Our right to ignore those spouting poppycock.

Hmmm.

The @WisDems statement on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that just came down, in which far-right judges put partisanship above public health: pic.twitter.com/3V4L60IG8i

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) March 31, 2021

I assume Wikler to be a journalist.  

And the tweet looked like an inconceivably gross error in understanding.  Governors administer the laws passed by the legislature and those laws, when challenged, are reviewed by the court system to ensure that they are compatible with the Constitution (State or Federal depending on the context.)

One can easily argue about the make-up of a court bench and as to whether it constitutes a partisan bench of one skew or another.  But who on earth would think that the court has the responsibility for, or is even qualified to judge on public health policy.  They don't judge effectiveness of public health policy.  They judge whether the policy was legitimately passed and is legal under that state's Constitution.  It is a matter of law, not public health.  Wikler is putting the cart before the horse - focusing on his perception of what the policy ought to be and not regarding whether the policy was legitimately constituted.  

So who is this Wikler journalist with such a confusion about the role of courts in our system of law and governance?

As it turns out, he is not a journalist.  He is a so far failed politician, activist, and organizer and the Chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin.  Seems an unusually senior and prominent role for someone who doesn't understand the role of courts.  Also seems like a pretty rudimentary error on the part of someone with an undergraduate degree in Economics from Harvard University.

Out in the hinterlands of social justice theory, critical theory, postmodernism, etc. people are free to say anything they wish without it ever being moored to reality.  And that is, of course, their right.  As it is our right to ignore those spouting poppycock.