America the Awful

So how about that leaked draft opinion, huh?

You've got supposedly liberal people complaining about how the U.S. is turning into The Handmaid's Tale, like they don't realize that shit is based on real-life stuff Black people have endured (spoiler alert: they actually don't).

You've got supposedly conservative people, excited about what it's going to mean for abortion rights once the Supreme Court issues the real opinion, celebrating their decades of work (spoiler alert: they're actually fascists).

You've got crybaby "progressives" and "centrists" upset that people are protesting outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices. Joining their asinine calls for civility are the standard right-wing assholes.

That last point touches on what I'd like to go over with this post: This country is broken beyond repair.

Republicans have accepted this fact, and are quite delighted by it since it furthers their fascist ends. Don't believe that's the case? Look at all the fucking awful legislation that shitheads like Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are putting through. Look at how quickly the various asshole representatives in a majority of U.S. states are throwing ridiculous restrictions at the wall to see what sticks.

What's particularly galling about their actions is that they are more than happy to profess support for the absurd concept of, "states rights." They do this, knowing full well that if any states refuse to cooperate with the Republican agenda, "states rights," will go right out the window with everything else.

If they can't pressure safe states to move on abortion by halting funding or other means of blackmail, don't act surprised when they pass laws to get their way. And they'll do it the way literally all left-wing people are yelling at the Democrats to do: By abolishing the filibuster and passing shit.

Because, again, they know this place doesn't actually work any more.

And they know that Democrats are too busy trying to look like civilised adults to get anything done. Democrats operate under the misguided notion that they can "play by the rules" their way out of all this, and -- even more outlandish -- return to some kind of normalcy/the way things used to be.

Well, just like COVID, no amount of sticking your head in the sand changes the facts of the situation.

Nobody wants to hear it but the only way to circumvent some of the damage this upcoming SCOTUS opinion's going to do is to stop playing by the rules. Did you know that at any point, Senate Democrats could just get rid of the filibuster? Without a vote? The Majority Leader can just say it's gone.

But he won't. Because of that naïve belief in decorum and doing what's right.

So here's the deal, folks. All this stuff that Republicans/conservatives (and some centrists/whoever) want? Abortion bans, book bans, anti-CRT rules, anti-queer laws, you name it?

That's violence.

It's violence because, at some point, all that stuff physically harms someone. And, in most cases, it harms someone marginalized. It harms them emotionally because they have to live every day knowing that their very existence is threatened. All because a bunch of elected miscreants disagree with that existence.

And violence is the only language that conservatives understand. Don't think that's the case? Look at the laws they pass. Everything is designed to protect them from physical harm, even in the face of some egregiously evil shit like redlining and sacrifice zones and conversion therapy.

With that in mind, and remembering that it's folly to think any of this can be fixed through civic means, here comes the hinted pill that's tough to swallow.

These people (conservatives, reluctant progressives, elected officials, appointed officials) need to live in constant fear for their safety. In some cases, they need to be afraid for their lives. It's the only thing that makes sense to them. Only when they are sufficiently scared will they pull back a little -- but when they do, the pressure can't stop.

Alito, Coney-Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas need to be threatened constantly, day in and day out. Manchin and Sinema need to be threatened constantly, day in and day out. Republican governers. Local officials.

And, once barriers are removed and the Democrats still don't act (spoiler alert: they won't), they'll need to be threatened constantly, day in and day out.

Because this "country" isn't a country any more. It's broken. We have to throw it out and get a new one. And nobody ever got a new country trying to be civil and polite.