By David Brooks on June 27, 2022
large demonstrations over the US after supreme court ruling against women’s rights. photo: Liberation News
“Granddaughters today should not have to fight the battles their grandmothers had already won,” declares a banner at protests in the tens of thousands that erupted around the country at the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the constitutional right to abortion, while at the annual massive gay pride parades with banners pointing out that “we are still us” with a broad chorus of representatives of the various democratizing forces in this country warning that the ruling is only part of the attack on civil rights and liberties in this country.
Some proclaim that this right-wing offensive is nothing less than the advance of “Christo-fascism.” The abortion ruling is just one in a series of recent federal and state-level right-wing triumphs, despite Trump’s ouster and Democrats controlling the White House and Congress. This includes imposing bans against books that address gay issues or racism and history, reducing restrictions on firearms, suppressing voting rights, reducing civil liberties for immigrants and the gay community in several states, among other ominous developments. In part, this right-wing strategy has prospered because Republicans now control congresses in 30 states, Democrats only 17.
Some warn that this failure is one more step toward detonating a “civil war” that many on the far right have been promoting for years, including organizing paramilitary forces for that purpose, and whose first rehearsal was the attempted coup by neo-fascist forces a year and a half ago.
The Democrats, from the president on down, immediately used that decision for electoral purposes (and together with various NGOs, to raise funds), hoping that it might change the dynamics of the November federal legislative elections where so far the prognosis was that the Republicans would retake control of Congress.
But the problem with that message, several activists expressed, is that people already voted for the Democrats to retake control of the White House and Congress less than two years ago and yet, this happened.
It is worth noting that 60 to 70 percent of the country supports abortion rights, just as majorities support immigration reform, gun control, universal access to health care, labor rights, measures to combat climate change and economic inequality, and more. But as demonstrated again last week, the will of the people is not what reigns in this “beacon of democracy.”
Indeed, with this ruling and other democratic failures, the deterioration of the legitimacy of the main institutions of the republic continues. Popular confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted 11 points since last year to its lowest level at just 25 percent, according to the most recent Gallup poll. The president’s approval rating now hovers around 39 percent; that of Congress is at just 21 percent in the average of the most recent major polls.
In the face of the minority right’s advance, it is increasingly clear that just voting or marching on one’s issue is not enough. New York’s gay pride parade this Sunday was led by the national women’s health services organization Planned Parenthood who marched with banners declaring “together, we fight for everyone.”
Rage Against the Machine, Olivia Rodrigo, Madonna and other artists denounced the latest news and are raising funds to directly support organizations that provide abortion services in several states and to advocate for civil rights. Civil rights and civil liberties organizations and movements say they are looking for a united response to the legal, political, social and physical violence of the right-wing offensive against women, gays, minorities, immigrants, journalists and others.
Some say that now begins – or should begin – a broad resistance movement for the democratic rescue of the United States.
Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English