Mash It!

The R-MAGA Fascists seem to be singing the MASH song, “Suicide Is Painless!” For decades the Republicans ignored all of the polls indicating that a vast majority of the voters favored the Roe v. Wade decision. The reason why the Republicans did not pay a price for chipping away at the right Roe v. Wade protected is because voters did not make that right the priority when they voted. For some reason the voters simply refused to see that the Republicans are really intent on destroying a woman's right to choose. Moscow Mitch's rape of judiciary has given us an illegitimate, theocratic, and, I would argue, a fascist judiciary that is determined to destroy the first amendment separation of church and state. The people (particularly women) are now fighting back. In deep red Kansas the voters used the initiative process to tell the R-MAGA theocrats to stuff it! In the mid-term elections the abortion issue caused the Republicans to lose many elections they might have otherwise won. And now in Wisconsin the Democrats gained control of the State Supreme Court because of the abortion issue. Yet here we have a despicable judge in the high church of sanctimonious stupid trying to defy the first amendment and science by ruling that the FDA has to decertify the abortion pill Mifepristone regardless of the fact that that pill has been on the market for over twenty years and is proven to be safe and effective.  Furthermore, Republicans in red states such as Idaho, Floriduh, and Texas are passing draconian anti-abortion laws in defiance of the will of the voters.

Not being content with infuriating the voters over a woman's right to choose, the Republicans are also putting the profits of the gun manufacturers ahead of the inalienable right to life. The death of so many innocent children demonstrates the lie behind the “Pro-life” stance of the far right wing, and it is traumatizing children and their parents. Then there is the Gerrymandering, the attempts to negate or overturn election results, the banning of books, attacks on the LGTBQ community, and other attacks on free speech, education, and democracy. As anyone who has been paying attention already knows, the anti-democratic, racist display of Tennessee's NRA owned legislature is only an aberration in the sense that most red states are not as blatantly open about their bigotry. Then again, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott showed how little black lives matter to him by promising to pardon Sgt. Daniel Perry, who was convicted shooting and killing 28-year-old Garrett Foster as Foster marched in the July 25, 2020 Austin black lives matter demonstration.

My point is that rather than correcting course the Republicans are doubling down on the uncultured war issues that are so unpopular:

“About two in five (41%) agree that the Dobbs decision was correct, while three in five (60%) say they believe the original 1973 Roe v. Wade was correct to protect abortion rights."  Even more troubling for Republicans is the fact that "... in key contests for control of the Senate and the White House, there is widespread support for abortion rights. Republicans looking over these stats should be nervous about their 2024 prospects in these conditions. After all, look what happened in 2022.”  This caused Ann Coulter to urge her fellow Republicans to: “Please stop pushing strict limits on abortion, or there will be no Republicans left.”

Like abortion the gun control issue is one the Republicans have been able to dominate because voters did not prioritize it as an issue.  That is changing as the death toll continues to escalate. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans support moderate or strong regulations of gun ownership, including 53% of Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 940 people conducted online on Wednesday, one day after the Uvalde shooting.  In regard to the R-MAGA's attack on democracy it should be noted that “Election deniers lost key races for federal and state offices,”and that Every Library poll backs up a national poll commissioned by the American Library Association earlier this year, which found that some 71% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries, including majorities of voters across party lines.

“Woke!” The Republicans, always the victims, are screaming about the evil woke. Women are woke! Black people and brown people are woke! LGTBQ people are woke! And young people (our children) are woke! They have all been brainwashed. How else can the Republicans explain why all those groups oppose everything the R MAGA Fascists stoop (presumably in prayer) for. It cannot be because the fascists are wrong. Oh God, NO! We all know that democracy has failed the white nationalists!

Can Gerrymandering and other attacks on democracy save the GOP? Many tea bagging MAGAs seem to have deluded themselves into believing that it can. And yet there is this stubborn reality setting in just below the surface, telling all but the most insane of the insane that the times are changing. “Not fast enough impact you,” the demagogues say, and besides “suicide is painless!” There is an old saying that you should get out of the way if your adversary is hurting himself. The problem is that the Republicans seem intent on killing themselves with weapons of mass destruction that make their suicides painful and deadly for innocent people. We have to stop the theocratic fascists now! We have to take proactive steps to end their attempted reign of terror! We have to take to the streets and work our butts off to win every election, local as well as national.

Unfortunately, defeating the fascists before the damage they cause is too great will also require us to act like Republicans by forcing us to change the rules and ignore the traditions that prevent or stop much needed reforms. By that I mean the filibuster and blue slipping in the senate, the size of the supreme court, the term and ethical code* of supreme court justices, etc. One long term goal we need to adopt is the end of the archaic electoral system. Democracy (rule of the majority) is far more important than the narrow, regional interests that seemed so vital to slave owners! And since each state gets two senators, regional interests have more than enough protection. I know there are people out there who will say we cannot make those changes because those traditions and rules protect Democrats as well as Republicans. But the Republicans are abusing those rules to prevent the government from functioning, and they (the Republicans) will do away with anything and everything that gets in the way of their fascist agenda anyhow. If we do not move forward we will be hurled backward. There is no such thing as a democracy merely surviving fascism; in order to survive fascism democracies must crush fascism!

*There is presently no ethical code governing Supreme Court Justices!