The late Robert Bork, failed Reagan nominee for a U.S. Supreme Court seat in 1987, once wrote a book entitled, Slouching Towards Gomorrah. In it he attacks a variety of social, cultural, and political experiences as alleged evidence of a U.S. cultural decline and degeneracy. Among those noted are affirmative action, increased violence in and sexualization of mass media, the legalization of abortion, pressure to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, feminism and the decline of religion.
Bork was the former U.S. Solicitor General who ultimately carried out Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Bork, like the current U.S. Attorney General, William Barr, was widely criticized on the left as an advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of the federal government, arguing for what seemed to be executive supremacy.
Even though Bork was unsuccessful in reaching the Supreme Court, his extreme right-wing conservative ideals prevail under the presidency of Donald Trump. I am quite certain Bork would likely have approved of the autocratic Trump in many ways.
Which brings me to the question of today’s post, namely, what exactly is the vision conservatives have for America?
That is, if they have their way (which they just might come November 3rd), what will America look like?
We’re about to complete four tumultuous years of the extreme right-wing struggling to have their way, only to be met with fierce resistance from a middle left majority. This struggle has led to a level of political division never seen before in American society.
But if the far right could completely have their way (and another four years under Trump could in fact give it to them), what would America look like?
More than likely women would be far less empowered and certainly deprived of power over their own wombs…
People of color would be forced to accept the unfair abuse suffered under the current prison-industrial complex, lacking the voting power to really do anything about it…
The wall separating church and state would be chipped away to non-existence, giving rise to a theocratic state in which a right-wing christian evangelical ideology would reign free to indoctrinate, as well as emasculate competing world views…
The scourge of a gun-toting society, which requires our children to undergo frequent active-shooter drills, (and all too frequent live situations), when they should be free to learn in a protected and peaceful environment, would only grow larger and more uncontrolled…
The constant scapegoating of immigrants, blaming them for economic problems and increased crime, would continue unabated an certainly even more unabashed…
The unspeakable ravages we face under the threat of climate change will only become more of our day to day experience of reality…
Our cherished freedoms of speech and press would be further diluted, as those in power seek to silence competing views…
Any president wielding executive powers to further solidify the above listed features of right-wing autocratic rule would be granted the deference of a monarch, as Trump has been granted in many ways by a willing and complicit U.S. Senate…
Trump recently made a comment that betrays his view of America and how it should be governed. At a White House press conference Trump suggested that if you excluded blue states, America’s high number of Covid-19 deaths wouldn’t look bad compared to other countries. Specifically he stated, “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.”
Overlooking the abject falsity of the statement, it does seem to betray a worldview of some sort of conservative utopia in which liberals simply don’t exist at all, or are at least completely subservient.
But it doesn’t.
A President may get elected on a party ticket, as either a Democrat or Republican. However, once elected he is the President of us all.
Trump just doesn’t seem to get that. And, again, neither do his supporters.
Believing that they know best for all of us, they, with Trump as their leader, are more than content to impose their brand of conservative ideology on the rest of us.
And they are more than happy to give Trump unfettered power to do so.
That, my friends, is what autocracies are made of and we seem to be slouching towards autocracy with ever increasing eagerness and velocity as each day brings us closer to November 3rd.
This week we witnessed the death of the beloved liberal Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka, RBG. RBG has probably done as much or more to empower women as any woman in our nation’s history…
And with just a little over a month to the November 3rd election, and within moments of news of her passing, Trump and his senate majority leader crony, Mitch McConnell, vowed to fill RBG’s seat with a Trump nominee, one who will surely not see eye to eye ideologically with the late and great justice, nor with a majority of the American people.
And they propose to do this even though they denied Barack Obama the opportunity to do the very same thing with his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Court in 2016. A nomination that was stonewalled by McConnell and ultimately filled by Donald Trump.
That level of shameful hypocrisy is mind-boggling, to put it mildly…
They could care less, however, because, after all they’re doing what’s best for the country, or at least their conservative version of it.
Or, so they think…
The nation is at an important crossroads. The results of November 3rd will forge the direction we take for the foreseeable future…
And that will be one of self-governance for the good of all, or autocratic rule for the good of less than a majority.
If we continue slouching towards autocracy then those with power will be completely willing and able to impose their version of what is “good” on the nation.
I don’t believe that’s really what “we” want, now is it?
So, what are “we” going to do about it?
I have a hashtag solution for you…
