{"id":124773,"date":"2025-06-29T15:02:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T23:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/29\/democracy-is-at-risk-retired-scotus-justice-anthony-kennedy-expresses-grave-concerns-over-tone-of-our-political-discourse\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T15:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T23:02:52","slug":"democracy-is-at-risk-retired-scotus-justice-anthony-kennedy-expresses-grave-concerns-over-tone-of-our-political-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/29\/democracy-is-at-risk-retired-scotus-justice-anthony-kennedy-expresses-grave-concerns-over-tone-of-our-political-discourse\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Democracy Is At Risk\u2019: Retired SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy Expresses Grave Concerns Over \u2018Tone Of Our Political Discourse\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

We should be concerned in this country about the tone of our political discourse [and] identity politics that are used so that a person is characterized by his or her partisan affiliation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what democracy and civil discourse is about. What democracy and civil discourse are about are taking issues and discussing them. And this is what judges do, and this is why judges are of central importance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many in the world look to the United States to see what democracy is, to see what democracy ought to be. If they see a hostile, fractious discourse, if they see a discourse that uses identity politics, rather than to talk about issues, democracy is at risk. Freedom is at risk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy<\/a>, in comments given during a virtual forum<\/a> held by Speak Up for Justice and noted by Law.com<\/a>, where he spoke on the importance of civic education, calling for political rhetoric in the U.S. to be toned down for the sake of our democracy and the safety of our judges.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post \u2018Democracy Is At Risk\u2019: Retired SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy Expresses Grave Concerns Over \u2018Tone Of Our Political Discourse\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

We should be concerned in this country about the tone of our political discourse [and] identity politics that are used so that a person is characterized by his or her partisan affiliation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what democracy and civil discourse is about. What democracy and civil discourse are about are taking issues and discussing them. And this is what judges do, and this is why judges are of central importance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many in the world look to the United States to see what democracy is, to see what democracy ought to be. If they see a hostile, fractious discourse, if they see a discourse that uses identity politics, rather than to talk about issues, democracy is at risk. Freedom is at risk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy<\/a>, in comments given during a virtual forum<\/a> held by Speak Up for Justice and noted by Law.com<\/a>, where he spoke on the importance of civic education, calling for political rhetoric in the U.S. to be toned down for the sake of our democracy and the safety of our judges.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post \u2018Democracy Is At Risk\u2019: Retired SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy Expresses Grave Concerns Over \u2018Tone Of Our Political Discourse\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. We should be concerned in this country about the tone of our political discourse [and] identity politics that are used so that a person is characterized by his or her partisan affiliation. That\u2019s not what democracy and civil discourse is about. What democracy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Staci-Zaretsky-YCXlyK.jpeg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}