Urgent call Stop the Illegitimate Confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett!
I am calling on everyone who hears this to join me Monday in protesting the attempt of the Trump-Pence regime and the Republifascist Senate to implant the Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court. Here’s why:
“The rule of law was not openly and formally abandoned altogether, but the 'law' and 'the rule of law' became the same as what Hitler and the NAZIs said it was. Much of what Hitler and the NAZIs did, during their reign of terror and genocide, was 'in accordance with the law'—law that they had reduced to nothing more than their barbaric aims and means, murderously enforced by institutions which had been stripped of any meaning or purpose other than what conformed to and served the NAZI agenda, reduced to nothing more than instruments of NAZI atrocity.
“In the whole of what Trump is currently doing—including his open calls to overturn Supreme Court decisions and precedents (for example, to outlaw abortion and punish flag burning), along with his repeated violations of the law and due process of the law and his insistence that he is the law—we can see the looming shadow of even more overt fascist dictatorship. For that is what fascism is: open and aggressive dictatorship, trampling on and perverting the rule of law, relying on violence and terror, on behalf of the predatory capitalist system and as an extreme attempt to deal with profound social division and acute crises (both within the country and in the global arena).” Bob Avakian, in his August 1st Statement
As soon as Monday night, if her confirmation is not stopped, Amy Coney Barrett could be sworn in as a Justice to the Supreme Court, locking in a firm fascist and theocratic majority on the highest court in the land. This would be a major leap in domesticating the courts and the 'rule of law' into an instrument of fascist atrocity. Immediately, this would provide Trump with another valuable weapon in his drive to steal the elections.
Longer term, there is little doubt that her tenure on the court will see a wholesale assault on the rights and lives of millions.
The Christian fascist movement that reared Amy Coney Barrett and backed her ascension to the Supreme Court has never reconciled itself to the hard-fought social advances of the last fifty years and more. Beneath their gauzy obsession with of the so-called “rights” of the fetus lies a thousand-years-old hatred of women, an Old Testament view that women deserve punishment in the form of forced motherhood and servitude to their husbands and fathers. It is not incidental that during her confirmation hearing Amy Coney Barrett refused not only to affirm the Supreme Court decision that granted women's right to abortion, but even to affirm the decision that granted the right to birth control.
Beneath their rhetoric of “family values” lies a drive to cast LGBTQ people back into the closet and strip them of recently won rights and protections to their families, healthcare, jobs, housing and more. Beneath their talk of “religious freedom” lies their insistence on their “right” to use the state impose their Christian fascist bigotry and denial of science and climate change on the rest of society and world. And pulsing through all of this is the ugly white supremacy that sits at the foundation of this country and has led to a situation where, as the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has analyzed, the Bible Belt in this country has always doubled as the Lynching Belt. Part of the rush to confirm Coney Barrett is to lock all this in place so this can be carried forward regardless of who wins the upcoming election.
More immediately, as soon as Tuesday, Amy Coney Barrett could become part of Supreme Court that acts to put a stamp of “legitimacy” on a fascist theft of the upcoming election.
Trump is preparing violent thugs – inside and outside of power – to enable him to hold onto power regardless of the results of the election. He would rather, however, win outright – or at least with enough confusion and “lawfulness” that he can claim a second term and mandate “legitimately.” He has openly admitted that his rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is to ensure that the Court rules in his favor should the election be contested.
Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Supreme Court for 30 years (and who I interviewed on The RNL Show), detailed a recent case over whether to count certain late-arriving mail-in ballots in the swing state of Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court deadlocked, 4-4, allowed ballots to be counted if they arrived within three days of the election in order to accommodate the historically high level of mail-in ballots during a pandemic. It is reasonable to expect that had Coney Barrett been seated on the court already, this provision would have been struck down and many valid votes would have been thrown out. We can expect many such challenges in the days ahead. Republicans have an army of lawyers ready to contest ballot any place doing so would be to Trump's advantage.
With Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, Trump could be relieved of the need to outright refuse to leave office in the face of a clear electoral loss. Rather, he and the Republicans hide their theft under their insistence that “we leave it up to the courts,” knowing full well that they've been stacked in his favor. For her part, during her confirmation hearings Amy Coney Barrett gave us every reason to believe she'd be an eager instrument of Trump's election theft, refusing to acknowledge that it would violate the Constitution for Trump to postpone the election, refusing to affirm that armed voter intimidation is against the law, and joining Trump in refusing to endorse a peaceful transfer of power.
With all this at stake – both the long-term consequences for millions and millions of lives and in the near-term ability of Trump to steal the upcoming election – it would be wrong to treat this, even at this late hour, as a “done deal.” There are enough people – millions throughout society, stretching to the powers-that-be – who truly oppose and even hate what Amy Coney Barrett stands for, and can be mobilized, or compelled to move, to STOP this nomination!!
WE HAVE TO ACT, NOW!
In a situation this fraught, no one can say in advance what kind of impact the people can have when we act boldly and with moral clarity. And the more powerfully we act against this, the more we can stamp and render her confirmation as illegitimate if it does go forward – building our strength and creating a much stronger basis to call forward even greater numbers for the greater political battles ahead.
TODAY Monday, across the country, we must go into the streets in protest.
Here in Washington, DC, we will amass tonight at 5:00 pm at the Supreme Court. Many of us will dress as Handmaids, representing and opposing the theocratic nightmare this regime and confirmation will bring. Wherever you are across this country, go to courthouses and public squares:
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