<i.>
Here's a simple test we can all try at home. How do you know when anyone in a leadership position is no longer relevant anymore, has reached their sell-by date, so to speak? Simple. When they stop speaking truth to power, and tell us to do likewise.
I mean Dick Durbin, Illinois's senior US Senator, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose responses to the Supreme Court's recently-dropped bombshell -- the now-infamous draft opinion that Roe v. Wade is dead, because it's not mentioned in the Constitution, meaning, we only have the rights they deign to grant us -- rank among the stupidest and most jaw-dropping.
Pelosi's faux pas came first, during the Aspen Climate Ideas Conference, on May 9, in Miami (the same city where they're starting to openly fret about sea level rise). Asked what it would take to move the Senate on climate legislation, with Republicans ruling out such measures, Madam Pelosi opined:
"Well, we have to defeat them, so let's just try to persuade them. I want the Republican party to take back the party, take it back to where you were when you cared about a woman's right to choose, you cared about the environment. Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party, and we do, not a cult, but a strong Republican Party."
When I read this, I rolled my eyes, and sighed aloud: "Nance, not to be mean, but the GOP seems quite robust nationally. Six of the nine Justices essentially carry their water at the Supreme Court. They control 26 state delegations, thanks to varying combinations of gerrymandering, and pushing their voters' darkest, most primal buttons.
"Oh, yeah, and while we're at it, let's not forget that January 6 insurrection thing, for which our Attorney General, Merrick Garland, is spending endless amounts of time prosecuting the little guy who swipes a coat rack from the Senate cloakroom, yet so far, has left Trump and his inner circle of planners -- including the infamous lawyer, John Eastman, and far right Congressmen and women, like Louie Gohmert, Jim Jordan, and Marjorie Taylor Greene -- blissfully untouched."
This is the same Republican Party that's working overtime to subvert democracy, however and wherever they can -- from running conspiracist-minded candidates to seize control of the electoral machinery, to the increasingly authoritarian bent that states like Florida and Texas are taking, to suppress the vote, or take total control of it, even when the results say otherwise. To put it charitably, they've never looked less persuadable.
Judging by what I'm seeing on the Hill's Twitter thread, the suggestion isn't going down well: "So the guy who said we can't "bully" the Supreme Court to act a certain way is married to the woman who bullied Arizona lawmakers to fabricate a different set of electors and helped organize a mob to bully Congress into not certifying the duly chosen electors? Got it." (Tristan Snell)
Or we might go this response, from MeidasTouch.com: "Republicans are holding major events with Kyle Rittenhouse and Viktor Orban. Spare us the BS that it's the Democrats who have gotten too extreme." Suffice to say, Madam Pelosi's room reading skills have atrophied a tad, now that she's sat on top for so, so, so long. Godfather III-era Michael Corleone would know the feeling well, I'm sure.
<"Scenes From An ACA/Pro-Choice Picket"/Take I/Photo: The Reckoner>
<ii.>
Yet Pelosi isn't the only senior Democratic leader stuck in some endless 1980s and 1990s-era feedback loop, when the Republicans recruited the Christian Right to help do their bidding, though few talked as openly as they do now, about subverting the wishes of the majority (the 80 million who turned out in 2020 to rid themselves of Trump) to the tyranny of an aggrieved minority (the 74 million who wanted to keep their Dear Leader around).
Sadly, you can also count Durbin, the party's second-ranking Democrat, among those leaders unable to meet the moment, as he made all too clear, when asked how he viewed the protests that immediately surfaced outside the five most authoritarian-leaning Justices' homes:
"I think it's reprehensible. Stay away from homes and families of elected officials and members of the court. You can express yourself, exercise your First Amendment, but to go after them at their homes, to do anything of a threatening nature, certainly anything violent, is absolutely reprehensible."
Once again, I found myself asking:
“Are
you
f#cking kidding me?”
First, nobody has been violent to any of the five reactionary Justices, judging from the clips I've seen of their activities, anyway. Hell, nobody's even said so much as "Boo!" Considering the unhinged authoritarian bent of the draft opinion, it's not hard to understand why it's freaking people out. As almost every mainstream legal scholar has already noted, the draft opinion comes across as though the Fourteenth Amendment had never happened.
If Roe can be struck be down, on the basis that no constitutional right to privacy exists, what does that reasoning bode for other rights -- ranging from contraception access, to interracial marriage, gay marriage, and so on -- that were granted on similar grounds? Nothing good, let's put that way.
People have every reason to be alarmed, and honestly, if our chief concern is that Alito, and his equally tawdry, unsavory crew -- Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorusch, Brett Kavanagh, and Clarence Thomas -- aren't able to go about their repressive business blissfully undisturbed, then we've gone a lot farther off the rails than I could ever imagined.
To put it another way, they should have to face their handiwork, starting with those that they're angering. They should have to account for what they're contemplating. They should have to answer for the harm that they're potentially getting ready to inflict on a majority of Americans who have consistently sworn, in poll after poll -- for as long as I can remember, going back 30-odd years or so -- that they don't want Roe overturned.
Honestly, who takes the ethically-challenged likes of Thomas seriously, and his solemn vow that the court won't be "bullied?" Really? I guess the bully privilege only extends to himself and his infamous blonde trophy wife, who worked hand in hand with those scheming to keep Trump in power, the 80 million who wanted him swept out of the White House be damned. Their votes, of course, didn't rank among the "legal votes" that the GOP's senior mummies stoutly vowed to see counted. That didn't matter to them, then or now.
In all fairness, though, I can't blame Thomas for a tad feeling confused, given the dynamic he's seen since his ascension to the court, in 1992 -- the Dick Durbins of the world falling into their role of playing good cop to the GOP's bad cop. It must unsettle Thomas, I'd imagine, to see the hornet's nest that has already stirred in response. But if he didn't see it coming, that makes him even denser than I imagine him. Or how he already imagines himself.
<"Scenes From An ACA/Pro-Choice Picket"/
Take II/Photo: The Squawker>
<iii.>
At any rate, I no longer respect Durbin, nor anyone who talks along the same lines, like Bill Kristol, another card-carrying member of the commentariat who still seems to think it's 1996. Surely, they will see the light, because they'll listen to reason, right? Hence, his own equally stupid. wishy washy advice, dished out via his Twitter account: "Please don't protest at people's homes. Please don't intrude on people attending their houses of worship. Organize politically, be civil civically."
Jon Rosenberg's response strikes me as way more relevant:
"No. Fuck this. Go to people's homes. Go to their places of worship. Make them as uncomfortable as they are trying to make you. This is not the time for civility, this is the time for mass resistance and demonstration."
Crudely stated, but well stated. If you prefer a more eloquent version, Arwa Madhawi's commentary in the Guardian (see link below) should suffice, as well, particularly this comment:
"Here’s the thing though: civil rights have never been won by groveling at the feet of people who hate you and saying, ‘Please sir, can I have a few more rights?’ You simply do not owe civility to people who don’t see you as a full citizen. It’s worrying how many people seem to think otherwise."
Of course, this doesn't faze the Civility Cops, as I call the likes of Durbin, Kristol, Pelosi, and others of their ilk, who are mentally trapped in various nostalgic time warps, depending on their ideology or inclination. To hear the mainstreamers tell it, the soccer moms they spend so much time courting put away their bad girl sides -- careful with the bong -- long ago, so why bother telling them, "You can't have it all?" This is the default response of a Democratic Party that's been negotiating against itself for way, way too long. But when you see people clutch their pearls, and tell you that power really might concede without a demand, if you just lobby long and hard enough, that's when you know the world has passed them by.
<"Scenes From An ACA/Pro-Choice Picket"/
Take III/Image: The Squawker>
<iv.>
Yet it's worth recalling these seven words, and writing them in fire, on every so-called Democratic centrist's brain: It...Didn't...Have...To....Be...This...Way. At a certain point, the Democratic Party got used to the idea of Roe serving as a bargaining chip, one it viewed as key to keeping the faithful happy, and in the fold, whenever an election rolled around.
Dangling Roe as an empire building device to raise money and lock in votes seemed a far easier path to take than, say, codifying it into law, beyond the reach of meddling politicians (read: Republicans). Vote for us, and don't forget to donate, the traditional midterm pitches reminded us. Otherwise, women will lose their right to choose.
Democrats largely gave up on codifying Roe after the collapse of a Clinton-era push to do it, in the 1990s. However, it's an oversight they surely could have rectified in 2008, when Obama won the Presidency, and his party enjoyed a virtual supermajority in the Senate (57-41), until the 2010 midterms, when it shrank to 51-47.
That's before we get to other major sins, like the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg swatting aside suggestions that she step down during that time. Imagine what we might have been spared, if only she hadn't let hubris overtake common sense (see link below). And let's not forget the strategic malpractice of Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, the foul-mouthed moron who infamously told a roomful of activists, "I don't give a f#ck about judicial appointments."
We all know who did, and how wonderfully that movie has played out for them. Emanuel's dimwitted outburst is the kind of stupidity that inspires the GOP's bad actors to toast him privately, and chuckle, "It shouldn't be this easy. But it is!" With opponents like this, who needs a fair fight? Not them, of course, since they'll never experience one.
And this is what makes the hypocrisy of the Democratic Establishment such a bitter pill to swallow. They'll never have to face the consequences of their choices, or if they do, it won't be for long, given the ages of Durbin (77), or Pelosi (82) and her trusty sidekicks, James Clyburn (81) and Steny Hoyer (82), eternally content to play the malignant Robin to her equally toxic Batman.
Their loved ones won't have to worry about getting abortions, nor losing any of the other rights that will presumably tumble to the wayside, like so many wayward dominoes. When in doubt, they'll move to another country, an escape hatch that's always been available to the celebs, and the swells. Those who don't fall into either social category simmer slowly in the pot, like the vast majority of Nazi persecution victims did in 1939.
Honestly, don't sign up for another tour of duty with the Civility Cops. Their indifference and lack of empathy brought us to this pass, so why let the Durbins and Kristols and Pelosis of the world dictate the terms of our fight?
What's the point of trusting them to wield power anymore, when they do so precious little with it, on those rare occasions when they finally wriggle out of the penalty box long enough to claw back some of it? They've had plenty of chances. What have they done with them lately? What have they done for any of us lately? (Cue the sound of crickets chirping.) Right, exactly.
So no, sorry, Uncle Dick, and sorry, Aunt Nancy, forgive me if I don't feel like breaking bread with our potential downpressors. We understand if you aren't up to the fight anymore. Please, go sit down, shut the f#ck up, and let the rest of us get on with it.
Go to the Supreme Court goons' homes, or their gala rubber chicken dinners, and those of their acolytes, whatever event, or unseemly setting that you may run across them, and let them know -- to coin a phrase from "Janie Jones":
"EXACTLY -- HOW -- YOU -- FEEL."
So yeah, as full-on dramatic as that first sign sounds -- by all means, rage, rage, rage against the lying of the right. Because our survival depends on it. And those who have to follow this particular dystopian act will curse us forever, if we get wrong. --The Reckoner
Declare yourself an unsafe building
Suffer the indignation of your world,
To climb the ladders
you've gotta suss out the snakes
Remember your height
remember to never look down.
'Cause now you've made your choice
you've gotta take your chance
Find a way out now
you're
Unsafe, unsafe
<The Alarm, "Unsafe Building">
Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry, Before
They Start Passing Out The Handmaids' Uniforms)
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