May 22, 2021
It was much easier to combat evil when Trump was President. It was easy to mobilize and fight against a crass vulgarian who wore his racism and corruption on his sleeve. Biden is like Trump’s photo negative. He’s an old, straight white man who exudes empathy, who craves connection rather than cruelty. His comforting persona is what has allowed him to propose progressive policies that combine the economic populism of F.D.R. and the racial justice of LBJ.
Yet the adherence to tradition that makes Biden a non threatening vessel for radical change risks making that change impossible. Biden’s promise— that he can save democracy, lessen inequality and solve systemic racism—is sure to be broken if he insists on relying on hidebound traditions and outmoded procedures at a time when the other major political party is resorting to violence and lies in its pursuit of white nationalist power. All over the country, Republican leaders are turning their states into laboratories for autocracy, stripping their residents of Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Abortion rights are a prime example. In the last week of April alone, 28 abortion restrictions were signed into law in states around the country. Several of the laws are drafted with the express purpose of giving the Supreme Court the opportunity to reverse Roe v.Wade,or to weaken it so severely that it becomes meaningless, (Source: “A Guide to Abortion Laws By State,”by Kaia Hubbard, USNews.com, 4/29/21). From Arizona and Indiana to Texas’ execrable fetal heartbeat bill signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott three days ago, these statutes treat women as nothing more than vessels for the continuation of the species, with zero agency or autonomy over their own lives or health.
Just this week, the Supreme Court decided to hear a challenge to Mississippi’s restrictive ban on abortion after 15 weeks, despite the fact that there was no disagreement in the lower courts, which all found the statute unconstitutional. The Mississippi statute at issue was patterned after model legislation drafted by the radical anti-choice group, Alliance Defending Freedom, whose mission is to “eradicate Roe v. Wade.”. Amy Coney Barrett was a featured speaker at the Alliance’s summer fellowship program five times, starting in 2011. The summer program’s stated goal is “to teach students ‘how God can use them as judges, law professors and practicing attorneys to help….the spread of the Gospel in America,” (Source: “A perilous new era,” by Judd Legum,popularinfo.com, 5/18/21). That mission explicitly contradicts the First Amendment of the Constitution that Justice Coney Barrett took an oath to uphold. Sadly, that is not surprising.
This Supreme Court is far from the august body that validated the civil rights of Black people in decisions like Brown v. Board, or women’s right to reproductive freedom in decisions like Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade. This is a court dominated by right wing ideologues who are consumed with a desire to remake society to serve the needs of oligarchs and theocrats. Fully half of the current 6-3 conservative majority do not have a legitimate claim to their place on the court. Trump was only able to appoint Neil Gorsuch because Mitch McConnell denied a hearing to Obama nominee, Merrick Garland, holding the seat open for the entire remainder of Obama’s presidency, although Scalia died nine months before Election Day in 2016. Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed despite credible claims of sexual assault which were whitewashed in a cursory investigation. But the most egregious of all was the replacement of feminist icon Ruth Badger Ginsburg with her polar opposite, a simpering Stepford wife committed to promoting “a distinctly Christian worldview in every area of the law.”
The excesses of this far-right supermajority can’t be curbed with a commission. We can’t sacrifice the voting rights of 125 million BIPOC Americans out of fealty to the filibuster. We can’t jeopardize our desperately needed infrastructure improvements chasing the chimera of bipartisanship. In short, we can’t bring a knife to the gunfight for our democracy. It will end up dead.