What They Have Wrought

We are on the precipice of minority rule.

I guess there’s really no such thing as settled law.

The gloves are off and the pretenses of civility, decency, and democracy itself are now all at stake thanks to a leaked Supreme Court draft decision ending federal legalization of abortion. As you read on, keep in mind that in a January poll conducted by Marquette University, 72% of Americans think legal access to safe abortions should be a right.

This may be the final act in the politicization of the Supreme Court. A body of unelected officials who no longer bother with the pretense that they are non-partisan.

The biggest skirmishes in the culture wars involve human and civil rights. The right to live through a traffic stop; the right to have your vote count—and mean something; the right to buy and use birth control; the right to marry the person of your choosing, regardless of their color or sexual orientation; the right to provide your children with the best medical care; and the right control one’s own body.

If you tilt the playing field far enough and long enough through partisan gerrymanders and court packing, you will ultimately arrive at this moment where what the majority wants is unobtainable.

Conversely, you will also have accomplished something the Democrats have not been able to do for themselves, which is growing a spine and fighting the injustices visited upon us by a very fearful Christian Nationalist minority. Perhaps this leak—immediately before primary voting starts—will serve as the galvanizing wake-up call that inspires Democrats to fight back.

It may be too late. It just may be that all the gerrymanders, right-wing media, and court packing have already created an unbeatable governing minority that flaunts the will of the American people at every turn.

Republican-controlled states used the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, to create laws specifically designed to make voting harder for minorities. In addition to changing the rules for voting, they enacted laws that impact how votes are counted, and when the vote appears to be going against them, laws that allow legislatures, governors, and secretaries of state to overturn the will of the people.

Here’s Jessica Bruder in The Atlantic: The Future of Abortion in a Post-Roe America. “Critically, the suppression of rights is unlikely to stop with abortion. The implications for the law of overruling Roe will be enormous. Justice Alito's draft opinion for the Court says that Roe was 'egregiously wrong' because it protects a right that was not included in the text of the Constitution, was not protected by the original meaning of the Constitution, and was not traditionally safeguarded as a constitutional right. But by that reasoning, countless other Supreme Court decisions protecting basic aspects of privacy and autonomy were wrongly decided as well."

You can see where she’s heading. This could begin the dismantling of same sex marriage, interracial marriage, and even birth control. All used to be illegal until their status was changed by Supreme Court rulings.

This might be the end of majority rule, or perhaps there’s a small chance that this is a wake-up call to the masses who haven’t been paying attention. Maybe they didn’t know that the Big Lie was used to justify changing voting rules and counting procedures to ensure one party never loses an election again. Maybe they thought denying one president a Supreme Court appointment on the lie that with only nine months before the election, the American people should decide, only to then rush another nominee through the process days before the next presidential election, while hypocritical, was just business as usual.

Maybe abortion rights is what will get them in the game and save us from permanent minority rule. I’m not holding my breath.

We’re seeing what Victor Orban, the Hungarian president-cum-dictator, variously calls “illiberal democracy” and “Christian democracy.” The rise is aided by right-wing media, particularly Tucker Carlson, who has used blatant racism (“immigrants make us dirty and poorer”) to take Fox News to new ratings and revenue heights. Carlson supported the Big Lie and doesn’t believe the Capitol riot was an insurrection. That made major advertisers flee, only to be replaced by more lucrative “direct-to-consumer” ads for everything from My Pillow to magic hair-growers and prostate-shrinkers.

It's all made scarier by the fact that the more you tell a lie, the more it begins to sound truthful. The propagandists of the Third Reich figured that out to everyone’s peril. I’ll again remind you that Mark Twain said it is easier to lie to someone than to convince them they’ve been lied to.

We find our lives impacted by unelected justices, appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and confirmed by senators who represent a minority population.

This is what they have wrought.

©2022 Jon Sinton