In September of 2000, a first cousin of my father's said to me that our country wasn't a democracy. And he didn't mean in the we-are-technically-a-republic sense, he meant it in the sense that we are many of us now beginning to feel.
At the time, I thought he was so radical! This was a only a few months before Bush v. Gore when the Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount and handed the presidency to Bush. This was not quite a year before the disaster in lower Manhattan.
The night Trump was elected was a strange night, but this is also one, and frankly, it is scarier to me. What happened with Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court scares me more than all of the other afore mentioned events. It is the fact that the rulers of our country no longer see any reason to pretend that they do not wield absolute power. They see no reason to even try to present a face of fairness to the country.
Those in power could have easily withdrawn a man who perjured himself on television in front of the world, who showed him self to be belligerent and aggressive towards women in this same testimony(Senator Klobuchar), who showed a lack of judicial temperament and a wealth of partisan fervor (the Clintons are out to get me) and who very possibly could be guilty of sexual assault. Those in power could have simply nominated another right wing partisan who would have gutted or overturned Roe v. Wade, who would have affirmed that 'corporations are people, my friend,' and that big business can do whatever they want and damn the people and the environment.
They chose not to do this. They chose the shove this particular nominee down our throats. They chose to elevate him because they could. And they chose to do it to show that we could not stop it.
What will be next?
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