Conservative Americans have shown you their true colors.
They did so at the insurrection on the 6th of January.
Conservative lawmakers in Washington, D.C. did so when they voted against certifying the election and declaring Joe Biden and Kamala Harris president and vice president of the Untied States of America. (That’s not a typo.)
They did so when NOT ONE GOP conservative voted in favor of pandemic stimulus checks.
They did so when they followed through with “auditing” the 2020 election in Arizona. (Only to find Biden/Harris actually had an even larger margin of victory.)
They do so every day with their hysterical refusal to wear masks, or get vaccinated. (Imagine how they’d act if they were asked to storm the beaches at Normandy?)
They did so via the Texas State Legislature when they passed a law that—essentially—overturned Roe vs Wade and criminalized abortion for women in Texas.
I went to the Women’s March at the State Capitol Building in downtown Santa Fe Saturday. Have you ever noticed how liberals always seem to hold festive, more convivial gatherings? Liberal’s anger usually gets expressed through clever one-liners.
Like “We are the grand daughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn.”
Or “Don’t snitch on my snatch”—referencing the Texas law that allows people to turn vigilante on anything related to abortion and receive a $10,000 reward for doing so.
Or “Texas. Where a virus has reproductive rights and a woman doesn’t.”
Or “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d fuck a senator.”
Or “It’s time to talk about the elephant in the womb.”
There were several impassioned speakers, including New Mexico’s governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a female state legislator and Bethany Custard of the New Mexico Public Education Department. Bethany is a former Texan who recounted how differently she and her sister siblings were treated when they had to go to clinics in Texas for reproductive issues as compared to the visits they had in New Mexican clinics. As an administrator in the New Mexico Public Education Department, she also noted the contrast when it came to public education.
In Texas, they prefer to teach abstinence because teen agers are wildly known to be prudent when it comes to sex.
This is another tired quote but apropos for what I want to say:
WHEN PEOPLE SHOW YOU WHO THEY ARE, BELIEVE THEM THE FIRST TIME - DR. MAYA ANGELOU
Conservatives are not comfortable with women leaders, and I am being generous by using the word ‘comfortable’. They are certainly not comfortable with women leaders who see themselves as feminists. Remember that our former vice president did not feel comfortable being alone with a woman—unless it was his wife (I presume)—no matter the circumstance—journalist, psychiatrist, cheesemonger. Remember that our former president was a rapacious misogynist who only remains on this side of prison bars because he has access to ‘fuck you’ money and multifarious, nefarious lawyers who love them some headlines.
Conservatives elected these guys. White, Anglo-Saxon conservatives—of both genders, something around 70% of them—said “Fuck it. I don’t care how loathsome they are ethically, or how dedicated they are to their religion above everything else, I can’t stand the idea of a strong woman holding the highest office in the land.”
And then, a few years later, the leaders of Texas, who had already been heard saying they were content that a few old folks would die from a virus they believed to be no worse than the flu, said, “Hold my beer.”
Conservative Texas leaders are okay with a 12-year old having to take a child of incest to term, but are apoplectic anyone should suggest that same child should be required to wear a mask to school.
Conservative Texas leaders want the father who raped the 12-year old to be able to cash-in on the $10,000 reward if a friend, or the mother, or the next door neighbor, or her doctor, tries to aid and abet an abortion.
Conservatives everywhere are showing you exactly who they are. Some writers have called them the American Taliban and, though I know that sounds hyperbolic, consider this abbreviated comparison from Thom Hartmann (he goes deeper in his column):
The Taliban. . . .don’t believe women should have any social or political rights.
Today’s Republicans occupy much the same space, refusing to vote for the Equal Rights Amendment, refusing to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, and proposing to put women who try to get an abortion (even when raped) in prison along with anybody who may try to help them.
Two-hundred-twenty-eight Republican members of Congress even signed a brief to the Supreme Court asking it to overturn Roe v Wade saying they are interested in “protecting women from dangerous … abortion” while “upholding the integrity of the medical profession.”
Republicans, like the Taliban, don’t believe women should be in the workplace and so work to actively discourage them by refusing to vote for legislation ensuring they get the same pay as similarly-qualified men.
(I read there are no, zero, zilch women in ANY field who are paid more than their male counterparts. I admit. . . I have no evidence to back that up. But it would not surprise me.)
Did you know the Equal Rights Amendment—what would be the 27th Amendment—turned 98 years old in 2021?
From the equalrightsamendment.org website:
In 1923, in Seneca Falls for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention, Alice Paul first introduced the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment, which was called the "Lucretia Mott Amendment" at the time. It stated: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." The amendment was introduced in Congress the same year.
The Equal Rights Amendment passed the U.S. Senate and then the House of Representatives, and on March 22, 1972, the proposed 27th Amendment to the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification.
Since that day, 38 states have ratified the ERA, but it didn’t meet the already extended 1982 deadline—only 35 states had signed on as of then—so now it has to be passed, once more, through a Senate teeming with socially conservative troglodytes. Good luck with that. It needs 60 votes to succeed. Not a simple majority of 50. Do you think a single conservative voice will speak up for women?
If you do, you have not been paying attention.
Now we are living in the cultural backwash of four years of normalizing hate, boorishness and unacceptable public behavior. Regardless of how you slice it, were it not for the 45th worst president we’ve ever had, we wouldn’t have an epidemic of domestic violence, gross behavior, racist posturing—and all of it being played out in the public realm.
These are no small things. The fabric of society has been rent to tatters because one man happened to wander into the White House without a single clue about what he was doing and without any governor on his basest instincts and without anyone who doted on him who could do anything about it, or were willing to do anything about it. He didn’t create the cesspool of hatred, but he unleashed the age of zealotry.
Conservatives fear Sharia law but they revel in the idea of Christian law. I fear zealots being in charge. You should fear zealots being in charge. Gun zealots. Religious zealots. Political zealots. Zealots can justify any action. Too many of our fellow Americans are conservative zealots, but we are the majority.
A majority of us—who are not zealots—are in favor of mask mandates and vaccinations.
A majority of us favor strengthening voting laws.
A majority of us favor single payer health care system—or any functioning health care system!
A majority of us favor stronger, not weaker, gun laws—even members of the NRA.
A majority of us favor Roe v Wade, reproductive rights and safe, legal and accessible abortions.
My fever dream is that the women of America who are not already hopelessly under the sway of a narrow conservative mindset have now witnessed in this Texas law—and their spawn in numerous other ‘developing’ states—the true face of conservative zealotry. It is mean, demeaning and antagonistic toward women everywhere. It is the Old Testament sprung to life. It is the clarion call to get active and oust men who have no intention of ever sharing power.
As former Texan Bethany Custard said on the steps of the New Mexico Capitol Building on Saturday,
I’m mad!
I’m scorned!
And hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Now ladies and gentlemen, let’s see it at the polls in 2022 and 2024.
Unless you’re happy to live under Christian Law.
Amen.
Writer John Pavlovitz, described by the Chicago Tribune as the Anti-Tr*mp pastor, underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor, and as I understand it, everything went well and he is now convalescing. He has a new book, called If God Is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk, that just came out which I am sure is terrific. He’s a superb writer who can distill the goings on in modern day America to some very fine points. I highly recommend you read this column about The Former Guy’s Effect on America. But—truly—all of his stuff is incisive and to-the-point.
Also, if you haven’t read Gabrielle Blair, Design Mom, I suggest you start with this piece about abortion. Design Mom is a Mormon and a mother of 6. (!!!)
I’m a mother of six, and a Mormon. I have a good understanding of arguments surrounding abortion, religious and otherwise. I’ve been listening to men grandstand about women’s reproductive rights, and I’m convinced men actually have zero interest in stopping abortion. Here’s why…