An apology. My keyboard is failing, and I have lost the “t” key, so am copy-pasting or Unicoding where needed. If I miss one or more, please grant me grace to understand that you are seeing typos, not subtext or sly commentary.
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Trump’s indictment in Georgia seems to have been the masterstroke that many of us were hoping for. Although the Federal cases, tightly and meticulously constructed, shine disturbing amounts of light on equally disturbing amounts of alleged wrongdoing, this community is well aware that the Federal system also has previously unrecognized serious flaws.
It is absolutely vulnerable to corruption at the top, and Donald Trump has made absolutely certain that no competent adult will ever again fail to understand that. Hopefully, the same competent adults will also understand that these flaws accrue to the original, mistakenly exalted and therefore never critically examined, design of our legal and politcal systems. And thus even the Ultimate Prosecutor of All Prosecutors may find his efforts thwarted to some extent, or subsequently undone, by corrupt, preinstalled judges or a corrupt President.
Fortunately for the nation, Georgia already faced and addressed a state level version of the same problem, and no corrupt Governor can vacate justice there. Nor can any President.
Observing this, and watching some very well informed commentary over the past two days, I’ve reached two conclusions.
1. It was already LONG past time for we non-Southerners to give our liberal Southern brothers and sisters more respect, starting with the simple recognition that they exist, in quantity, and always have*. Although I am a more than nominal daughter of the South myself, I was drawn North for my schooling and my early career, so I include myself among the Yankee folk who can use some reminding.
We need to ditch Regionalist prejudice right along with ageism, misogyny, homophobia and all its relatives, and the sneaky, stealthy forms of racism that slip past here all too often even now. Yes, that means no more wishing blanket, unselective evil on everyone in Florida and Texas; it’s long past time for us to acquire more grownup hobbies anyway.
2. For over 20 years now, people IRL who know me well enough for me to speak openly to have heard me say “Republicans are the Abuser Party, Democrats are the Enabler Party.” I’m sure I’ve remarked similarly here.
This piece by Chris Hayes explains exactly what I have always meant by that. For those who can’t listen or use the variable-quality subtitles, he describes, blow by blow, every dodge, every feint, every move of the goalposts, that Republicans have employed to keep us off base, confused, and ultimately disempowered during Trump’s wannabe-coup. And he is scathingly clear about this being deliberate, and about its overt purpose: to assure there are groups the law binds but does not protect and groups it protects but will not bind.
That, right there, is the essence of abuse, and if we could learn always to look for that possible objective first, no abuser could bamboozle, flummox, or con us, ever again.
WE NEED TO LEARN THIS. AND MORE THAN THAT, WE NEED TO REMEMBER IT.
this is an opinion piece; I am not interested in arguing but will happily discuss.
*And a lot of them go to church, and are activists with that as their base, so it really is long past time for us to get over that prejudice, too. Nope, not arguing about this one either.
Edit in: not complete without this — a salute from one of Canada’s finest; indeed, the world’s.