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“The Most Important Election” took on more importance Friday when liberal lioness Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away. It now looks like Trump will be able to appoint and Senate will approve a third Supreme Court justice. The Democrats are considering options, but short of denying a quorum, there is little to be done.
Activists need to accept that we may be heading down a path towards a post Roe, post Miranda, and eventually post Brown future. There are other gains under threat of rollback; voting rights and the ability of workers to organize, but those three landmark decisions are the ones that the right seeks to unravel most.
Roe v Wade, which affirmed a woman’s right to an abortion is where much of the attention rightly is. In the previous term, a TRAP law; targeted restriction on abortion providers, in Louisiana was defeated more on the grounds of upholding precedent. Early reports indicate Trump’s presumptive nominee may be the key 5th vote to, if not overturn completely, weaken Roe. States would have more leeway to restrict procedures and providers.
The activist response to this might be a sort of “underground railroad”. The “Maidez” network of the novel The Handmaid’s Tale may need to become reality. Women from states like Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia, being shuttled through safe houses to states like New York. I am looking at discussing Handbook For a Post-Roe America in January to prepare for this future.
Miranda v Arizona, which gave those accused of a crime rights is a case that also may be subject to weakening. I could see cases where the idea that the rights affirmed in that decision only extend to citizens or that probable cause is expanded could work their way through the courts.
The activist response, video vigilantes. Citizens using cell phones or GoPro cameras to record interactions between citizens and police. New York City’s “Cop Watch” program is a model that could be exported to other cities.
Many folks may not realize that the point we are at now is the culmination of a long process. That process likely started with Brown v Board of Education. That decision, which ruled separate but equal unconstitutional, started the path of progress that is now under threat. This is one, that also may be weakened, but under the guise of protecting the free exercise of religion. A school could argue that their religious beliefs allow them to exclude Muslims, LGBTQ+, or other groups. With a more religion-friendly court, voucher programs to religious schools could expand.
The response to the re-segregation could be community education. Activists providing the resources to fill in the gaps.
Any of these responses may require activists to do some difficult things. Take ownership of what they have done, if enough #BernieOrBust and #DemExit folks had remembered that the President appoints justices, there would be no Gorsuch or Kavanaugh and we would not be is a justified state of dread over the replacement for RBG.
In taking ownership, these activists may have to put down their phone and get out of their comfort zones a bit. They may have to go into the streets and the affected communities, which may be far away from their suburban safe spaces.
When in these unfamiliar spaces, activists may have to check their egos. Black Lives Matter and the Dreamers show that affected communities can do fine on their own; “How can I help” instead of “I’m here to help”. That helping may be more behind the scenes than on the front lines.
This America, where the courts affirm White, perhaps specifically Rural White Supremacy, will have activists playing a very long game. It’s a type of game that the activists in America don’t play well. There are exceptions; ironically, Bernie Backers, who have kept his message going for two primary cycles and building the future of the party with folks like AOC and the rest of “The Squad”. A second example are groups like Mom’s Demand Action and Not One More, both responses to mass shootings.
Darkness is coming, it is a matter of can activists light the fire that Frederick Douglass spoke of and keep it burning for the decades that will be necessary.
