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Political Rants

Our remaining option: A Million Mutinies Now

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As you well know, the other shoe dropped last week regarding Roe v. Wade, which is now history. The joyless anti-abortion zealots up the street from me must be enjoying the closest thing they know to a celebration. Maybe they’ll take the baby-float mobile out for a ride. (No, seriously: they had a vehicle with a plastic baby on the roof and P.A. speakers through which they would read anti-abortion screeds, inaudible because of their cheap audio gear. We called it the “baby float”.)

I wrote a post on the impending abortion decision a couple of weeks ago entitled “The Right To Be Forced Into Childbirth“. What I didn’t get deeply into then was the degree of fraud Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court committed during their confirmation hearings. That was, of course, their way not only of protecting themselves but of offering their supporters cover by gaslighting everyone who had paid any attention to their careers up to that point.

Perjury and Prevarication

Let’s take Gorsuch, son of Anne Gorsuch Buford, Reagan’s EPA administrator who tried to dismantle the agency, partly through sheer incompetence. (Looks like her son is going to get another shot at it via their upcoming ruling.) During his confirmation hearings, Gorsuch acknowledged the power of precedence with regard to Roe, and affirmed that a “good judge” should take it as seriously as in any other case. Then came last Friday.

How about Kavanaugh, lover of beer, bro of Squee, best bud of P.J.? Kavanaugh referred to Roe as “settled law” and an “important precedent …. reaffirmed many times.” Sure, he suggested that he might be persuaded to overturn it, but who reads the fine print? He made comforting cooing sounds, and the senators nodded contentedly.

I’m not sure what Justice Barrett could possibly have said to counteract her part in publishing a full-page anti abortion ad in the New York Times. She bleated some gas about following the rules of stare decisis, and like her reactionary brethren, hid the ball in plain sight so that the politicians in the audience could pretend they did not see it.

The bastards Bush

It’s easy to blame Trump, of course, because he’s so damn blame-able. But the worst justice on the damn court is Clarence Thomas, and he was appointed by George H. W. Bush, or Bush the First as no one calls him. Bush is now roundly praised by centrists as a man of integrity, etc. Justice Thomas is convincing evidence to the contrary. No other recent Republican president has appointed a more reactionary judge to lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court.

And then there’s Sam Alito, the no- so-smart as Scalia clone of Scalia. George W. Bush appointed him, so to those of you whose hearts are warmed by the sight of W. and Michelle Obama goofing about, all I can say to you is …. Iraq. And Alito. And Afghanistan. And …. Suffice to say, if it weren’t for these two losers (W. and H.W.), Roe would still stand.

All is not lost

Fortunately, there are things we can do. One of them is what so many thousands of people did over this past weekend – make your voices heard. Another is to push our Congress members to support legislation by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives that would support the right to abortion services through the establishment of federal clinics in red states, expansion of access to medication, and so on.

The other thing is, well, a million mutinies now. Vote for the most progressive members of Congress you can find. Encourage everyone around you to do the same thing. We need a progressive tidal wave this fall, and it’s going to take everyone doing that simple thing – voting. With a strong majority in Congress, we can pass and expanded Roe in to law, build a better healthcare system, expand the Supreme Court, impeach Kavanaugh, amend the constitution. All we need is the votes.

Impossible? I think not. If people mobilize, we can take over the works within the confines of the current system. With the right numbers, nothing could stop us. We just have to commit to doing it.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The right to be forced into childbirth

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Let me put this right on the table. I am a cisgender white male, born into considerable privilege (though not rich) and raised in a rock-rib Republican town that is also home to Congresswoman Claudia Tenney. Unlike Claudia (who is currently warning on Twitter of yet another election-year migrant “caravan” coming north from the brown countries), I am pro-abortion rights, 100%. And if I were against abortion, no one should listen to me …. because I am a cisgender white male who will never need the procedure, and should shut the fuck up.

In light of the leaked Alito draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, I feel as though I should map out my reasons for supporting women’s bodily sovereignty. None of my thoughts on this are unique or particularly original, but this is a time when people should voice their opposition to the Taliban-like edicts of our robed overlords on the Supreme Court, in hopes of mobilizing even broader opposition. Aside from organizing, volunteering and donating, it’s all we’ve got left at this point.

Thus far and no farther

First point: I have long felt that our bodies are our own personal nation, and that we are the sovereigns of that nation. Sure, we can’t control everything that happens within our borders, so to speak, but we should have the final word on any interventions from the skin inward. That seems pretty minimal to me in the way of human rights. Men insist on this, and rightly so – no forced vasectomies, thank you very much. And I intend on keeping my gall bladder, so there!

Okay, so when a woman is pregnant – and guys, I hope you’re reading this carefully – the pregnancy happens inside of her. That small province of internal space should be totally within her control. You’ve heard the old saying about politics stopping at the waters’ edge? Well, the law should stop at the skin. If a woman wants to bring the pregnancy to term, that’s her right. If she wants to end it, prevent it, whatever, that’s her fundamental right as well. It’s a question of sovereignty, you see.

Freedom from religion

Last time I looked at the First Amendment, it appeared to say something like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

This is our guarantee not only of freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. Now, when you hear right-wingnuts and religious zealots talking about when life begins, it’s important to remember that they are expressing a religious belief. The idea that “life” begins at conception has no basis in science. If they are passing laws that force us to comply with this warped take on human biology, by any reasonable standard that amounts to compelling us to live according to the strictures of their religion.

This is indefensible on first amendment grounds. Unless, of course, our hyper partisan Supreme Court decides otherwise.

Card-carrying justices

Let us face it, the Supreme Court is an overtly political institution. Regardless of what they say at their confirmation hearings, conservative justices are only going to vote on way, regardless of the facts or the law. As Elie Mystal has pointed out many times, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett were bred to overturn Roe v. Wade – no amount of argumentation will convince them otherwise.

If the Court decides to overturn Roe, people like me have to stand up. We all know multiple women who have relied on this constitutional right at one point or another. We need to ally with women, support them, and fight for justice. That’s the only way forward.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The best way to make your vote count

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I know this is not a week when people want to hear about lost elections, but somebody has to say it. This is such an elementary point, I don’t understand why there’s so much resistance to it, but elections have consequences. I feel the urge to tell my leftist friends that (a) I’m further left than they are, (b) the revolution is not just around the corner, and (c) voting strategically doesn’t take anything away from organizing.

This week the Supreme Court gave us their best reason yet to use voting as a political strategy. We are looking at a 5-4 reversal of Roe v. Wade, a decision that will cause enormous hardship for millions of working class and poor women across the country. That five-vote majority could not be arrived at without the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh to the court. If a Democratic president had filled even just two of those seats, it’s doubtful that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health would have even made it to the court in the first place.

Not our first rodeo

The sad fact is, because of flaccid support for flaccid Democratic candidates over the past twenty years, we have missed multiple opportunities to flip the Supreme Court over to the centrist-liberal side. There were several points at which a Democratic senate majority and/or Democratic president could have taken advantage of serendipitous vacancies, but alas, they simply were not there. The Republicans have managed to be in the right place at the right time in each instance.

It happened in the Reagan years, but without delving back into the stone age, the first instance I’m thinking of is 2005, right after Bush’s reelection, when Chief Justice Rehnquist died of thyroid cancer. If Kerry had won in 2004, Rehnquist would not have been replaced with Roberts. Neither would Sandra Day O’Connor have been replaced with Alito that same year. Then, of course, there was 2016, when Scalia dropped dead. Much as I couldn’t stand Clinton, she would not have appointed Gorsuch to replace him. And if we had held the Senate in 2014, confirmation of Obama’s nominee would have been assured.

Harm reduction 101

There are plenty of fair complaints on the left regarding how Biden has handled things, how the Democratic House and Senate have used their majorities, etc. But the principle obstacle to better policy is the lack of a firm majority in the Senate. That’s the reason why the Child Tax Credit was not renewed, even though it had cut child poverty in half. That was a wildly successful program that missed renewal by a whisker – really just one vote short in the Senate.

How do you fix that problem? Elect more progressive Democrats. Failing that, elect more Democrats who will at least support core policies, like reducing or ending child poverty, protecting a woman’s bodily sovereignty, and so on. It’s one of those necessary but not sufficient measures. Voting for Democrats will not solve our most serious problems by itself. It will keep things from turning into the dumpster fire we’re seeing now.

Do it for the downtrodden

Hey, I know … it sucks to have to support a lousy candidate. You work like hell in the primaries to get somebody decent on the ballot, and then end up with some watery moderate like Biden. Bad enough, but you know what’s worse? Republicans. And it may not affect you directly, if you’re well situated economically, but for working class and poor people, there is a significant difference between the parties.

So mark your ballot, then march. You can spend the whole year doing the latter. The former will just take you a few minutes.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

The Whine That was heard ’round the world

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I just want to say, for the record, that Senator Lindsey Graham is a whiny little barnacle. The man has zero charisma, zero original ideas, and that’s why he attaches himself to the ample asses of men like Trump, McCain, you name it. Who’s next? I don’t know. Which right-wing garbage scow is likely to pass this way sometime soon?

In case you think I’m just going off on a random tirade, let me just say that I’m making this observation in reaction to the first days of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I shouldn’t single Graham out. The entire Republican side spent the day simpering about the unfairness of a process that has yielded them a 6 to 3 reactionary majority on the Supreme Court for the rest of any of our lives.

Playing to the freak mob

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees are mostly just opportunities for political grandstanding. Senator Josh Hawley, for instance, is shoring up his Trumpist/Q-anon conspiracy theorist base, suggesting that Judge Jackson’s judicial record on cases involving child sex offenders is somehow troubling. The specific language he’s using is crafted to appeal directly to the Q crowd, who espouse a retread version of the blood libel. Democrats are pedophiles, he’s suggesting, and this judge is enabling them.

Hawley’s concern for the children moves me close to tears. I can think of one easy way he could have made a difference in the lives of literally millions of American children: support the child tax credit. Of course, he voted against it, along with all of his Republican colleagues. Democrats might want to remind people of this from time to time. They might also want to remind people of Hawley’s support for the insurrectionists who attacked the capitol January 6, 2021.

Ancient grievances

Now, I don’t want to suggest that there was a “good old days” when this sort of political grandstanding didn’t happen. There was maybe a bit more congeniality back in the 1990s and before, but these hearings were still a freak show. Back when Orrin Hatch was the ranking member and Strom Thurmond the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch opened every confirmation hearing with a long, drippy appreciation of Thurmond, a life-long confirmed segregationist shit-bum. No lie – I heard it at least twice.

The Republican’s evident resentment of Democrats on the committee stems back to the Bork hearings in 1987. Even then conservatives dominated the Court, and while Bork was turned down by the Senate, another conservative jurist, Anthony Kennedy, was confirmed instead. GOP senators at least affect to still be mad about Bork, about Thomas, and certainly about Kavanaugh, suggesting that Democrats are wild-eyed extremists attacking poor unsuspecting Republicans as they leave the office at the end of the day. Would that they were.

The humanitarian gambit

Russia’s murderous attack on Ukraine continues, as do the corporate media personalities who argue for America’s entry into the war. It is nothing less than this. They are now pushing the humanitarian intervention line – the one first used to blow things up in the Balkans in the 1990s, later trotted out for Iraq and Libya. Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe suggested to Biden’s pentagon spokesperson that not intervening might “make us look weak”.

They are using this to chip away at the administration’s resistance to direct military involvement in Ukraine. The left needs to be unified on this – no entry into this war, period. War with Russia is not an option, and hasn’t been for more than 75 years. We need to remind people of this simple, obvious fact – nuclear war means the end of organized human society, period. There is no justification for that level of risk to every living thing.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Making half of us second class citizens

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I heard a few moments of oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health while they were underway. I didn’t, however, get the chance to dig into it until about a week later, when Michael Moore ran the full audio feed on his podcast, Rumble. You can also read the transcript posted on the Supreme Court’s web site, if you prefer.

Either way you access it, it’s pretty ugly, but that’s not surprising. The fact is, we’ve been seeing this slow-motion train wreck coming for decades, and many, many of us chose to do nothing to stop it. But before I get into that familiar diatribe, I want to comment briefly on some of what was said during these oral arguments – specifically, a few reactionary hot takes as analyzed by someone who is not a Con Law expert.

Being neutral on a speeding train

If you listen to the entire proceedings, you will hear Justice Kavanaugh dive into a discussion of precedent. Kavanaugh cited cases like Brown v. Board of Education as fodder for his argument that sometimes it’s appropriate to overturn decisions that are wrongly decided. Legal experts have pointed out that most if not all of his examples were cases that expanded rights, whereas overturning Roe would take rights away from Americans. But he also contended that the court should be “scrupulously neutral” on the question of abortion because, he claims, the Constitution is neutral on abortion.

Kavanaugh affects to consider Plessy v. Furguson as wrongly decided – fair enough. But wasn’t Plessy effectively the court’s way of saying that they were neutral on “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws? After all, the majority wasn’t forcing all states to adopt these laws. If a state wanted to do so, it was up to them. In light of that, what was Plessy, then, if not “scrupulous neutralism”? How can he describe this kind of neutralism as being a positive thing?

Fetishizing enumerated rights

Both Justice Thomas and Justice Kavanaugh appeared to agree with Mississippi’s Solicitor General that abortion was not a right explicitly laid out in our 18th Century constitution. If they mean the word does not appear in the text, they are correct. However, it seems more than unreasonable to expect that the only human rights we should honor must be spelled out in our founding documents.

For instance, is there anything in the Constitution about a right to breathe? How about walking across the street – is that buried somewhere in Article II? Reactionary Supreme Court Justices play this little game all the time. Now, I’m not even just an old country lawyer, but I’ll say this much. It seems to me that what happens under your skin should be your own damn business. That strikes me as the closest thing to a natural right as anything I’ve ever heard.

Ladies choice, please

I have a suggestion for the Justices. Your honors, take this as you will. If you are considering a decision that will relegate women to second-class citizenship, it seems only fair that the decision should be made by those amongst you who are best situated to understand the full ramifications. I’m speaking of the women currently seated on the Court. Let’s let them decide how to move forward on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. You boys just wait in the cloak room until they work it out.

Hey – if you don’t have a uterus, you should have a say in this. Simple as that.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Roe v. Squee.

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As I write this, we are witnessing a shameful pissing match between the state legislators and governors of Republican-dominated states to see which group of Christian Taliban can pass the most restrictive abortion ban in the nation and spawn the lawsuit that will result in the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Ohio and Georgia were taking the lead last week, the latter passing a “fetal heartbeat” bill that would make the procedure a felony after six weeks, no exceptions other than saving the life of the mother. (The bill was signed by Georgia’s illegitimate governor, Brian Kemp.) Not to be outdone, Alabama this week sent to its Nazi governor (Kay Ivey) a very near to total, outright abortion ban, again, criminalizing the procedure. Texas, not surprisingly, is working on making abortion a capital crime.

Probably the only good thing that can be said about this orgy of ignorance is that we don’t have to listen to these right-wing boneheads claim disingenuously that they care about the health and safety of pregnant women – a trope we frequently heard in defense of TRAP laws that required hospital-grade specifications in women’s health clinics and hospital admitting privileges for providers. Cold comfort, to be sure. Based on some of the comments I’ve heard from these “pro-life” legislators, I have no confidence that they have any inkling of what the consequences of this legislation will be, and I’m sure they don’t care. And these are far from simple questions. For instance, if you live in Georgia and you travel to New York for an abortion, I understand that you will be subject to prosecution under the new law. What if you live in New York, get an abortion in New York, then move to Atlanta? What sanctions will that carry?

What would Squee do?

I have heard a lot of speculation on whether any of these recent bills will be the trigger for Roe’s demise at the Supreme Court, now fully constituted with the illegitimate justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh (i.e. Squee’s buddy). Some have suggested that the Roberts court prefers a more gradualist approach to sending women back to the middle ages; that the reactionary majority is more likely to sign off on something like the Louisiana TRAP legislation than these more recent, far more draconian measures. I will believe this when I see it. I know Roberts is reputed to care deeply about the reputation and public perception of the high court, but will he resist reversal of Roe when it is served up to him and the pressure from the right is at full volume? Again … we’ll see. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Moral of the story? Simply this: we didn’t get to this place by doing the right thing. By letting the GOP win race after race, in 2010, 2014, 2016, and yes, 2018 (in the Senate), the attack on women’s reproductive rights was practically guaranteed. Whatever else we do as activists and citizens, WE NEED TO VOTE IN OVERWHELMING NUMBERS. That is our last hope for women, for the environment, for sane public policy.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

White rage.

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I hear Tucker Carlson is worried about an ensuing race war. Sounds like a problem for old Tucker. I guess he should keep the musket loaded and ready back at the homestead. Tucker has heard all these people on television complaining about white male privilege and now he’s feeling a little picked on. Like Lindsay Graham, he feels squelched. White men just can’t get a word in edgewise, what with all of these stories of abuse and marginalization.

This obsession of Tucker’s did not start with the Kavanaugh nomination, but the Supreme Court justice wannabe certainly stoked the flames with his shrill rebuttal of accusations of sexually violent behavior back in his high school and college days. In fact, the judge was white aggrievement personified on that occasion, which played very well with white republican / conservative men both on the Senate Judiciary Committee and off. Now he’s well on his way to being a white dude folk hero, even if a miracle happens and he doesn’t end up on the high Court for life.

Judicial temperment ca. 2018I’ll be honest – I don’t shock easy, but Kavanaugh’s testimony last Thursday was freaking shocking. I have never seen a grown person, let alone a federal judge, act in such a juvenile manner. Much has been made of his incivility and hyperpartisanship, but I have heard relatively little with regard to the childishness of his performance. The man was so humiliatingly sophomoric and petulant, I very nearly felt sorry for him. If you haven’t seen this performance, I urge you to take the time to do so. The Majority Report has posted the entire thing on their YouTube channel. It is flabbergastingly ridiculous.

Before this testimony, I had thought there was a fairly strong possibility that Kavanaugh had grown out of whatever rowdy drunk phase he had gone through. I thought Dr. Ford’s allegations were credible and convincing, but I thought maybe, just maybe, this fellow had learned to be a more controlled, less loutish person. After that speech and subsequent questioning last Thursday, I am convinced that he is exactly the same person as Dr. Ford was describing – a little older, perhaps, but not fundamentally changed. His childishness is, in and of itself, reason enough to keep him off the court. There are many others, but that one is as plain as the nose on his face.

My guess is that he will be made associate justice over the next week. Not sure what is next in this sorry saga, but I have a bad feeling about this.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Eleven angry men.

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When you think about the Kavanaugh nomination, you really need to step back and see the full picture. Sure, stopping the nomination is crucial, and it’s perhaps fortunate that he planted the seeds of his own self-destruction decades ago, long before his tenure as a hyperpolitical operative in the Republican Party. (Honestly, the guy is like the Zelig of American conservatism, working on the Star investigation, researching Vince Foster, participating in the “Brooks Brothers Riot” during the Florida recount, and on from there.) But if his nomination fails, they will attempt to fill the slot quite quickly with a much more boring, just as reactionary judge capable of serving multiple decades on the Supreme Court. So … why not just withdraw this troubled judge?

Well, HE seems nice.My guess is that they’re clinging to this one because Kavanaugh has proven to be such a reliable operative, and because he has a freakishly expansive view of executive power and privilege. (He apparently developed that during his stints in the W. Bush administration.) It’s hard to be certain of their reasoning, but their overarching motivations are quite clear. They want this seat and they want it now. The GOP has been working on this project for decades, taking an already conservative  court steadily to the right since Nixon’s days in power. A solid reactionary majority is the right’s insurance policy; it’s their trump card, no pun intended.

Consider the Republican party’s position. They remain, in essence, the party of white men. As this becomes less and less a nation of white men, it is an imperative for them to stave off the inevitable erosion of their voter base. The Senate is not so much of a problem, as a distinctly regional party can dominate that body given that party’s geographic distribution (e.g. Wyoming’s Senate delegation is  equal to California’s, even though the latter state is 70 times the size of the former in terms of population). The hyper-partisan GOP gerrymandering of the House in 2010 has made that body a lot more like the Senate in terms of representation, but that is a short-term solution for them. And the Presidency? They have lost the popular vote in six out of the last seven elections, so they mostly rely on narrow electoral college victories.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, is the ultimate arbiter of public policy. With a solid reactionary majority, the GOP will be able to defeat progressive policies long after the party can no longer dominate electoral politics. So there’s much at stake in the coming days for those eleven angry white men on the Judiciary Committee …. much more than the problematic optics of the Kavanaugh hearing.

Elections matter, people. We need to take the Court seriously.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Second chances.

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I come from the land of second chances, so the current Kavanaugh saga has a distinctly familiar ring to it. Mind you, I have not benefited from the level of privilege that Judge K has enjoyed his whole life through, but close enough. I grew up in what was described once as a “rock-ribbed Republican” town in upstate New York, virtually all white residents, lots of professionals and rich folk as well as middle class, borderline working class. It’s the kind of place where you have to fuck up pretty badly before it affects you in any serious way. Underage drinking, drug use, and other low-level criminality were widespread. Arrests were not unheard of, but rare, and the impact of these brushes with the law were almost never life-changing.

Right down the street, in the heart of the city, people of color face a far different reality. Their opportunities for advancement are severely constrained, and when something goes wrong, it’s either life-changing or life-ending. I think about kids like Hector McClain, who at 16 was sent to prison for four years because he failed to stop two other teens from beating a Utica, NY police officer. Here’s an excerpt of a press report about his trial:

As he was sentenced today, McClain acknowledged what he did was wrong. But McClain went on to defend his actions by saying he feared that his friends were going to be hurt by the officer.

“I only did it to make sure they were OK,” McClain said. “If you care about somebody, you’re going to do whatever it takes to keep them safe.” McClain added, “Nobody sees it the way I see it, know what I’m saying?”

Judge Dwyer said he understood McClain’s perspective to an extent, but still pointed out the flaw in McClain’s thinking. “This wasn’t just somebody on the street — this was a police officer,” Dwyer said.

McClain replied, “I’m not saying my actions were right. I know they were wrong. I’m not a dummy … But I’m still going to protect them no matter what.” Then Dwyer interjected, “You could have protected them better by stopping the incident.”

As the sentencing ended, McClain said, “I’ll just change my life around as soon as I get out.”

“You have to learn from your mistakes … so we don’t have to go through this ever again,” Dwyer said.  (Utica Observer-Dispatch, April 1, 2008)

Four years in prison, for a sixteen-year-old African-American kid. No mulligans for him. Meanwhile, on the other side of the track, white teens like me (a generation removed) commit felonies (albeit vacuous ones) in the shelter of their tony homes, where police patrols are tasked with keeping kids like McClain out, not hauling kids like me and Kavanaugh in. Our mistakes tend not to follow us like a malevolent cloud for the rest of our lives. When you couple that with the generations of advantages our families enjoyed – access to remunerative professions, mortgage assistance denied to black families, ingress into neighborhoods from which people of color were barred, and decades of building wealth – you begin to understand apartheid American-style.

Don’t feel sorry for Kavanaugh. Even if he’s held somewhat accountable and denied a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court, he’ll be just fine.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Closing the circle.

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Confirmation hearings for President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee began this week, and while it’s clear that there is strong resistance to the idea of a lifetime appointment for Bret Kavanaugh, it is also clear that there is little we can do about it beyond making noise, pushing our senators, and demanding justice. I credit people in that hearing room for giving it a try. Linda Sarsour and many others were dragged out and arrested for raising their voices up against an extremist appointment by an illegitimate president and a confirmation process that has lost all credibility since the blocking of Obama’s appointee Merritt Garland in 2016. Why the Republicans on the senate judiciary committee are bothering to run through this pantomime is beyond me. They have nothing but contempt for the process, so why not go straight to the vote?

Kavanaugh counts how many anti-choice votes there will be on SCOTUSThe sad fact is, as Matt said in his song “See For Yourself,” we have nothing to defend with, as we on the left have failed to turn the issue of Supreme Court appointments into one that lights a fire under progressive voters. When Democrats lost the Senate in 2014, we lost the ability to confirm or deny Supreme Court appointments without the cooperation of the GOP, which simply is not a possibility. We  expend all of our energy trying to convince Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to vote against this nominee, while attempting to keep red state Democrats like Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and others in line a few weeks before they face an election. Perhaps we can delay the proceedings until after the mid-terms, but that seems doubtful without the requisite votes.

Make no mistake about how consequential this appointment will be. This amounts to closing the circle on the Republican project that has been underway full-bore since the George W. Bush administration, when party leaders were focused on building a permanent majority. With five solid reactionary votes on the Supreme Court, the Republicans will have a veto over any progressive policies that may come to pass in the coming years. Even if we manage to wrest control of a gerrymandered House and a lopsidedly unrepresentative Senate from the GOP, even if we then win the presidency, there will be severe limits on what can be accomplished. Legal challenges to, say, single payer health coverage will almost certainly find success before a Supreme Court with Judge Kavanaugh on board.

Once again, elections matter. Whatever else you do, go out and vote, and encourage friends and strangers alike to do the same. We neglect this right at our peril, as the current catastrophe clearly demonstrates.

luv u,

jp