A further note on legal standing, Race and White Privilege
A brief note on a diary that I wrote yesterday arguing that Democrats should embrace the fact that many Trump election lawsuits were dismissed for lack of “legal standing”:
Democrats should embrace the “standing” dismissals because what the courts, vitally, are saying is that you Republican plaintiffs don’t matter. You are irrelevant; you don’t have a right to be heard and no one should listen to you. Specifically, the fact that you are complaining White men or women means nothing, and certainly doesn’t mean that we all have to take the time, distraction and cost of refuting your nonsensical claims. No — your lawsuit is dismissed from the start without any further discussion.
Fairly predictably, several commenters took umbrage with the bolded reference to Whiteness, and so I responded more fully in a comment:
Some here have objected to the line about “being White,” and I understand where that comes from. And, no, the standing doctrine is not about race.
But I did write this line, and defend it, because it goes to the larger truth of what indeed is happening. We are watching an almost exclusively White group trying to subvert democratic elections because it is not what they believe the White majority wants and, more importantly, they associate Democrats as being from the “non-White party.” This White grievance expresses itself most particularly though institutional sabotage efforts (e.g., the courts, the legislatures, the various governors and secrataries of state) because they believe the institutions of power rightfully belong to Whites. In that sense, it is very important for the courts (and other institutions) to say it is not just that you are wrong on the merits, but you don't have standing, you do not control government and institutions.
I wrote this yesterday before a White Republican mob today breached the Capitol building in an act of insurrection and effort to steal a presidential election — which confirms exactly what I wrote.
Could you imagine if a group of African Americans stormed the House and Senate floors and offices — much less to install a Black Supremacist candidate who lost the election by some 7 million plus votes? But many White Americans despicably did this precisely because they believe that the institutions, the White House, the Congress, the courts, are theirs. They didn't break in to the Capitol Building (or courts); they own it.
That is why it was so important for the courts to tell these racist White Republicans that they did not have “standing” — that they did not have any station to voice complaints about the election. And it it is why it is so important to keep telling them that.
