil rights. However, the choice of Gorsuch sends a strong signal in terms of civil rights and their relationship with the political process. The new Associate Justice is sensitive to the idea that rights have foundations in natural law, that there is a link between the right to life and human dignity, and as a consequence he is skeptical about the notion that reproductive decisions are constitutional rights, while also being opposed to the individuals' right to die. Above all, Gorsuch believes that the site of the battle over rights is the political process, not courts: their acknowledgment derives from their ability to express social rootedness in tradition. Nothing could be farther from the philosophy that marked the crucial moments of the advancement of civil rights in the United States.