TRAITS OF REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP PART I - THE WHINE CHRONICLES

By Ruth A. Sheets

In the past half-century, Republicans have decided that having positive personal character traits hinders their success.  They no longer try to hide their lack of positive qualities:  integrity, caring, empathy, competence, or skill with governing.  In fact they are proud of it.  I will go into Republican whining first as I believe it is their most potent means of communication which they use in all media, on every issue,   without self-critique.

I just finished reading an article from June 22, 2023 by a Republican columnist for “The New York Times,” David Brooks.  NOTE:  I am not current because my braille magazine is always a few weeks behind and an additional week or so till I get to it.  Anyway, the article is entitled, “The Age of Spectacle Is Upon Us.  I often find Brooks interesting even though he is a staunch conservative.  He usually explains his point clearly and it makes a kind of sense even if I rarely agree with him.  This article was a whine, nearly from the beginning, not what I expected. 

The issue, the Los Angeles Dodgers planned to honor at a game, a community service group in LA that does a lot of work for people of the city and beyond.  The group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is an LGBTQ drag group that regularly mocks norms.  Brooks’ whine involves him telling the Dodgers that a baseball team shouldn’t be honoring anyone that mocks religion in any way.  The group wears elaborate nun costumes and each member has an outrageous, let’s say suggestive  name.

It’s OK that he stated his feelings about the outrageous nature of the group’s performance, but he went on to say that each area of “culture” should have its own sphere and never the twain shall meet.  That’s a problem.  He says that baseball should do baseball, as should each individual entity and not host the antics of members of another culture, LGBTQ service folks in this case because they are a spectacle.  He cites a rabbi and a philosopher to try to prove his point, but as far as I am concerned, he was not successful.  It is OK to have “Pride Night” or “Hispanic Night,” but clearly not honoring a group whose outrageous presentation he finds objectionable.

A baseball team and other sports entities are part of the larger community, a community that helps support them, provides roads to get to the venue, adds trains, buses, and other public transportation for fans the days of the games, etc.  The team should be and usually is an integral part of the community.

Probably everyone in LA and beyond is aware of just how outrageous the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are and appreciate them for that.  Since reading the article, I learned something more to the story.  The first time the Dodgers invited the Sisters, there was so much whining among a certain group of conservative Angelinos and others that the invitation was withdrawn.  The backlash was so intense, the uninvitation was withdrawn and this  June, the honor was given them at the ballpark.  The other area baseball team, the Angels also extended an invitation which was not withdrawn. 

Brooks hinted that some “religious” folks like nuns wouldn’t bare anyone spoofing their religion, and whined, threatened, and whined some more to get the Dodgers to take back their invitation.  That may be true for some, but, having lived for a summer in a convent with amazing nuns, I suspect Brooks is wrong.  Real nuns of whatever religious tradition would probably find the Sisters humorous and want them to keep going with their good works, even likely to work with them in some of their projects, and that is what happens.

The whine continues, claiming that the boundaries among the cultural spheres are falling and that’s a truly terrible thing.  “An evangelical megachurch sounds like a political rally,” college professors “now see themselves as political activists, and “corporations are taking political stances on issues that have nothing to do with their core businesses.”

I honestly don’t understand what Mr. Brooks is stressing over.  He sounds as though he is saying crossing cultural boundaries is a new, but bad  thing.  It isn’t!  But, conservatives do need a way to whine about the changing culture as though what they knew previously is the way it always was.  Sorry!  Medieval clowns, jesters, and others mocked religion at times, corporations have regularly openly contributed to political candidates, even ones that wouldn’t benefit their business (in fact, donating to get legislators to support their businesses should be illegal).  Many college professors for at least the past 60 years have been activists at times.  For example, the Vanderbilt Divinity School professors threatened to quit if the student civil rights worker, James Lawson whom the university had kicked out for his activism, was not reinstated.  That was back in the early 1960’s. (interesting story) 

Why should we separate spheres when so much of life has intermingled?  Yes, there should be a separation of church and state because we are a democracy with no established religion.  That does not mean one’s religion should be jettisoned or hidden if one is elected to office.  It is that one’s personal faith or lack of it should not make laws that could seriously negatively impact others’ faith or lack of it.  Our own Supreme Court, though has broken that boundary of law, tradition, and practice by handing down awful decisions that are religion-based, religion enforcing:  overturning Roe v. Wade, letting business people with a certain set of values, refuse to serve people they claim their religion doesn’t like. 

It seems to me the difference between what the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are doing and what white evangelicals and Roman Catholics are doing with their laws that mock Christianity are in the same ballpark, so to speak.  They both make up presentations of Christianity that are exaggerated and selectively pick and choose what they will “mock.”  And, yes, the Christian right does mock Jesus’ teachings by ignoring the most caring and inclusive ones to push those that can be twisted to hurt and devalue their fellow human beings while proclaiming their own personal righteousness.  How is that less offensive than the shenanigans of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?   A whole lot of people are and will continue to be harmed by the right-wing pseudo-christian actions , while the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will continue to serve struggling people in LA and other communities around the world.  

Republicans are expert whiners, knowing just how to pitch their voice and select their words to try to focus people’s attention on a group or issue they don’t like.  They claim they are doing god’s work or at least “righteous” work; it isn’t.  Then the whining continues as they wheedle compliance from their friends, families, supporters, leadership, and rich donors.  Instead of being the member of Congress or senator for all the people in one’s district or state, Republicans who are elected get away with serving only those who either voted for them or share their religious values, if they do anything to help anyone.

What David Brooks and his partners in this article fail to see is that conservatives today (as in the past) have very little to offer anyone as far as an honest platform is concerned.  They don’t want to pass laws to help anyone but themselves and their donors.  Tax breaks for the rich work so very well; don’t help people who are poor, or workers who are regularly exploited and underpaid.  They won’t affirm our right to:  read what we want, control our own bodies, attend quality public schools available to everyone, vote in every election if we are an American citizen 18 years of age and older, have health care that is affordable and decent, to receive the Social Security and Medicare we paid into during our work lives, and more.  These are under nearly constant attack from the right-wing pseudo-christians who whine constantly about how continuing these costly programs will break our economy and our nation’s budget.  They forget to mention the military’s super budget.  Of course!  So, those conservatives whine about a community LGBTQ service group mocking religion.  It is a nothing issue because they and their whining don’t effectively address our real challenges.

Republicans, you know, the white ones, whine without evidence, that they are the ones being denied their rights, and that they value “law and order.”  To prove it, they are OK with dumping people in jail for possessing small amounts of drugs, prostitution, letting their middle-school kids play in the park without constant adult supervision, firing a gun at the ceiling to startle and stop a physical abuser, protesting a police training center designed to militarize police more than they already are, and so much more as they fill the private for-profit  prisons with as many people of color as they can.

On the other hand, those “law and order” Republicans whine that they can’t imagine their cult leader in jail for inciting insurrection, stealing secret documents, trying to perpetrate a coup, witness tampering, trying to get other Republicans to cheat to overturn an election, rape, bribery, and more.  They whine, “It isn’t fair!  Democrats are making this a political issue.”  Republicans see their Donnie above the rest, and not a criminal like those other guys, the ones who deserve to be in prison.  That does not make it true.

So, let’s see if I have this right:

• - possessing a small amount of marijuana, jail, inciting a coup attempt, no problem.
• - prostitution by choice, bad, inciting insurrection, OK
• - getting an abortion or helping someone to get one, murder, bribing public officials, necessary.
• - protecting one’s Black family by having a gun around, bad, lying to protect yourself, good
• - stealing a small nearly worthless item from a store, jail, stealing top secret documents, acceptable!
• - mocking religion while doing quality community service, bad, forcing people to bow to someone else’s personal religious beliefs, holy.

It has been said that it is by their works that they are known, including their willingness to cheat, their proficiency at lying, and how well they whine about how put upon they are, while  “putting upon” everyone else.  If folks were paying attention they’d see that if conservatives and MAGAs are going to whine so much, they should have a legitimate cause, just as parents tell their whiny toddlers.  They don’t!

I say, “you go Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence!  Keep doing your good works and ignore the whining!  And LA Dodgers, better late than never, keep honoring the groups in your city who are actually doing the work of making life better no matter how outrageous they appear.”  Doing just what is expected does not get people to appreciate our diversity.  It puts people in the box that makes the white establishment comfortable.   What does that get us:  a lot of whining child-leaders like Trump, DeSantis, and their emotional clones who care about no one and nothing that does not keep them comfy.  As the Dodgers and Angels have shown us, we can do better.

THE BLAME GAME

By Ruth A. Sheets

Blaming is part of life.  As far as I can tell, everyone does it at some time or other.  Blaming people for what they have done makes sense when a crime has been committed, for example, but not when the blamed person could be killed by a government or individuals who don’t like what that person stands for or has done. 

One can blame people and circumstances for doing or causing something and that blaming can be true, like that storm blew down a tree or Joe started the fight.  Blaming can also be a powerful lie that identifies the wrong person or cause for something that happens, like me blaming my siblings for something they didn’t do or Trump blaming everyone but himself for his bad (one might say criminal) behavior.  The latter I call lie-blaming.  Lie-blaming can even be deadly:  vaccines cause COVID and  vaccines and wearing masks caused all those COVID deaths, or the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.  Lie-blaming can be especially problematic when wielded by politicians and others in authority:  Marjorie Greene and her Q-anon BS, Moms for Liberty (a group name that is already a lie before the blaming begins), and an indicted former president who lie-blames nearly everyone he has ever heard of who does not give him total loyalty.    

Alas, guilt is rarely a side effect of lie-blaming.  It would be great if political leaders around the world would feel some guilt when they start their lie-blaming of others for either things they themselves have done or that the blamed have not done.  I know that is wishful thinking, but it sure would save a lot of suffering.   

Just imagine it, Gov. DeSantis of Florida deciding to rightly blame himself for the harms resulting from the various anti-American and inhumane laws he pushed forward to prove his bonafiidies as a macho, white Christian nationalist Republican man!  I think DeSantis and others see racist, homo/transphobic, misogynistic, and fascist ideas as positives though they wouldn’t use those terms.  Most people don’t agree, and to some extent DeSantis and his club know he must “please the minions somewhat if he would gain the level of power he craves.  It works for DeSantis to blame the “woke,” a group he never has to define so it can morph as needed to reflect his purposes/biases at any particular time.  You see, DeSantis sees himself as god’s gift to the world, smarter and just plain better than everyone else.  Ugh!

Lie-blamers also sneak in the old “they made me do it” line, the “blame the victim” strategy that has permitted enormous suffering over time.  “If they hadn’t done ____ I wouldn’t have had to ____.”  They act as though they have no biases; they are just telling it like it is.  For DeSantis, The insignificant people are making it so hard to be a rich, white, “straight” pseudo-christian man in Florida, America, you know.  Where have we seen such blaming, such abuse of power before?  Could it be . . . 1930s Germany and Italy?  Or, is it just privileged people who make assumptions that everything they have and are came only from themselves and their own efforts because they are just soooo special?  And, if they don’t get everything they want, it must be that someone else is to blame.

Putin of Russia is a terrific lie-blamer, a master because he knows the majority of his people are too cowed to do anything about it.  He blames the West for making him attack Ukraine, his generals for failing to give him an instant victory, and his super rich playmates for not sufficiently bowing and scraping to him and his every whim.  People die because of Putin’s blaming, individually as they happen to fall out of windows (or succumb to poison), and collectively from his wars on his neighbors and his support of other dictators.  Despite Putin’s (and some Republicans) lies, the West didn’t force Putin into attacking his neighbor Ukraine; his desire to be Putey the Great did that.  His generals may have been inept, but they did not know what they were getting into due to their master’s magical thinking.  The oligarchs were just doing what Putin wanted, making lots of money for themselves and, by the way, Putin too, and Putin wanted a much bigger cut.

Then, there’s the Blamer in Chief,  I imagine Donald Trump rarely if ever accepted responsibility for a single thing he did in his life that harmed others or caused chaos.  He lie-blamed people around him for his own shortcomings or actual criminal behavior.  He has clearly broken numerous laws and violated expected norms over and over, but it couldn’t have been his fault!  For him, impeachment twice was a joke he didn’t worry much about because he knew his senatorial cult members would acquit him.  Trump knew full well he lost the 2020 election and that the January 6th insurrection was his followers responding to his call to a coup but he chose to blame ANTIFA (whatever that is).

Now, Trump is blaming President Biden for the indictments and potential indictments he has faced and will likely face.  Biden has deliberately absented himself from the whole process, allowing local prosecutors and the special counsel to do their jobs, but our Baby Donnie doesn’t care about what is true or even what makes sense.  As the spaghetti guy, he just keeps throwing spaghetti lies against the wall hoping at least some of them will stick and he will know which strands of his lie-blaming will work with his cult.  Since they don’t seem to actually listen to what Trump is saying as it makes little sense these days, they cling to the mood of self-righteousness and “poor little me” he is projecting.  As long as he blames, insults, and threatens the right people and programs they will stick with him, even though many of his proposals will actually do harm to them personally.  They will be hurt but he will be sure to tell them whom to blame for their pain as he has done all along.

We keep hearing from pundits and occasional reporters that the polarization in our nation is terrible, yet they neglect to inform viewers, readers, and listeners that the Republican Party and conservatives in general are the primary orchestrators of this polarization through their whining that everything is not the way they remember it or that someone must be taking the American dream from them or that those people “aren’t like us and are trying to erase us white people.”  American right-wingers initiate and stoke the politics of fear, which is very effective among vulnerable people who choose not to find out if any of what they are learning is true.  They cling to Fox or whatever news source gives them the most comfort that they are right because it affirms their fears of the other.  Then guns are thrown into the mix and the right-wing hope is that their decades-long preparations will lead to chaos they can exploit to cement their power-grabbing, then blame it on someone else.

We can stand against this culture of lie-blaming and lack of accountability and We the People would do well to get started then, keep moving.

-              The media could stop daily playing Trump’s mouthing off with his lie-blaming and whining, or just mention occasionally that Trump is still out there, same old same old.

-              - President Biden could publicly call out the bad behavior, tell the stories of some of the people whose lives have been threatened and changed as targets of folks blaming them for just doing their jobs.  This must be a major speech, given in a community where its residents have experienced the harm.

-              - Credible threats are not protected speech, online or not and need to be investigated and prosecuted.

-              - Push voter registration (automatic registration would be best (Republicans truly hate that, though).  Amendments 15, 19, & 26 say every citizen 18 years and older has the right to vote, not just those Republicans approve of.

-              - Vote in every single election for candidates who actually care about this nation and are not caught up in childish whining and blaming, but have positive ideas for improving life for all of us.  There are a lot out here if we look for them.

-              - Question  public officials and media who are lie-blaming.  Ask where they got their information.  Demand proof.  Make it clear if they are lying and blaming the wrong people it must be made known, or shock, maybe in that situation, no blame should be handed out at all.

-              - Stay informed as to what is going on and get information from more than one reputable source.   

I know if we think about it collectively, we can come up with even more strategies for identifying the lie-blaming, who it is aimed at, and who benefits.  Then we need to find even more effective ways of confronting the political lie-blaming that threatens people’s lives, demanding our media and public officials call it out wherever it appears. 

Keep in mind, though, sometimes it is essential to blame the right people for their bad behavior, like the fossil fuelers who hid a report that proved they knew about global warming mor than 4 decades ago and did nothing to move toward ending it, in fact fought against other people’s attempts to act.

We can act if we remember our democracy is on the line and rather powerful groups are using lie-blaming and other strategies to take democracy away in favor of power for rich white men and corporations.  We did that rich white man thing throughout history and it brought us to nearly constant war and possible climate disaster.  We need to try something different.  It’s time!

SOME MORE JULY 4TH THOUGHTS

By Ruth A. Sheets

There is so much going on politically right now I am having some difficulty keeping track of it.  I suspect this may be a challenge for many others too.  It would be pretty easy to sit back and say, “well, there are just too many people working to undermine our democracy, how can I, one little person do anything to stop them?”  We all can do a lot but we need to see how we and our democracy are being undermined so we can act where we can.  

A reading from the Christian Scripture Book of Romans this past week got me thinking about sin.  St. Paul was worrying about sin and why he keeps doing sin.  I am not sure why he kept doing it, but I have come to the conclusion that a working definition for sin could be, “doing harm to another person.”  This harm may be physical like killing, assaulting, raping, or in another way using violence or force to do harm.  It can also be emotional harm where through words and actions one belittles, deliberately insults, gaslights, harasses, or lies to or about anyone for the purpose of doing emotional harm.  Then, there’s stealing, cheating, or committing vandalism, again with the intent to harm.  It does not matter what the other person’s response is if, for example, they say, “it’s OK and I forgive you.”  The sin is committed when we step over the line and intend to harm someone else.

This year when Independence Day came around, it occurred to me that people regularly commit sin against our society.  Many people over the years, mostly men) probably because they have had the most power to do harm), have done a lot to try to shape this nation so it will favor themselves and their group, usually white men.  Their sins have done tremendous harm to those who happened to be in the way of advancement meant to benefit those, usually also rich men.  

We are currently in one of those times when we are faced with a critical mass of folks willing to do as much harm as they can get away with, and right now, they are getting away with a lot, just as in the past.  The lying that has brought us into wars is probably the most harmful action, but name-calling and accusations, cheating and stealing by banks and racist financial institutions have done their part too.  Consider the War in Iraq beginning in 2003 started by lies, the McCarthy Communism insanity of the 1950s accusing people of being communists as though it were a crime, and the Great Recession of 2008+, banks cheating and misinforming mortgage holders.  The people causing the harm knew they were doing it, but thought they would get away with it, and for the most part, they did.

What do those folks have in common, a desire for power, the ability to intimidate people, and the money they accumulated.  They showed a total disregard for the people they hurt and the damage they caused our society, and all of it deliberate.   

When the attack on the society comes from people or institutions that are well-known, it is easy for others to latch onto the perpetrators, hoping some of the “glory” will spill onto them.  Maybe as a bonus, they can take their revenge on those who have less than they do  expecting they will have the nominal blessing of the ones in charge.  Those midlevel influencers don’t realize they, themselves are pawns of those at the top and are only useful as long as they do what they are told, hurt the right people, and stay out of the way when not needed.

On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump and a select group of men (and a couple of women) planned an insurrection.  All knew Trump had lost a fair election, but just couldn’t stand to see Trump and his cause (whatever it was) defeated and out of power.  They made sure Fox pundits and others were on board first, then began spreading the word to those midlevel influencers like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whom they were sure they could count on.  Some members of Congress were all in too and even gave “encouraging” speeches in support that morning.  People who thought they came to hear speeches and Trump himself, got purposefully or inadvertently caught up in the theatrics directed by Trump and friends.  By the time they reached the capitol, they knew what they were doing was wrong, but they no longer cared, just as Trump and the others hoped would happen.  Trump supposedly tried to get down there with the insurgents, I guess hoping he could get in on the violence, watch a few members of Congress get killed so he could claim a national emergency and stay in office.  It didn’t work out that way, but people were killed, hurt, and the members of Congress were terrorized.  The coup wasn’t successful, but a whole lot of people participated and took notes as to how it might be done in the future.  That is sin from beginning to end.  I bet nearly every person in the crowd as well as the instigators would call themselves “christian.”

In addition, something really harmful, therefore sinful is going on in our states, and by “Christians.”  In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis decided to ban books (against the first amendment), deny health care to women and trans kids (with no medical knowledge on DeSantis’s part, of course), dictate what students will be taught in school (with no education credentials and a whole lot of racism and homo/transphobia), and bus immigrants based on lies to Martha’s Vineyard (to prove a point or something).  Once those actions, those harms were going on in Florida, they spread like a disease to other states in the Confederacy or in Confederate wannabe states.  Texas regularly ignores our Constitution, but nothing happens and Gov. Abbott, like Gov. DeSantis, sits and grins at his success.  That’s sin, too.

In Tennessee earlier this year, 2 state representatives were kicked out because they stood with constituents when they protested that the legislature had done nothing to stop gun violence after a mass shooting in Nashville.  Fortunately, both men were reinstated by their constituents.  The harm done by that legislature and governor didn’t stop there.  On Saturday, a federal court said it was OK to deny medical care to trans kids while they were waiting for a court decision.  In addition, they demanded medical records from a Vanderbilt University Medical Center clinic that treats trans kids and other medical issues young people have.  I and many others thought medical records are entirely personal and no one could get them without the patient’s permission.  I guess not in Tennessee.  Vanderbilt turned the records over and didn’t tell any of the patients until it was done.  The whole anti-trans people action is sin!  We don’t know how those children and families will be harmed by that decision, but it is pretty much guaranteed that they will be.  I can’t believe Vanderbilt could not have protected those records from the ignorant hateful Tennessee State Attorney General.  Did he even need to have an honest reason?  I suspect it was just power of position and the anticipation of the cruelty he could inflict.

The powermongering and money-grubbing mostly centered within the Republican Party is not going to slow down on its own.  The leaders and their most ardent followers will not willingly give up the power, money, and ability to do harm to those they don’t respect.  They are addicted and are so deeply overwhelmed by the euphoria that comes from their positions or perceived positions they will use them to the fullest doing as much harm as possible as they orgasmically hunt for the next targets for their venom.    

The Republican Party has 6 of our Supreme Court justices on board with the harm and they are doing as much of it as they can get away with and they can get away with a lot while they tell states they can decide about a woman’s reproductive rights and whether colleges can diversify their student body using race as a factor, and can let businesses discriminate against LGBTQ+ persons (hey, even using a case that wasn’t even a case).  All of these have done significant harm while the 6 sit back, smile and believe they have done god’s will.  They haven’t, but they no longer care.  Power, money, and causing others’ pain are powerful drugs, and they partake frequently.

We the People will have to be the ones who ultimately decide whether or not we are going to permit the constant denigrating of our fellow Americans and trampling on our Constitution.  We are up against a formidable opponent because they have been planning and practicing this bad behavior for decades while We the People just lived and tried to do better.  

To start, we must find ways to get every citizen registered to vote, then to the polls or to vote through absentee ballots or mail-ins.  We can’t let this to chance because the Republican harm machine is moving forward at a rapid pace.  They have nothing real to offer anyone outside their leadership circle but pain and more pain.  Our Department of Justice needs to start acting on behalf of We the People as states pass laws that are clearly against our Constitution, particularly the first and 14th amendments (our basic rights) as well as the 15th, 19th, and 26th voting amendments.  Maybe getting some of the planners of Jan. 6th indicted would help a bit too.  There is no time to sit back and just watch.  We must do what we can right where we are, then expand outward, tapping into the expertise of those who have been working to stop the harm/sin for a long time.  We can do this!

SOME CHALLENGES ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

By Ruth A. Sheets

On Thursday, June 29, 2023, the 6 conservatives on our Supreme Court decided they wanted a trip backward into Jim Crow Land, and called “Affirmative Action” unconstitutional.  Affirmative Action related to colleges and universities means letting institutions use race as one of the factors in considering an applicant for admission.  Of course the 6 conservatives on the Court made up the reasoning for their decision to end affirmative action (except in our military academies).  They used the 14^th Amendment as the justification, (equal rights and all that).  As students of our Constitution, they should know that the 14^th Amendment was written to protect and advance the newly freed Black population, not the over-represented white population.  Due in part to the Supreme Court’s rulings in the past half century or so, often related to voter suppression, women’s right to abortion, and allowing pollution in areas where Black and other non-white people are concentrated, Black Americans have not come close to reaching anything like the equity Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to usher into our society.  Justice is not for all and our Supreme Court conservatives have decided it is OK for them to permit, to even support racial discrimination, while they make up excuses to “justify” it.  They certainly do have that excuse thing down.

It is Independence week and I believe it is essential that We the People consider some practices that would not fit in with the dreams our founders had for this nation, even if those founders didn’t realize those things were part of their vision.  I am particularly interested in looking at a few in particular.

-          1. Moves in many states are being made to eliminate most curricula and books related to people of color, particularly Black Americans (as well as LGBTQ+ Americans). Florida is the centerpiece of this one, but other states, mostly in the Confederacy, are jumping on board.  The states pushing for this discrimination claim those curricula and books make white kids uncomfortable.  What!!!  little white kids feel uncomfortable?  What about the way white kids, their parents, and grandparents did everything they could to keep little Black, Latinx, and other non-white kids from even attending schools with white children, and when the courts said they must attend, those white folks, including many of the children, made life a living hell for those unwanted classmates.  Is it possible white kids would be more uncomfortable than that?  Some white parents don’t even want their precious little darlings to read about those times.  Our current Supremes haven’t had a chance to rule on the book-bannings, but they will and I suspect we all know how they will rule and who will be able to continue their unconstitutional behavior. 

2. The SC fearful 6 just said that it is OK to discriminate against LGBTQ+ persons if you have a business, even if that business isn’t real, and if the supposed “clients” are not actually clients, aren’t LGBTQ+, or don’t even know the “plaintiff.”  Yep, decide how you want to discriminate, then accept a non-case so you can rule against the LGBTQ+ community on behalf of some nebulous religious claim.  Not too democratic, I’d say.

 3. The SC conservatives went after two significant universities:  North Carolina and Harvard, and told them one of their most effective programs for diversifying their student body is no longer available.  Can you guess which one?  Of course you can; it’s affirmative action.  Their reasoning as mentioned above is warped, but just what one should expect from this is pathetic Supreme Court with 6 conservatives, none of whom could be considered fair or willing to stand for equity or even equality in 21^st Century America.  Legacy acceptances are OK, though because those kids are mostly rich and white, the constituency of the magic 6. 

4. The “Freedom Caucus” in the House of Representatives is made up of members who have shown no evidence of wanting freedom or any of the other supposed American values for anyone but themselves and possibly their donors, if they can even think that far.  That “caucus” and the Supreme 6 seem to be in sync nearly all the time.  Republicans have decided that naming things exactly opposite of what they really are (“Freedom Caucus”) works very well to help in the brainwashing of the Republican electorate.  They’re not wrong.  

5. Voter suppression is increasing including:  gerrymandering; limiting voting places in areas where “Democrats” live; calling fraud every time a Republican candidate doesn’t win (it started with Trump, but now is widely practiced since there were no down sides to Trump’s lying claims, at least not yet; shortening early voting; stopping vote by mail when Republicans learned their constituents were not using it as much as Democrats; the SC gutting one of the most popular laws of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, in 2013, the part that required the former Confederacy to report any changes related to voting they planned to make.  NOTE:  One can know this was about voter suppression because even before the decision came down in 2013, Confederate states already had anti-voting laws ready to go into effect:  voter I.D., difficulty in registering, shutting down voting locations in Black and Latinx neighborhoods, changing election rules and who could enforce them, and more.

6. Two weeks ago, the SC got a lot of kudos for a decision they should never have had to make at all.  In the case Moore v. Harper, they said that the idea of independent state legislatures was unconstitutional.  Of course it was unconstitutional, a bit of nonsense made up out of whole cloth by Republican operatives who wanted to keep red states as red as possible by letting their legislatures decide how the vote would be counted, which votes would count, and that only the electors they chose, not the voters, would be sent to the electoral college.  The case should never have even entered any court state or federal, but, Republicans do get many privileges they should not and abuse and expand upon them as often as possible when there are no negative consequences attached.

7. This morning, I read a report on millennials and Gen Z-ers and that they do not consider themselves patriotic.  I don’t know if there was a specific definition for “patriotic” given to respondents, but only 38% said they considered themselves patriotic while older respondents had higher percentages.  This Independence Day, we need to take this finding seriously.  What is the disconnect?  How is it our young people don’t trust our government?  This is not a new phenomenon.  Back in the 1960s we were told not to trust anyone over 30, that is until we turned 30.  We saw that point of view presented on TV, in articles, and in movies.  

Younger Americans are highly tied to social media and online sources which are filled with misinformation, half-truths, political nonsense, and influencers who can pop online whatever strikes their fancy.  That in itself is not a negative because it has opened the world for the online presenters as well as the viewers.  The viewers, unlike the presenters, often don’t know what is real and what is fiction, (an act). 

There is a lot of politics online that is hard to miss.  If a particular YouTuber, for example, spouts a mouthful of anti-democratic nonsense, it might have greater weight than the truth spoken by someone the viewer does not know.  There have been a few regulations on social media and other platforms, but nothing permanent.  The platforms’ owners have decided to permit whatever their personal biases call for and whatever they are paid by sponsors or investors to allow.  I suspect our SC will see a case of some sort related to social media, but until that happens, we are at the mercy of people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, neither of whom are particularly democratic or free of extreme bias and they will use both to promote and manipulate their social media entities.  It is likely our SC will go along with the Zuckerberts and Musks no matter what is best for this nation. 

So, what can we, at least somewhat patriotic Americans do? 

1. First, we must get our legislators to vote to expand the Supreme Court.  It has been done before, and it’s time.  We have a whole lot more people and cases to be heard than 150 years ago.

• 2. Congress needs to set up a strong code of ethics for ALL federal courts, containing actual consequences for breaking the code, including removal from office with ways to remove judges without requiring impeachment.  The founders did not know how many states we would have, so thought getting 2/3 of the senators to see that a bad justice needs to be struck from the bench would be reasonable, not nearly impossible as it is now with our extreme political Senate.
• 3. We need a crusade to get our senators to see that the Supreme Court is not functioning with the best interests of the American people in mind and in their decisions.  We need to publicly and often report on their bad behavior and even bring charges in court.  A justice tried and removed from office might get the others to straighten up.  
• 4. We need term limits for the justices to 18 years tops, then move justices to lower courts.  That way each president will not be able to have too much influence.
• 5. There should be a set of standards below which no SC justice nominee can go:  at least 5 years on a lower court; no nominee who has a significant bias against the rights of Americans in their decisions prior to the nomination; approval by legal organizations on both sides of the aisle.  That would be a start.
• 6.  Precedents cannot be overturned unless the decision is unanimous or with only one descent.
• 7. Book banning is against the first amendment and no state or community should be able to institute it.

If we are to keep our democracy alive and well in years to come, we are going to have to focus more on our Supreme Court (as well as the lower courts), and start making better selections of whom we want to hear the cases that impact the lives of We, The American People.  As things stand , we will not have a strong democracy  if we let this current court continue its biased decision-making that is against the rights of so many of us and overturning 50 year and longer precedents for no reason other than their own personal biases.  The excuses they use as defense are pathetic and poorly reasoned, but who cares when there is a super majority of justices who are only for rich white pseudo-christian, “straight” men and corporations.  That leaves out the vast majority of the American people.  That will not work in a democracy, but We the People don’t have to let things continue as they are going.   

Happy Independence Day!