The Anti-democratic Thugs Are Coming From Inside The House!

It turns out that the Russians dropping the Bomb was never the biggest threat to our freedom.

Now that Roe v. Wade has been tossed on the ash heap of history, no one should think Republicans will be satisfied with their victory and stop there. Roe was never the end game. This was one victory in a battle that began long before the Supreme Court decided Roe in 1973. Those wanting to curtail women’s rights have much to celebrate, but they’re far from finished.

Anti-choice stalwarts are already feeling the wind in their sails as they plot their next move. The smart money is leaning toward a nationwide abortion ban, but not via federal law. Getting such a law through Congress would be challenging at best. Instead, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explains, she believes the anti-choice movement will make its move through a ”fetal personhood” case that would eventually come before the Supreme Court.

An alarmed Rachel Maddow is convinced Republicans will now angle to bring a “fetal personhood” case before the Supreme Court in a bid to totally shut down abortion nationwide.

Such a case would aim to define a fetus as a human being, and an abortion as murder. Maddow warned the extremist fight is a long game, decades in the making, often enforced with violence, and that Republicans aren’t about to ease off now that the court has overturned Roe v. Wade.

“The anti-abortion political project of the Republican Party and the political right has been the central organizing principle for the right’s entire effort around the judiciary, one for which there is still no match or mirror on the left. It’s a big deal,” she said on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” Friday.

With the Court currently issuing a series of 6-3 rulings aimed at rolling back long-established rights, Social Conservatives finally have their moment in the sun.

The anti-choice movement, to their credit, worked patiently. They waited for a perfect case. Then, a Supreme Court with a solid Conservative majority came through. It took almost 50 years, during which they nibbled around the margins, reducing the broad protections of Roe v. Wade to, in some states, a barely recognizable shell.

Over time, red state legislatures had developed so many ingenious strategies for undermining Roe that the right to a safe, legal abortion barely existed. States like Texas and Oklahoma made a mockery of Roe, and the courts were inclined to let them do it. Even though Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land, over time it was gutted and rendered toothless.

There’s no reason to think Conservatives have completed their mission. Indeed, they’re just getting started.

“There’s nothing in the reasoning of today’s opinion from these six justices that would stop them from accepting something like a fetal personhood case,” Maddow explained.

“A fetal personhood case ... would give this court a path to not just let individual states ban abortion, which is what they did today. ... A fetal personhood case could be their vehicle to impose a nationwide ban on abortion, on the order of the United States Supreme Court,” she said.

It’s hardly far-fetched, Maddow argued.

“Would it be that much more radical than what they’ve done today?” she asked. “I mean, they’ve kind of broken the seal here, haven’t they? Roe was a 50-year-old precedent that had been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court itself multiple times,” she noted.

“The conservatives have the power on this court, and they will now wield it however they want, to achieve whatever outcomes they want, to change the country however they want without restriction — and you must do what they say,” she warned.

Roe was hardly the end of the line. Indeed, it’s just another brick in the wall. Unfortunately, the anti-choice folks won’t stop until their wall is complete, which would mean a total abortion ban- no abortions anywhere in America for any reason.

Maddow’s correct- Conservatives want power. They want to remake America as they wish without anyone standing in their way. And they want the ability to remove anyone who tries to stand in their way.

When people and pundits talk about the demise or the outright end of American democracy, this may well be what it looks like. We spent all those years worried about the Russians dropping the Bomb on us…and it turns out the worms are consuming us from within.

The enemy came from within- our fellow Americans- the entire time.

Who among us thought Margaret Atwood was a prophet?