The very atmosphere itself is vibrating with widespread horror at the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My own shrieking is part of that chorus, naturally. And the earth itself trembles with the frisson of Mitch McConnell and his Under-the-Bridge Gang of almost human followers in politics and the media. Finally! That sixth Supreme Court seat! Old Mitch has defeated the guardian dragon that was decorous politics, and the Golden Fleece is now his.
No one, however, can suggest that the event was in any way surprising. This wonderful woman had lived a long life, and she had not been entirely well for some time. Now we will all be treated to the spectacle of the Republicans winning another political battle using their favorite tactic: always defining the rules, but never following them. This last battle will win the war for them. With Justice Ginsburg's passing, we can dig two graves. One for her, and one for the Supreme Court itself. Oh, three graves. Dig one for American democracy.
I've always said that Trump was just the distraction, and the real threat is, and has been for over one hundred years, the Republican party. With six justices in the conservative voting block, the Republicans will move forward with an insurmountable advantage in all matters political. I trust that no one is hoping to be saved by either Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, or Chief Justice Roberts. I hate to break this to you, but the instances over the last few years when one or the other of those gentlemen voted with the liberal wing of the court was only a successful kompromat operation, intended to plant the false hope that one of these honorable gentlemen may actually have a conscience, and that the Supreme Court is still an honorable institution. They do not, and it is not. You may all disabuse yourselves of that false hope. With six, they will no longer have to hide in the shallows. They will be able to sail the deep blue seas at will, doing whatever they wish. Three noble justices will be forced to watch from the sidelines, writing frequent, angry dissenting opinions that will remain in the books forever as proof that America remains a democracy.
Speaking of false hopes, is anyone still expecting the election to save us from encroaching fascist oligarchy? Alas, no. Even if those worthless Democrats manage to win the presidency and both houses of congress, the Republicans and the oligarchy will proceed with their plans of conquest unimpeded. They will do this through the miracle of NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES, reinventing America on the fly into whatever suits them, with the full backing of the Constitution of the United States of America, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. Just watch. It's going to be easy.
Anything that the constitution has given over the last 240 years can be taken away in a heartbeat by the sitting Supreme Court. That's Marbury vs. Madison, baby! Due Process is whatever the Supreme Court says it is. It's a “living document,” and we're liable to find out just what the other side of that coin looks like.
You might say that none of this really matters anymore, since the vast majority of the world's countries have taken a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” approach to our ongoing destruction of the earth's climate. Another fifty years, and no one will give one good Goddamn about politics. All of their time will be occupied with finding some food for their families. Bear in mind, however, that the Republicans are also the ones who say things like, “it'll get cooler,” suggesting that they know more about it than the scientists, who, by the way, display “lots of disagreement about the weather.”
Politics is a venomous creature that drags behind it poisonous tendrils, like the stingers of a man-of-war jellyfish. Fascism swings the pendulum back towards draconian measures to insure “order,” which is interpreted to mean the absence of oversight, complaints, or any restraints on government power. That's where we're going. In fact, we're coming into the station now.
I hate to think what horrors will overtake my granddaughters in their lifetimes. Under normal conditions, they would have plenty of wind left in their sails in fifty years. But for 2070, I think that normal conditions are out of the question.
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