Tell me you see what’s happening.
Like many of us, I’ve been alarmed at the slow sleep-walk our country is taking towards fascism.
Case in point, our current Supreme Court is protecting a former president from being held criminally liable for actions taken while in office.
The immunity case is the first step, and under the radar flies the second; the obstruction charge that is being used in the J6 prosecutions.
Setting aside the immunity case for a moment, if the SC rules in a way that compels Jack Smith to drop the two obstruction charges of the four in the current indictment against Trump, the other two charges in the indictment could be severely weakened to the point where it makes the case much more difficult to prosecute. It’s possible that the current indictment could need to be replaced with a superseding one, perhaps this time with the insurrection charge.
How all of that will play out is unknown at present.
Amid all the recent SC activism of the right-wing reactionaries on the bench, I’m reminded that one of the ways the Nazi’s seized, consolidated, and maintained their political power was by taking over then controlling their courts.
Distressingly, the present historical analogues to our history in the 1930’s is stark.
The further rise of Christian Nationalism, America First rears its head again, threats of concentration camps by political leaders, the silencing of journalism, monopolizing media outlets, the persecution of Jewish people and other minorities, cracking down on dissent in the academic world, and denigrating the acquisition of knowledge and discouraging critical thinking, all clearly show where we are headed.
In 1935, American author Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel entitled, It Can't Happen Here. I’m sure many of you know or at least have heard about the book. Quite literally a cautionary tale for our present moment, a populist American politicians’ meteoric rise to power creates our country's first dictator.
In the words of Mark Twain, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does often rhyme”.
It can’t happen here, can it?
Yes, and it’s already in progress.
Please tell me you see what’s happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/04/justices-divided-over-jan-6-participants-call-to-throw-out-obstruction-charge/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstructing_an_official_proceeding