We are all we have

November 2, 2021

     We can feel complacency setting in.  Many of us treat the daily drumbeat of alarming stories of how close Trump and his supporters came to violently overthrowing our democracy, and of how committed they still are to doing so, as mere background noise.  Just last week, The Washington Post reported that John Eastman, the architect who wrote the blueprint for the coup attempt in his notorious memo sought to use the Capitol insurrection itself as a basis for stopping the peaceful transition of power, (Source: “During Jan. 6 riot, Trump attorney told Pence team the vice president’s inaction caused attack on Capitol,” by Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, Jon Swaine and Emma Brown, The Washington Post, 10/29/21).  Eastman alleged that the fact that Pence displayed a scintilla of decency by allotting his time to shaken members of Congress to speak once Congress reconvened violated the Electoral Count Act by extending debate beyond the specified two hours (ibid).

     Thanks to a massive data dump by Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, we learned just how much Facebook chose “profits over safety,” and refused to take steps to stop the flow of incendiary misinformation because it might cost them money, (Source:  “Whistleblower Says Facebook ‘Chooses Profits Over Safety,'” by Ryan Mac and Cecilia Kang, The New York Times, 10/27/21)[NB:  The irony of my posting this on Facebook is not lost on me].

      Worse still, there is plenty of evidence that those who favor a fascist coup remain a clear and present danger.  The calls for violence against Democrats are escalating, with “almost one in three Republicans believing that violence may be necessary to ‘save’ the country.”  Yet Washington remains stuck, thanks to the performative obstruction of Joe Manchin, who takes perverse pleasure in playing Lucy with the football to the Democrats’  Charlie Brown.

      Frustrated by the sameness of the story, cushioned by rising 401k values and a receding pandemic, millions of us simply tune out.  We can’t be bothered with writing postcards, let alone knocking on doors or hitting the streets.  Many don’t feel threatened, even as women scream that Texas’ S.B. 8 turns us into compulsory baby making machines. Even if we felt heartened by the Supreme Court’s spirited questioning during yesterday’s oral argument, we remember that the Mississippi law which bans abortions after 15 weeks is likely to be affirmed by a Supreme Court more offended by a threat to its supremacy than a threat to Americans’ humanity, (Source:  “The Architects of Texas Abortion Ban Overplayed Their Hand,” by Mark Joseph Stern, Slate.com, 11/1/21).

     Many sit on their hands, even as Black, Brown and Indigenous people, who delivered The White House and Congress to the Democrats, scream that widespread voter suppression is nothing less than the dismantling of democracy.  Many look at the paralysis in Congress and blame the Democrats, rather than the Republicans who prefer fascist cosplay to governing.

     In the face of all of this, the governor’s race in Virginia shouldn’t even be close, yet many are more alarmed at the idea of their fragile children reading the work of a Black woman Nobel laureate whose work dares to depict the horrors of slavery, than of elected officials who cozy up to those who traffic in lies and political violence, (Source:  “Glenn Youngkin Was a Traditional Republican.  Then He Became a Culture Warrior,” by Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times, 10/29/21).

Those folks have made it clear to the rest of us. Cosseted by comfort, they feel no threat from the destruction of women’s reproductive rights or the civil rights of BIPOC and LGBTQ Americans. They don’t realize that when they’re done with us, there will be nobody left to stand up for them.

#Weareallwehave

#Arepublicifyoucankeepit