Amen. They will have my vote!
I’m truly sorry to have offended so many so deeply. Believe me, I am extremely troubled by these 2 most recent SCt decisions, and so much of what I see as recent trends and patents for the future. I very strongly support abortion rights. What I was disagreeing with was the suggestion that these decisions were triggering a civil war.
I am sorry my choice of words was so offensive to people I suspect I generally agree with. No excuse, but perhaps the tone of my post was influenced by my personal disgust at so much I see going on in America today.
My guess was that you didn’t quite say what you wanted to say. So no probs as far as I’m concerned!
The worst result of this decision is if the attention deficit center left grudgingly accepts the new reality and continues to believe that the Next Bad Thing won’t happen just because This Bad Thing happened.
The country’s right will always have a New Bad Thing to fight for. And if it gains permanent minority control of our governing bodies, democracy will no longer be an option for stopping them.
Portents - not patents.
These past couple of decades have been tough. Gore can’t even win his home state in losing to W. It is hard to overstate how distressed I was about our reaction to 9/11. - our nation’s overwhelming casting off of civil liberties, and support for military adventurism - with no idea as to the monetary and human cost. Hard to believe Kerry could lose to W. Obama was a wonderful breath of fresh air - tho we saw what Repub obstructionism could do. We saw some progress I would not have imagined in terms of gay rights. I had long supported legal drugs - tho I’m not so convinced the present with more stoned people is overall “a good thing.”
Then came Trump. Elected with the help of a great many white women IIRC. They were apparently fine w/ McConnell’s forestalling Garland, and the prospect of additional conservative appointments. The only way I can make sense of him beating Hillary is to assume far more pervasive misogyny than I had imagined. Pretty much every belief I held strongly came under attack. But - my investments boomed, and not all that much changed in my day-to-day life.
Yeah - it sucks that women - at least in some states - are losing their rights to bodily integrity. And it sucks that the Voting Rights Act has been eviscerated. And it sucks that we are doing little other than crossing our fingers abut climate change.
So what am I supposed to do, living in a solidly blue area of a pretty blue state? Knit myself a pussy hat and join a march?
The electoral college and the make up of the Senate are indeed problematic - with a minority of citizens getting excessive representation. I am truly interested in how changing demographics - fewer whites, fewer churchgoers - will change things. But so long as supposedly progressive companies are willing to migrate to deep red states, and employees are willing to follow them, moaning and gnashing of teeth isn’t gonna get us back on the right track.
If I were to bet on the basis for an upcoming civil war, I’d place my $ on wealth and racial inequality, instead of reproductive rights.
By this logic, the U.S. will last forever. The idea that the U.S. can survive almost anything is silly. When one of the two major political parties is actively trying to destroy democracy, that may be the time to consider that the U.S. may not survive as we know it.
Did you really believe that when you told your students that? Because the fact that we would not have a peaceful transfer of power if Trump won was glaringly, blindingly obvious to me, as was the fact that January 6th would happen……I think the way I put it at the time was “their is a 95% chance that the protest will turn violent and at least one person will be killed”.
I honestly don’t understand what combination of blinders and wishful thinking was in play among the Republicans that thought Trump would be a gracious loser. It’s astounding to me.
TBF, that he would be an obnoxious and petty whiner about it (as about everything) and not lift a finger to assist the transition, was an expected given; as was that his campaign team would waste a shit-ton of money and courts’ time in challenges that would all go down just making them look stupid. But the idea was that the transition would happen around him as normal however much he sat in the middle of the rug arms crossed and holding his breath, or ran around the room yelling and waving his arms, everyone would just awkwardly ignore him.
Now, that he’d actually whip up a mob to physically seize Congress, that, that was new.
And they were right. In 1800 there was no safe anesthesia, no knowledge of antiseptics, and of course no antibiotics. A operation would have a good chance of the patient dying. They were done to save the mothers life.
There will be no “civil war” as the ruling accepts each state making their own rules, and the Blue states will accept the patients.
39% vs 54% blue, and in women younger than 50, 63% voted H Clinton. . White men, who were non-college grads was his big electorate
When I see remarks about a new Civil War I always wonder who is going to fight who where? The actual Civil War had real lines drawn into the map, slave states vs. non-slave states (and a few border states). The federal government was virtually nonexistent compared to today’s world; other than some forts, no federal property had to be considered. The federal army was a few guys on horses, with guns older than the kids who went to West Point. People who didn’t want a war - and the votes in most states were close - had no real way of getting out.
No state today is going to fight any other state. No state is going to secede. No city or county will secede, either from their state or from the country. There are no state armies. The police are not going to form into troops. Nobody is going to seize federal military bases.
So who? The Proud Boys? The Patriot Front? Not hardly. Convoys of truck drivers? Redneck sheriffs? Ridiculous. Blue states vs. Red States over abortion clinics? What does that even mean? Will some governors try to defy federal laws? Undoubtedly. Will anyone take to arms to protect them? Of course not. The federal government has all the money, arms, and legal power.
But what if Trump wins in 2024, you ask, and has a Republican Senate and House backing him? Yes, that would be bad for the country. But war? Anyone even glancing at the 1/6 hearings should note that other than a few chuckleheads, no one in the Republican party came within a hundred miles of backing the illegalities. If Trump ordered troops into California, who would obey? A bunch of white supremacists strapping on their flag decals? Could they organize a cookout, let alone a real revolt?
People are stomping on the notion because there is no viable path from here to there. The tensions are real, even the hatreds are real. But nobody in the U.S. is the equivalent of Putin, able to command a country’s army and kill any opposition by fiat or whim. DeSantis can’t take over Miami’s cities and Abbott can’t do so for Texas.
You know what this reminds me of? The intelligent dinosaur civilization thread. People got to that end point by skipping all the earlier steps and waving off difficulties with a “they aren’t literally scientifically impossible” blitheness.
The next few years will be awful. Unrest, protests, bitter political battles, gridlock in Congress, the dregs of human society trying for their 15 minutes of fame, all egged on by Marjorie Taylor Greene. And therefore an actual Civil War? Make a case for one, and fill in the small details of who is fighting who where and with what and I’ll listen. In the meantime, I’ll check if the History Channel is running another Ancient Aliens marathon.
P.S. Stop silly online venting, get involved with your local Democratic party, help get people registered and to the polls, and donate. Put this on a post-it note on your mirror. That would be more useful than a thousand threads like these.
cough Kent State. I was in college then and still remember how viscerally vicious things got. Lots of former military in the nation’s police forces these days, and they don’t seem to have too many qualms about oppressing folks, either.
There were plenty of military and police types in the 1/6 band of criminals. Look at a fuckstick like General Flynn- even high brass are not immune from aiding and abetting insurrection.
It will not be a Civil War as in the 1861-65 sense. It will be a political death cage match. One side has already dropped any pretense of pretending to care about anything else but raw power. If, heaven forbid, Republicans take both houses of Congress and the White House in 2024, it’s all over. Democracy will be on the ballot in 2022 and 2024. If Democrats can win these elections, democracy may yet survive. If not, then kiss it goodbye.
There aren’t really any blue states or red states. They are not a monolithic block but a amalgam of individual counties. My own state of Oregon reliably votes blue in most elections, but every county outside of the urban centers is very red. People who view Oregon as a blue state have never been there.
You are not even going to be able to convince an individual state, probably any state, to back the new Lost Cause.
So I stand by my earlier statement that everything will be back to normal in a few days. There will be nothing even close to an insurection or civil war. The voting public does not have the attention span to keep up their outrage. The news media will keep feeding off this issue as long as the 24 hour news cycle allows, before they have to move on to the next outrage.
In the immortal words of James Carville “It is the economy, stupid.” That is what the Democratic party is up against in the upcoming midterm elections. Because there is a very, very real possibility that both the house and the senate could go into Republican control. The next presidential election going to the Republicans too, with a weak Biden/Harris ticket is also a possibility.
That’s what you outraged people should be concerned with. The new overturn of Roe v Wade just returns the law making to the individual states, that is it. I does not outlaw abortion everywhere. Get out to vote.
Yes, yes, and yes.
…just revisiting this.
AOC posted this a few hours ago.
MUCH more at the link.
AOC spells out very clearly what she thinks is wrong with the court, and lays out an actionable plan on how to deal with it. Clear and concise and urgent. “The court has almost zero oversight, and it has gone rouge. This is what we do about it.”
We aren’t seeing this kind of clear messaging from almost anyone else that matters. Not from Biden. Not from Harris. Not from Pelosi.
You might not agree with what she says. But the last thing we can call her is “clueless.”
AOC is kind of clueless since shes just a house rep that is just a legislative cog and nothing more. She really doesnt have any serious power, so saying what you want when you have zero chance at making it happen, is just a waste of energy and time. I dont get why she doesnt leave the house for a more of an advocate role in politics since being a house rep isnt advocacy. Its just following orders, which isnt what she is good at (and I dont blame her).
The party leaders have the final say on everything. People dont really realize that most senators and house members are pretty much there to go through the motions. The party leaders are the ones who decide what is done and everyone just follows through.
…abortion is now illegal in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Utah. It will be banned soon in Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wyoming.
Everything will not be back to normal in a few days.
Because in those states that “normal” no longer exists.
Perhaps consider giving them something to vote for first. Then start fighting voter suppression.
…then what is the point of anything then?
Lets just all give up.
Go home.
Game over.
She’s just a house rep. If even she can’t do anything, then just let the facists win, right?
What she is doing is using her platform to put pressure on those who actually have serious power.
Which is all any of us can do right now.
Why are we even arguing about this on a messageboard? I don’t even live in America. I’m not even American. Why are you even arguing with me? I don’t have any serious power.
Speaking up and speaking out does not mean you are clueless. Not at all.
The thing is: this isn’t good enough. Going through the motions just simply isn’t good enough. Not at this moment. Not at this time. Not when you have a rouge court and a political party that wants to roll back civil rights and turn America into a white supremacist state.
I knew Trump himself would never go graciously, and that he’d have at least a few yes men telling him what he wanted to hear. I never imagined virtually the entire Republican Party going along with it.
Eh…we did see it coming.
Conservatives were (and are) aggressively primarying anyone who did/does not toe the line. If you were an old school conservative you lost to the more aggressive conservatives.