Time for renewal and revival...
Say whaa? Indeed. Sure, what I’m about to say is anecdotal, but I’m willing to bet my experience in the hours and days since the Republic was outed as an Imperium, has been similar to yours. People who don’t usually pay attention to politics in the office and the streets are now talking politics and asking questions. I work in a high traffic healthcare setting that is also an office setting, so I get a good cross-section of people crossing my path on any given day, from an economic POV to an ethnic POV, blue collar to suburb (we call them ‘boroughs’) to boardroom executive, poking their heads in to check on the troops.
Granted, I live in the bluest part of a blue state (NYC) but you’d be surprised how many ‘weekend Republicans’ I work with. You know the type, they don’t pay close attention to the political catfights of the week, or necessarily know what they’re talking about, but they’ve got the bullet points. “Dems like to spend/”The deficit is too high/”There were problems with the vote/”Trump isn’t the only one who does it/”Democrats cause homelessness”. I’d be lying if I said all of them were talking about the SCOTUS, or something related to it, but a significant uptick. Enough to be quite noticeable.
And right/left, Republican/Democrat, nobody seems to like what they’re hearing.
Even the Republicans who would otherwise unthinkingly pull for Trump because they don’t think there’s a difference between politicians, are going, “Wuzzat now?...” to the news of changing what every immigrant learned about the United States to become a US citizen: No person is above the law, in the United States.
That is no longer true, and a lot of people don’t seem to cotton to that idea. Or, don’t even want to believe it when they first hear about it.
Yet, it doesn’t take long for them to check for themselves and come back asking questions. And that’s when you realize: Holy shit. This broke through. There was palpable concern.
At least to some degree, to people who otherwise are too occupied with their lives to pay much attention to politics. And it doesn’t get better.
By all accounts, Judge Chutkan, overseeing the stalled Jan-6, multi-level conspiracy case, is going to deepen the significance of this SCOTUS Moment by holding public hearings on all of Jack Smith’s evidence and witnesses, in order to comply with the SCOTUS’ directive to parse official from unofficial acts with respect to evidence gathered by the Special Counsel, Jack Smith. That will require hearings. And it promises to be days, if not weeks, of Jan-6 style hearings and testimony on the criminal behavior of the current Republican nominee for president, attempting to corrupt the presidency already 4 years ago. And now he wants back?
And we haven’t yet heard from the cabinet members and staffers, generals and diplomats, who have all come out individually, describing how unfit Trump was as president then, and even more so, if given a second shot? We’re just getting started with this.
Gosh, it seems awful that we had to witness this moment in American history, when the proverbial ‘best and brightest’ turned against the country, to embrace the idea of Lawlessness being preferable to simple, basic, accountability under the Law. But, it may just become our redemption, if we play this right.
Which isn’t to say this is a done deal. I still believe we’re likely to experience political violence in some form this election cycle. I think we’re likely to experience attempts at subterfuge, legally and in the administration of the ballot counting. I’m sure troubles still lie ahead. But the SCOTUS has blown the lid off of any hyperbole about this election.
If this week is any indication, many more voters are going to have a visceral gut check, voting in this election, than ever before, after what they’re going to hear this summer and fall, about the choice they have, while at the same time knowing that the American constitution has been altered so that nothing is standing in the way of handing your future — and the world’s future, with the nuclear button — to a mob boss. But which ‘boss’ do you want to have? The one that promised a wall that didn’t get built, killed half a million Americans through administrative neglect and misinformation during a pandemic, and now promises to deport immigrants in their millions, but will never leave office standing; or the one that got a jobs and infrastructure bill passed, allowed the Law to prosecute his son, that’s committed to defending democracy abroad, while preserving it at home — and didn’t let 2 hours go by after the SCOTUS immunity decision, before coming out and calling out this rogue decision and this rogue court?
Yes, we still have to win this race. It’s still a long road ahead. But there’s light ahead. “It’s darkest just before dawn”. Between removing Roe and the revelation of a rogue court endorsing autocracy, I think SCOTUS inadvertently put the wind on our backs. By November, the choice couldn’t be clearer.