I thought would start today by sharing the text of a letter I wrote to the Bozeman Chronicle over the weekend based upon an article I read in the paper Saturday. This letter was based upon some of my thoughts previously posted on this blog last week. I have no idea if they will publish it. I have had a number of letters published but who knows. I’ll keep you posted.
“Governor Gianforte is open to a special session of the legislature to address the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade. As part of the justification for this stance he said, “Every life has to be protected.” This, along with all of the talk about ‘freedom’ from Gianforte and the other Republicans is just another load of hypocrisy – some cattle ranchers use another term. Montana has no helmet law for motorcycles – everyone must have their freedom. There is the push to allow eighteen-year-olds to carry weapons on college campuses – everyone must have their freedom. There was a huge push against mask and vaccine mandates – everyone must have their freedom. And in this last case, people’s refusal to comply with health mandates because of exercising their freedom actually cost other people their lives. The US is the ONLY industrialized nation that has no mandated parental leave. The maternal mortality rate in the US is one of the worst in the industrialized world – and that’s without back-alley abortions which will surely occur. Gun violence is now the leading killer of adolescents. What the hell are Gianforte and the Republicans doing to address any of these issues? Zero! If Roe v. Wade is overturned and this country is flooded with tons of unwanted and unaffordable kids, will the government step in to provide economic support, healthcare and education. Not if the likes of Gianforte and the Republicans get their way. So, I guess the plan is to force more women to have more babies, which will surely result in more women dying (remember what I said about the maternal mortality rate in the US?) and then once these kids are born, it’s basically “You’re on your own!” “Every life has to be protected” – my ass.
There were huge protests over the weekend regarding the Supreme Court’s potential decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Despite these protests and despite the polls showing that a majority of Americans support keeping Roe v. Wade in place, I am convinced that the Supreme Court will, in fact, overturn Roe v. Wade. I think it is a given. All one has to do, is look back at the direction the Supreme Court has taken under current Chief Justice John Roberts and the current very conservative makeup of the court.
In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act that was passed in 1965. That section required states, in some cases, to get changes to their voting laws pre-approved by the Justice Department’s civil rights division or the D.C. federal court.1 Immediately thereafter, states began enacting laws to restrict voting rights which, in most cases, affected poorer neighborhoods and people of color.
Even more recently, the Court showed an increasing tendency to undermine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in an emergency decision issued regarding a case in Wisconsin. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is “the most powerful provision of the law, which outlaws racially discriminatory voting practices.”2
In 2010, the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, ruled in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) that political spending is a form of free speech protected under the First Amendment. “The controversial 5-4 decision effectively opened the door for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money to support their chosen political candidates, provided they were technically independent of the campaigns themselves.”3 The massive amount of money spent on political campaigns these days, much of it from out-of-state SuperPACS, is nothing more than an assault on the basic concept of ‘one man, one vote’ which is one of the fundamental foundations of a true democracy.
Given the recent history of the Supreme Court and the current very conservative makeup of the Court, people should not be at all surprised when Roe v. Wade is overturned. If anyone thinks that is the end of decisions coming out of the Supreme Court that will continue to undermine basic democratic principles and strip away rights that people have fought decades to obtain, they are not paying attention. Virtually all democracies that turned into authoritarian regimes, had courts that changed from supporting the populace to courts that supported the regime. We are well on our way. George Orwell and Margaret Atwood were more prescient than anyone could ever have imagined.
Trumplican Party is being driven to extremes to attract fringe voters because they’ve driven everybody else away. Without those that vote Trumplican solely based on abortion – they’d be sunk. So, that’s what we’re dealing with. They know it – I’m sure their pollsters inform them of it. It explains a lot of their behavior as the population changes and reach for straws. Had a talk with such a person while waiting for a friend outside a physical therapy facility one day. The guy admitted Trump was a horrible man – but he could not vote otherwise due to abortion. So he voted for Trump, who indirectly via incompetence in so many ways contributed to the death of so many others. Creating conditions for conspiracy theories that created doubt that prevents people today still not getting vaccinations – just one example.
I hope I don’t have to use my passport to leave our country – but I will if I have to if 2024 goes south / Trumplican. The sad part is – Trump is incompetent – but others that are took notes are there are those that are worse than him in line to follow.