Darkness at Midnight
And so we end as we began, with a stolen Supreme Court seat.
Had American governance worked as Americans expect it to — or used to — the ideological balance of the Supreme Court would have remained unchanged at this point, two replacements and a third to be named next year, pending this election’s victors. Perhaps a Republican president would be forwarding a nomination to a Democratic Senate, or the other way around.
Of course, the other way around at this point would have meant three unfilled seats by now, had GOP senators carried out their threats against President Clinton, and we’d be enduring earnest discussion whether six seats was, y’know, enough.
Instead, the Endgame is upon us.
By the end of the day Monday, perhaps no later than Tuesday, Republicans will be poised to complete their long-term goal of turning the United States into a tyranny.
It’s not that abortion will be outlawed, or Obamacare, or hundreds of thousands of marriages, although all are possible in the nearly three months remaining until Inauguration. Great harm will have been done, but much of it can be undone.
Instead, it’s that the election may turn — as it has before — on the Supreme Court siding with power against justice. Atop all the voter suppression we’ve seen to date, one adverse ruling regarding, say, Pennsylvania, might be enough to throw it.
And then we’re finished. Not because America sought a tyrant, but because it was deliberately and methodically saddled with one. A significant minority of citizens will have completed its goal of wresting enduring power from the majority.
Tyranny, not by a small cabal of miscreants seizing the reins of government, but by half of white Americans ensuring that their historical unjust dominance over the rest of us remains unchecked for the foreseeable future.
At which point… well, we dunno. We’ve been wondering about this moment for a long time, the moment when Republicans go for broke, the moment when years, decades of warnings becomes real.
The might of possibility has never sat well in this land, at least regarding real threats, and not stuff like Red/Yellow/Black/Brown Menaces sure to take our wimmen and indoctrinate our chillun. We had to be badgered into both World Wars. We still can’t bring ourselves to do anything significant about Global Warming, although that reality is now upon us. And while you can shout all you want about what a tyranny-minded Supreme Court might do, is likely to do, until now, in large part, it hasn’t done it yet.
What a difference three months can make.
What happens if it does?
What happens if the rulings come down, and — because the first stole the election itself — there’s no hope for redress, no hope that Uncle Joe will hem and haw and appoint his commission of ameliorists, and finally, regretfully, set things right?
What do people do? What do we the people do?
We don’t know. Not a fucking clue.
Except for one thing.
It’s a lot harder to take to the streets in the dead of winter, folks.
Those potatofuckers are gonna dance with glee once Serena Joy Barrett and Commander KKKavanagh abolish the ACA to fulfill their racist revenge fantasy against Obama, and then rural hospitals and healthcare systems implode overnight without the extra funding.
They’ve pushed the button on their own destruction, and they’re so spitefully stupid they don’t even know it.
There are a ton of great ideas to remedy this disaster, including adding justices to the federal courts–which given the gargantuan backlog of cases should’ve been done years ago anyway–adding DC and Puerto Rico as states bringing four more senators to the table, neutralizing the (s)Electoral College through the popular vote interstate compact, etc.
My greatest fear is that the Demoncrats instantly downshift into Cletus Appeasement Mode after winning a trifecta and the catastrophes continue rolling. Fortunately, we’ve got Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Katie Porter to keep pushing for change.
@¡Andrew!: And Mid/Mountain West rural hospitals and healthcare systems are getting their first taste of COVID surges. And it’s flu season. And it gets rather cold in those places.
But Sturgis and Murrica!
And yes, nojo. I worry about the Supreme Court inserting itself again where originalist ideals say it shouldn’t. If the Supreme Court inserts itself into another political question, and if the Electoral College disenfranchises another few million people, we can’t pretend we have a representative democracy.
The existing constitution should be abolished. It’s a poorly written and vaguely worded founding document of a genocidal, 18th century, racist kleptocracy built on the agony and misery of mass enslavement. It’s created a toxic, abusive, and totally dysfunctional system of government that’s on the verge of collapse.
It guarantees that our worst citizens are always able to terrorize us with their wars, insanity, incompetence, and stupidity as we careen from one self-induced calamity to another, and it’s easily weaponized against us by Republinazi politicians and judges to attack us with whatever outcome they want.
It’s a constitution, not a suicide pact, and places like Canada and the EU that have modern constitutions have had far better democratic outcomes.
It needs to be replaced with a 21st century document easily understood by everyday people that explicitly guarantees our rights, freedoms, and protections, alongside a fair and even system of government that works for the vast majority of people rather than only for America’s sadistic, cruel, greedy oligarchs.
Welp, here we go. If we can make it through the next couple weeks, we might stand a chance. But with Wisconsin down and Pennsylvania being resubmitted for judgment, the fix has begun.
Who knows if the Bronze Age grotesque Barrett and her semi-literate ‘originalist’ (whatever the voice on the phone tells me to think) goons on SCOTUS will get a chance to inflict any damage if we don’t survive the election? With Trump sending out federal goons and ordering Proud Boys to attack the polling stations, all it will take is one KSSO sniper team to take out some red-hatted Trumpers to set off a 14 week free fire fight across the states narrated by trolls in St Petersburg posing as Antifa and BLM and claiming the kills.
@FlyingChainSaw: Normally, I’d agree with you, however voting all over has been off the charts. Participation is expected to hit at least 90% in my county. This year is shaping up to be historic for that reason alone, and we’re living through a pivotal moment in our history. As early as 2024, it may become demographically impossible for the GOPnazis to win national elections, as hate-KKKrazed, far-white Boomers head to their final Klan rally in Hay-ell.
When voters turn out, Democrats win, so no wonder the Republinazis are so desperate to stop people from voting.
@¡Andrew!: Looking at the map, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are likely critical. Guess where SCOTUS is focusing its malevolent attention.
In that scenario, the popular vote still counts, in terms of people seeing what a tyrannical shitshow we have.
If Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz has a Twit account, the handle’d better be @schatz’ngiggles.
Evening of November 3, everyone’s got to converge on Lafayette Park and sing ‘The Party’s Over’ to Trump and wait for the snipers to show up.
@¡Andrew!: Right. The numbers tell the story – which is why Trump’s only card left is disrupting the election itself and inciting civil war and declaring martial law.
It’s all he has left and he has no idea that it’s not a good thing. He used to smoke and throw his cigar stubs into baby carriages and had no idea why mothers got excited.
@FlyingChainSaw: He’s a chimp in a diaper hopping mad and firing an Uzi in every direction, including at his own moldy, shriveled nutz.
What’s really sick are the 42% of abjectly stupid, spiteful, nation-ruining, racist fuckfaces that are thrilled by it. They may not like the word nazi, but they love every cruel, evil thing he twits and does. Someone Bri-tish said of this entire ordeal, “never has stupidity been so nasty, and nastiness been so stupid.”
After the election, we should turn them all over to Hillary Clinton, America’s deadliest, drug-dealing, lesbian assassin, for the “suicide” treatment.
@¡Andrew!: Yes, turn them over to Hillary’s IMMENSE! HIRSUTE! LESBIAN! hoard to be torn to shreds and eaten alive, the men screaming in agony and the women gasping their last as the entangled muffs envelope their heads and the IHLs scissor their faces! and Hillary guns down the ones that attempt to escape on foot – just like Benghazi!
Praise the FSM that people are finally voting en masse.
Now we need them to start asking questions, like “why do we have billionaires?” and
“how come Canada has five major political parties and we only have two?”
And why does the media refer to heavily armed, violent white men as “militias,” and heavily armed, violent black and brown men as “terrorists.”
Yes, and why are bankers never prosecuted and jailed in prisons for their crimes and subject to unspeakable acts of violence before they die in indescribable terror like normal criminals?
My family in PA is doing their thing! I never wished I still lived there until Election Day.
I really, really wish Democrats didn’t lean so heavily on the Black vote. We know they don’t give two shits, plus my mother’s family is heavily Republican. But they live in Atlantic City and abhor Trump on GP.
Is it too soon for me to say that Hillary was a terrible candidate? Qualified? Fuck yeah. But she was a terrible campaigner.
NOJO • A Kind of Hash @nojo: Never been to a big-league game, so saw the Yankees with friends last night. Grand slam was…
NOJO • A Kind of Hash @¡Andrew!: Not yet, but I’m sure I can borrow one from a neighbor on the…
¡ANDREW! • A Kind of Hash @nojo: Oh wow! Congratulations on the move. Hope it's going well. I assume that you now have a…
MANCHUCANDIDATE • A Kind of Hash For the Ex-Mo contingent... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1W0pDpDBqE
NOJO • A Kind of Hash @¡Andrew!: Never made it, and too late now — I’ve been in Brooklyn since May.
¡ANDREW! • A Kind of Hash @nojo: So, have you dined at Casa Bonita yet? It seems to be the primary cause of mass insanity in…
¡ANDREW! • A Kind of Hash I hope Taylor Swift figured out a way to unleash her flying monkeys/army of lawyers against Tr666p…
MANCHUCANDIDATE • A Kind of Hash Team Kamala/Walz/Swifty
NOJO • A Kind of Hash Nothing in my life goes to waste.
FLYINGCHAINSAW • Harris-Kelly ’24 HARRIS QUOTES TOWER OF POWER IN DEBATE: TURN THE PAGE !