Reap What You Sow

I remember the lead-up to the election in 2016. So, so many people were voting their “conscience” by not voting for Hillary. They said that she was just another status quo politician. That voting for her wouldn’t be all that different than voting for Trump, so they were casting votes for Jill Stein, or writing in Bernie, or just not voting at all.

The argument I made, over and over, was that there was one huge difference between the candidates, and it was the only reason to vote for Hillary: The Supreme Court. When Antonin Scalia died, it represented the biggest opportunity to make meaningful and lasting change in this country. The people in power realized this, which is why Mitch McConnell spent an entire year stonewalling Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. He knew that replacing the most conservative justice on the court with someone that was quite a bit left of center would alter the legal opinions of the court in a dramatic way. So he did everything in his power to keep it from happening, and hoped that Trump could pull off the upset and put someone much more conservative on the court. And it worked. Trump won, and he appointed someone just as conservative as Scalia, Neil Gorsuch.

Nothing else Trump does can’t be undone. Just as Trump has spent his first two years in office trying to do all he can to undo anything that has Obama’s name on it, whichever Democrat wins the Presidency in 2020 will spend years undoing the damage Trump has done. But the one thing they can’t change, and the one lasting legacy from Trump’s four years of racist demagoguery, will be the Supreme Court.

To all of you who said that voting for Hillary wouldn’t affect change in this country, I have only one thing to say to you: You’re a Fucking Idiot!

This week, the court ruled 5-4 on a variety of issues, all of which would have had the opposite verdict if the newest justice had been named Garland instead of Gorsuch.

So instead of ruling for workers, they ruled for corporations: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/21/supreme-court-backs-employers-over-workers/355923002/

So instead of ruling for unions, they voted to weaken them: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-unions-organized-labor.amp.html

So instead of ruling against religious discrimination, they voted for it: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/26/supreme-court-upholds-president-trump-immigration-travel-ban/701110002/

So instead of ruling to strengthen a woman’s right to choose, they took yet another step to weaken it: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/26/supreme-court-nixes-california-law-regulating-anti-abortion-clinics/645842002/

So instead of ruling for same sex rights, they ruled against them: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/04/supreme-court-rules-against-gay-wedding-exemptions/1052989001/

So instead of ruling to help get rid of gerrymandering they voted to strengthen states abilities to do it: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/06/25/politics/supreme-court-north-carolina-gerrymandering/index.html

This of course, is only the beginning. Today, after the session ended, Justice Kennedy, the swing vote in so many 5-4 votes over the last 30 years, announced he is retiring. This will allow Trump to appoint another ultra-conservative in his place. So now, there will be no more 5-4 votes that occasionally rule in either direction, they will ALL be 5-4 ruling for the conservative side of the court.

Realize also that the true beacon of liberal justice on the court, the Notorious R.B.G. is 85, and can’t stay there forever (although I hope she’s got another 5-10 years in her). If she were to go while Trump is in office, you can kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye.

So, once again, let me close by saying to those of you who stayed home on November 8th, 2016, or who voted for Jill Stein because “it didn’t really matter anyway”... Fuck You!

You reap what you sow, and shit is about to get really terrible.