The End, One Way or Another

Heather Cox Richardson offers among the most astute and sober analysis available. Reading it agitates me, but I know I have to stay awake to everything that’s happening. We really are at a precipice in America and, frankly, I want to say I was there when it happened, not pretending it wasn’t.

There is no word in the English language (“fury” comes closest but is still far too mild) to express how I feel about Republicans and Trump steamrolling Americans to put a religious extremist on the Supreme Court. But note that the real pressure to do this is not from gullible pro-lifers. It’s from corporations and mega-rich donors who could not care less about abortion, a service they will always be able to avail themselves of. They want entrenched oligarchy and corporate minority rule over the United States. Hard stop. Overturning Roe is just the meat they’ve thrown to Christians. They really don’t care about that. A 6-3 majority will help ensure that “we the people” have almost nothing to say about those who govern us. Jesus has nothing to do with it.

I’m going to be 62 this month. Never in my darkest fantasies, even though I remember the 60s somewhat and lived through the AIDS years, did I imagine I would see a cartoonish authoritarian with a spray tan line around his face, gasping for air on a balcony like some high-school production of Evita, bringing the United States to the brink of ruin. But that is where we are. Millions of businesses can go under, tens of millions of Americans can go hungry, untold jobs lost, over a thousand people dying every day from a virus that doesn’t care about tough guys, real or fake, and all that matters is a court packed with judges who serve the rich and the rabid. Wow.