Where Are We Runnin’? - American Politics Thread, May 2022

There's no depth to their hypocrisy of course, but I'd be curious how McConnell and Thomas would go after Loving. Interracial marriage also has 94% approval in a recent gallup poll, which I checked after Senator Cracker made his "just thinking out loud" comments about overturning it, so yeah I'm not entirely reassured either

Thomas will look under every rock for a constitutional justification for Loving, which, of course, is an example of...results-oriented jurisprudence.

Are we absolutely sure he doesn't want his marriage invalidated?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnzskbZ7xdk

Loving v Virginia, it's right there in the title

I've said it before, but you have most likely spent your whole life in a historical hiccup.

You came in at the beginning of civil rights and now you're watching the end.

So it's reasonable to think that America is turning upside down.

But it's not.

It's turning right side up.

— Absurdistwords (@absurdistwords) May 3, 2022

a terrible take.

It is true that the Warren Court was a historical aberration after 180 years of anti-democratic reaction.

Should the GOP take the majority, look for a federal ban.

Which is really outside of Congress's constitutional powers, but you can bet this Court would find the support.

i'm sick of these anti-democratic, defeatist takes on civil rights. keep fighting for something better.

Honey, I work for the local party. I'm not being defeatist. I'm pointing out the obvious.

I'm not referring to you, Alfred.

sorry

That entire Twitter thread is absolutely true. America is a deeply right-wing country that spent the last 50-60 years — only 1/4 of its history! — begrudgingly granting various groups of people rights and then fighting to claw those rights back. I don't see this ending well at all.

The implication is that America's backslide on civil rights is inevitable - I do not agree with that. This could have been avoided. Trump almost didn't win in 2016.

also the idea that America has a natural "right side up" state and it's batshit conservatism - that doesn't have to be America's fate. We are not tethered to that.

(and no worries alfred - sorry if i sounded snippy! i admire the work you do in local politics)

It was extra bleak to watch the news break between pictures of the Met Gala.

Tbh, while I am pessimistic, I’m more on crut’s side of things.

60% of people support abortion in the US
70% of people support gay marriage
94% of people support interracial marriage

The takes about this being a deeply conservative country have much basis in reality, but they overstate their case— the US is a pretty centrist to center left country being held hostage and brainwashed by a conservative, fear-mongering few who will stop at nothing to maintain their hold on power.

my point being that I don’t doubt that things will get worse, but I’m not too certain about them never getting better.

Who the fuck are the 6% who don't "support interracial marriage"?

there are more than that, they're probably just embarrassed to say it, even in anonymous polls.

in my church in the 90s, i think almost everyone opposed interracial marriage. maybe they changed their mind somewhere, but they were all adults at the time.

white evangelicals are fucking creeps, for real

Crüt otm here. There are some very specific factors that led us to this point, it was far from inevitable. Bush v Gore. Citizens United.

As to the Tweeter’s thesis, history’s baseline is harsh and violent repression. Pretty much all of it as far as I can tell.

President Joe Biden steers into midterms focused on abortion rights: “At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law." https://t.co/y3njdIotVe

— Zach C. Cohen (@Zachary_Cohen) May 3, 2022

The numbers on interracial marriage support are pretty remarkable. As recently as 2013, it was only 87%. Karl's 90s acquaintances had lots of company (~50%); it was 4% in 1958.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/354638/approval-interracial-marriage-new-high.aspx

the US is a pretty centrist to center left country being held hostage and brainwashed by a conservative, fear-mongering few who will stop at nothing to maintain their hold on power

If this were true, then fear-mongering wouldn't be such a reliable, proven way to get and hold power.

in my church in the 90s, i think almost everyone opposed interracial marriage.

With biblical support, no doubt *rolls eyes*

i think part of what we're finding out is just how locked out of power most americans and american opinions are. there's a powerful, distributed apparatus that makes that so. it doesn't really hinge on people's political opinions i don't think. they play into it but the outcome is not making things more equal, it's the opposite. i also don't really think trump is some kind of hinge point here. i think the issue is our material reality depends on the kind of exploitative mindset that gop is a haven for.

i do think things could change for the better, but there's going to need to be something more vigorous and organized than what exists now, that's for sure.

President Joe Biden steers into midterms focused on abortion rights

Not trying to deflect at all but I can’t help but consider it: at any point did Biden take a stand for voting rights, even as far as he’s ‘taking a stand’ for abortion rights here?

Mindy Moderate of Maine:

“If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.”

A trusted source tells me overturning Roe is unpopular by 60 to 30% in swing states and most swing districts. Let's see how the Dems can figure out how to fuck this up.

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) May 3, 2022

Look I'm practically bursting with concern I don't know what else you want from me

i also think that what's going on is less, women's rights are going a step back, or gay rights are going a step back, and more, one way to tighten the chain and eke out a few additional points of economic "growth" is to strip away more rights from powerless people.

the idea that the civil rights era is over because of a SC decision doesn't take into account that the President who got to tip of balance with 3 picks was not elected by a majority and was defeated after making the picks

the US is a pretty centrist to center left country being held hostage and brainwashed by a conservative, fear-mongering few who will stop at nothing to maintain their hold on power

If this were true, then fear-mongering wouldn't be such a reliable, proven way to get and hold power.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, May 3, 2022 8:13 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You are missing the "being held hostage" part.

i also think that what's going on is less, women's rights are going a step back, or gay rights are going a step back, and more, one way to tighten the chain and eke out a few additional points of economic "growth" is to strip away more rights from powerless people.

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Tuesday, May 3, 2022 4:41 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

also it's a huge problem that most people are on the brink economically and have to work inhuman amounts in order to keep afloat. the ability to "pay attention" to rights is extremely curtailed. no civic culture can take root in that, so we end up with craven, power-hungry vultures on both sides of the aisle who simply like to grease different wheels in order to tighten the chains around our necks. and more well-off liberal people get to play self-serving outrage games about how evil wheel x is while they all look the other way or directly contribute to the faithful humming of wheel y.

^ ^ ^

I didn't really make clear my point above, but being "held hostage" means being kept on the brink of utter financial ruin or in bitter destitution, a state where it is much easier to blame an Other than actually think about the complexity of the systems keeping so many people in their place. It's "raising the flag while we do it to 'em again."

Good thread. I agree with a lot of the analysis so far.

xp absolutely, and one of the biggest Others out there is femininity. a big strike against that is a huge win for conservatives ideologically speaking. but again the real effect of that is to make power imbalances even more entrenched (just using a very old recipe that has been out of fashion for a while and may not have as big an effect as say trade law and military spending and a huge amount of stuff that democrats LOVE, but hey, it amps up an old violent faultline and that's always good for the gop).

The draft opinion does a lot to make explicit that reproductive rights, lgbtq rights, basically all non-white-male civil rights are very much tied together — and in opposition to the "deeply rooted" traditions of the country. It ought to be a huge rallying cry, I hope it is.

i hope it is too.

i imagine it will also be one for the GOP and those who are trying to build the white nationalist theocracy, too. they smell blood. if they're cruel and heartless enough, and they stick together, they can do it too.

"if"

Cruelty and heartlessness is a given, but don't underestimate their stupidity, greed and ability to fuck things up. I don't take any of their successes as inevitable or irreversible.

i agree that their stupidity may fuck it up for them. it's happened before. but i think lately they've learned that they can just overwhelm the people who are calling them ignorants bigots by sticking together and never, ever, admitting anything they did was wrong or could be wrong.

voters are untethered from public policy (democracy is barely holding on), the politicians are untethered from the consequences of their actions, and everyone involved has an interest in turning up the volume and the heat, from the social media networks to the non-social media networks to the primary opponents to the primary incumbents, the tens of millions of people who have had an abortion in the u.s. who are attacked as criminals by the 60 or 70 million white evangelicals. some of the people being treated as murderers are white evangelicals themselves -- they see preventing abortions now as a way to atone for the thing that the evangelists are constantly telling them is murder.

my point is, it's the wild fucking west out there right now, and as crazy as it might seem, notions of being "right" or "wrong" or "obviously way the fuck wrong", or "stupid" or "ignorant" or "soul-sucking" or anything like that, they seem to matter less and less with each passing week. i'd point to mass resistance, getting in the street and taking up space and being loud, but i hope we can do that before 2024 because i'd assume that Cotton's calls to use the military to beat back protestors of police brutality will become more popular, and even in the 2020 incarnation, the proud boys and their ilk were all over the country acting as paramilitary for the cops. anyone who participated in any of that on the ground knows that. it was creepy as fuck, and it happened across the country. that's going to get stronger if trump wins, maybe even stronger if desantis wins.

we can't think for a second that they won't slam on the gas and run you over some more, on any issue they can - LGBTQ+, CRT, anything that involves acknowledging what white people did and still do. they think the U.S. is god's chosen people, or the army for israel, or whatever, and they are big fans of the old testament. the old gods lost. the old tribes were annihilated. their cities were destroyed. they flip through church weekly glossy pages talking about the Jesus who returns with a flaming sword of vengeance. "ripped jesus". they are fucking dumb, and bigoted, and ignorant. but there's 70M of them and they'll give you creepy as fuck pentecostal fake smile as they run you over

From there, if this doctrine of no right being a right but for those explicitly defined in the Constitution, one need only look to the Christian dominionist agenda of the groups that put these justices on the bench to see where it would lead. As true as it might be to say, “if they come for Roe tonight, they’re coming for marriage equality tomorrow,” there are plenty of people they have come for already, from trans kids seeking health care to people giving birth in jails to sex workers sharing harm reduction information to criminalized survivors of intimate partner violence. If you are today feeling for this first time like the government is demanding control over your gender and sexuality and bodily autonomy, you are, sadly, in large company. But that also means that there are countless people around you who already know that freedom, certainly now and maybe always, will not come solely from what the law can recognize. Either the law must be pushed to recognize those rights, or, those rights must be won despite the law.

https://newrepublic.com/article/166286/abortion-rights-roe-wade-alito-supreme-court

It occurred to me for the first time last night - if Biden & Congress don't stop this shit there's a very real possibility his presidency doesn't even make it to 2024. Am I crazy?

Are you talking impeachment? That'd be a long shot.

A conviction would be a long shot. The Republicans can justify starting one on the basis that the Democrats did it to Trump.

meanwhile mcconnell is laughing his ass off while he drinks blood he freeze-dried back before kent state

he doesn't even drink blood these days; he flatly presses his tongue against the prune-like texture for a few seconds, then he stares distantly for a while, with his tongue still out against the air

^^confusingly, that's biden doing that. mcconnell prefers the real blood and dreams of even more people dying unnecessarily on his watch

If you compare McConnell to some of the real Republican nutcases in Congress, he looks pretty rational. He's relentlessly evil, but he's a dispassionate and realistic judge of the best strategies to accomplish his evil ends while avoiding doing even a thimbleful of good. Whereas Marjorie Taylor-Greene just acts like she's missing parts of her brain.

mcconnell is the rare, and classic, Lawful Evil (as opposed to Greene's Chaotic Evil)

Nothing lawful about cocaine trafficking.

ofc, just because mitch is rational does not mean he won't happily dismember you and stuff the bloody pieces in a trunk, if he thought it would maintain his power. biden is just complimenting them to soften them up, which is a waste of time in their case, but it's part of joe's MO.

Connecticut Dem Senator Murphy is on all the tv network news shows giving a ridiculously optimistic take on bipartisan gun control negotiations--

Murphy said: “[T]here are more Republicans interested in talking about finding a path forward this time than I have ever seen since Sandy Hook.

"talking" ... I can't see him getting 10 Republican votes, or Manchin & Sinema

It's so dumb the GOP can't even get behind universal background checks/closing the 'gun show loophole.'

All the lobbying money should be behind it - it pushes people to buy new, it's a boon to gun store owners (if you want to sell a gun you take it to a shop and have them do the background check/transfer it, free $25-50 for the shop for doing one sheet of paperwork and a phone call). But they're absolutely shit scared of how their voters would respond.

than I have ever seen since Sandy Hook.

Yes! they want to talk! and talk and talk! until the heat dies down and then they'll do fuck all. So it will all be just like after Sandy Hook.

but that was just talk. this time, it's talk with a little bonus ingredient they like to call "can-do"

man and so much legislation and change happened in the wake of sandy hook too, things are finally looking up

the reality is that the Republican party has no future in power if any part of their current base becomes alienated. they cannot win squat unless they maintain the full allegiance of the gun nuts, white supremacists, dominionists, anti-abortion fanatics and neo-nazis, so the party is captive to the worst elements of the population. meaning the big business community is now captive to them, too.

time was when the Republican party confidently thought it could control its fringe, win elections, throw them a few bones and run the country as they pleased. now the fringe controls the party and no one has the courage to jump off the fascism train.

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini

What’s a Mussolini?

Maggie Smith's tea partner

Worth $500 on Jeopardy.

A hard read but an important one.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-leaders-children-uvalde-shooting/?fbclid=IwAR1JEcVZw_hF9ACRKjlp4iPGFdios6VwozJkqWMkUPELecFGk3U8_i22JYQ

sometimes i get caught in thinking about how we digest major news before it happens. you may have occasionally seen the first few run-on sentences of posts on the subject that usually end, several posts later, with me declaring that i'm going to get off the computer today and get to work on something more worthwhile.

just curious, though. when this SC roe v wade overturning comes out this summer (in late June, i expect?), does anyone think the decision's "rollout" and the public response to it will be any different than if it hadn't leaked in full months earlier? will the public response to the official decision be less passionate and raw because we've all been coping and adjusting and preparing for this new world for months now? will it be more passionate and raw because we all know what complete bullshit this is, that it goes against what most people in this country except for white christians want, and because there has been time to prepare a response to the decision that everyone knows is coming? or it will be about the same?

(please don't get hung up on adjectives like "passionate" and "raw", please don't let semantics get in the way of what i think i'm clearly trying to get at, please substitute other words or ideas so that the question makes any kind of sense)

I think it'll be plenty passionate and raw or whatever adjectives you prefer. Not least because in a lot of states — depending on how exactly the opinion is worded — it's going to set in motion the enactment of automatic abortion bans. So you'll have both the big-picture raw passion over the core issues, but also a whole lot of fervor in individual states as various kinds of restrictions are put in place and abortion clinics are forced to cease operating.

If anything, I think the leak has better primed everyone on all sides for all of those fights.

yep, that's how I see things over here

NEW: K-pop group BTS will join press sec. Karine Jean-Pierre at 2:30 p.m. ET for today's briefing, "where the Grammy-nominated musical group will deliver brief remarks," according to a White House official. https://t.co/ydQFimPtiX

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 31, 2022

Calling out the BTS Stan Army is honestly not a bad midterm strategy.

K-Corn Pop

The House January 6 Committee admitted temporary defeat, of a sort, to a panel of three Trump-appointed DC circuit court judges, who have temporarily blocked their efforts to obtain the Republican Party’s email-marketing data from the company Salesforce. Their intervention will make it impossible for the committee to obtain proprietary information—about how (and how well) the RNC used lies about the 2020 election to raise money and mobilize would-be insurrectionists—ahead of scheduled public hearings in June

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/29/politics/january-6-committee-rnc-data/index.html

Someone else start the June thread

The Fall of Roe v Wade: US Politics, June 2022