‘It Was The Supreme Court Stupid’

This was no ordinary year. The Republicans, who were like dogs chasing a car on the issue of abortion, had finally caught the car.
And then, Whoops, what now!!!

Donald Trump deserves all the ridicule he gets and then some for the out­come of the past midterms, not that any­one should be shed­ding any tears for the Republicans. But Donald Trump is not sole­ly to be blamed for the débâ­cle of last Tuesday, November 8^th, 2022. Republicans had every oppor­tu­ni­ty to dump Donald Trump after he lost in 2020 elec­tions and refused to accept the will of the vot­ers, some­thing no oth­er pres­i­dent had done in the his­to­ry if the Republic.
Sure, Trump won more votes than any pre­vi­ous Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, accord­ing to polling data; despite this, Trump lost the pop­u­lar vote, the elec­toral col­lege, and thus the pres­i­den­cy. Republicans were not offend­ed that he had lost them pow­er at all lev­els in the cat­a­stroph­ic four-years débâ­cle of a pres­i­den­cy that most Americans would soon­er for­get. They dou­bled down with a man who decid­ed that his inter­ests were more impor­tant than that of the entire nation, and so he launched an attack on the 246-year exper­i­ment we call democ­ra­cy to stay in power.
The Republicans bawl­ing in their milk did not care that Donald Trump stacked the Supreme Court and fed­er­al judi­cia­ry with right-wing func­tionar­ies that would help him unrav­el the nation as we know it and return America to the era when only white men were able to hold posi­tions of power.
They did not care that a walk with Trump meant the most un-American walk ever, unrav­el­ing our demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples replaced with auto­crat­ic rule by a nar­cis­sis­tic sociopath.

With a Senate head­ed by Mitch McConnell, the Electoral col­lege that sub­verts the direct will of the peo­ple, and two US Senators per state, Republicans were not just con­tent to assume pow­er illic­it­ly; they were excit­ed to con­sol­i­date said pow­er by fur­ther ger­ry­man­der­ing con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts into uncon­scionable lines that dilutes minor­i­ty vot­ing pow­er on the one hand and pass­ing laws that lim­it and pre­vents them from vot­ing on the other.
But the Republican par­ty that did all that failed to rec­og­nize that the issue of abor­tion would res­onate so deci­sive­ly with a seg­ment of the elec­torate they dis­count­ed, young women and the men who love them.
And so even as old racists came out in droves to igno­rant­ly cede the legit­i­ma­cy of Democratic rule on the altar of white suprema­cy, young vot­ers had some­thing to say, and they lined up and made their voic­es heard.
NPR report­ed that turnout was the high­est it had been in an off-year elec­tion in 30 years. Some esti­mates had young vot­ers break­ing 60 – 40 for the Democrats.
In 2016 I saw the old­er white peo­ple stand­ing in line to vote. I told my wife then that Hillary Clinton would have a hard time win­ning the elec­tion as I thought those weren’t her vot­ers but peo­ple who longed for a time past. Although Mrs. Clinton won the pop­u­lar vote by a sub­stan­tial mar­gin, those lines of vot­ers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania made all the dif­fer­ence in the elec­toral col­lege win for Donald Trump.
Conversely, the younger peo­ple stand­ing in lines this cycle seemed to rep­re­sent a dif­fer­ent mind­set. Again, I told my wife that I expect­ed the prog­nos­ti­ca­tors and pun­dits would again get it wrong.
I told her this elec­tion would turn out quite dif­fer­ent­ly than they expected.
It did!!!

As vot­ers went to the polls on November 8^th, the cow­ard­ly Democrats, skit­tish and ter­ri­fied, expect­ed to be anni­hi­lat­ed by the time the polls start­ed clos­ing at 9 pm east­ern stan­dard time. Of course, their skit­tish fears were ful­ly jus­ti­fied if the past is pro­logue. There was a mild-reces­sion that the media talk­ing heads had insti­gat­ed, gas prices were high, and President Joe Biden’s approval num­bers had dipped to 39%.
So added to the prece­dent that the sit­ting pres­i­den­t’s par­ty would lose seats in the first midterm elec­tions after he is elect­ed, there were bad head­winds that would, under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, result in a tsunam­ic land­slide vic­to­ry for the out-of-pow­er party.
But this was no ordi­nary year; the Republican par­ty, which act­ed like a dog chas­ing a car for almost five decades on the issue of abor­tion rights, had final­ly caught the car.
And then, ‘whoops,’ what do I do with it?
The quin­tet of right-wing reac­tionar­ies on the court, three of whom were proven liars, the worst pres­i­dent in his­to­ry installed, had tak­en it upon them­selves to take away rights Americans had enjoyed for almost five decades.
In a stun­ning dis­play of auto­crat­ic arro­gance, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amey Coney-Barrett, and Samuel Alito decid­ed that they and they alone had the right to decide how a woman uses her God-giv­en body.
Five bureau­crats took it upon them­selves to wipe out the rights women had enjoyed for almost fifty years.
Three of those bureau­crats, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amey Coney-Barrett, were appoint­ed by Donald Trump on the com­mand of the Federalist soci­ety. All three told the sen­ate they would respect and hon­or prece­dent if they were ele­vat­ed to the high­est court.
It was all a lie.……All three lied.…And so it was the great­est irony that the most pro­lif­ic liar ever to be elect­ed pres­i­dent appoint­ed patho­log­i­cal liars to the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry who would cre­ate the kind of dis­rup­tion that the Supreme Court cre­at­ed in the Dobbs deci­sion, a deci­sion that would save America from auto­crat­ic rule by the Republicans.
And so to chan­nel Bill Clinton’s long­time strate­gist James, the rag­ing Cajun, Carville, it’s the econ­o­my stupid.
Just not this time; this time, it was the Supreme Court stupid.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.