The Theocratic Takeover of U.S. Democracy – What Dems Should Be Doing Now to Fight It

For many Americans, the religious extremists taking over the Supreme Court to tear down our Constitution, civil rights and protections against autocracy has been like watching a slow-motion car accident.

You could see it coming.

• In 2000: The Republicans on The Supreme Court crowned G.W. Bush as President despite all votes in the state of Florida not being re-counted…and after the fact, it was shown that Bush most likely did lose the race and presidency.
• In 2010: The SCOTUS decided to strike down campaign finance laws and open the floodgates to dark money via the Citizen’s United ruling, claiming money was speech and non-living corporate entities were people.
• In 2013: John Roberts led the assault on the Voting Rights Amendment to hobble it and empower racist and corrupt gerrymandering with the decision to strike down pre-clearance.
• In 2017: Mitch McConnell orchestrated Republicans in The Senate to end the filibuster on Supreme Court nominations which led to their ability to confirm extremist and unqualified (and now proven perjurer) nominees like Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett to sit on the highest court in the land.
• In 2018: In the Masterpiece Cake case, the SCOTUS decided that bigotry was a legal right as long as a bigot claimed it was a religious belief.
• In 2020: Mitch McConnell led the GOP members of The Senate to practice nullification of the Constitution when they prevented Pres. Obama from rightfully nominating Merrick Garland to join the Supreme Court.
• In 2022: The extremist members of the SCOTUS began more frequent use of the Shadow Docket to quickly make unjust decisions without public hearings or transparency, depriving those about to be harmed a chance to argue their case. Despite its purpose to be used for time-sensitive, emergency decisions, they have exercised corrupt and unchecked power in this way to take away civil rights, to take away power from the presidency and from Congress. Then came the actual decisions to take away the rights of states to regulate concealed carry of guns, the erasing of the line between church and state by ruling that public money must be provided to religious schools and the ultimate Christian extremist ruling that precedent and stare decisis be damned along with their under-oath testimony to Congress, Roe v. Wade was killed. And along with this and their other decisions, the SCOTUS theocrats also declared that they were stripping Americans of the right to privacy, that it doesn’t exist and all privacy-related decisions including the right to birth control, gay marriage and much more were wrong in their fanatical eyes.

Are we now living in a theocracy? At least partially? Here is the definition of a Theocracy at Dictionary.com:

And consider that this person is not only one of the Supreme Court justices but is aligned with four others (the article is from The Washington Post):

Yes. Our Supreme Court is composed of members of religious cults, men credibly accused sexual assaults and proven perjurers. These “anti-justices” have already torn down central pillars of The Supreme Court including respecting established law in order to make pronouncements that strip Americans of rights and conform to their religious, misogynist and authoritarian thinking. This assemblage of miscreants more resembles residents of Arkham Asylum than The Supreme Court of any nation. Cultwoman, The Molester, LieMaster, and the rest, they’re all really Jokers.

Also keep in mind that the selection of justices by Republican presidents has been led and managed for decades by The Federalist Society. All six of the Republican appointed justices now sitting on The SCOTUS were handpicked and members of The Federalist Society. Trump openly announced that The Federalist Society would be in charge of providing him with the candidates he would nominate.

What is The Federalist Society and what are their long pursued goals?

As a Washington Post article described in a 2019 article after Kavanaugh was foisted onto The Supreme Court:

The newly solidified conservative majority on the court will inevitably decide more cases in line with the [federalist] society’s ideals — which include checking federal power, protecting individual liberty and interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning. In practice, this could mean fewer regulations of the environment and health care, more businesses allowed to refuse service to customers on religious grounds, and denial of protections claimed by newly vocal classes of minorities, such as transgender people.

I guess we can remove that “could” now and add the oppression of a majority in this country, Americans who are women.

While the above has barely scratched the surface of the past decades of pursuit of control by these power-obsessed, elitist, mostly hetero white males seeking domination of those they see as inferior and unentitled to power and self-determination, this has been the long game for these beasts. And keep in mind, the billionaire class including the Koch groups, Peter Theil, The Mercers, and many whose names we don’t know, may or may not share the Dominionist extremism that they’re constantly funding but they all come together behind the concept of tearing down U.S. democracy and replacing it with a tyranny.

In shameless Orwell Doublespeak, their term for supporting undercutting our elections as fraudulent, the planning and launch of an insurrection against American democracy and buying positions of power for bigoted religious extremists like those in Congress and on the court, is “Freedom!”. But that “Freedom!” is only intended for them, at the expense of everyone else’s.

They have used their money and power to build their army to fight for that “Freedom”, both within the political and judicial system and among the more easily manipulated public. And they have now overthrown one branch of our government, the judicial branch, and intend to takeover Congress this November and finally, hammer the stake into the heart of our democracy in the 2024 election and cement their autocracy/theocracy from then on.

This is the plan, you can see Republicans in states around the country prepping for this and changing the election laws in states they control so that they can oppress the votes of Democrats and overrule the votes of their state if the Republican candidate doesn’t win. Trump exposed this lie by explaining it openly, elections that Republicans lose are always fraudulent, the only valid elections are the ones they win.

We are in the midst of a very public overthrow of our democracy, The Supreme Court is hard at work ripping it up as best as they can and it can succeed in total within the next four years if Democrats and other Americans of conscience don’t take the loss of our rights as seriously as they should have taken the threat to Roe V. Wade in previous elections.

What we don’t need from our Democratic politicians are symbolic gestures, signals and assurances. The first response of Democrats in Congress to the killing of Roe v. Wade was to stand on the steps and sing, “God Bless America”. Sorry about the language and capitalization but WHAT THE FUCK?! This is exactly the behavior of clueless representatives who are so wholly out of touch with the anger of the majority and the urgency of action that is required. So please, knock it off! No more political performance art, these times demand doing something meaningful.

The Democratic statements opposing the decision are fine as is urging people to vote Dem in November to help them have control to pass laws in Congress to override SCOTUS rulings like this horrible one but that is not actually a plan. And winning a war requires strategy and actual plans. What Democratic politicians need to do right now is rally the public behind immediate and short term actions and aggressively promote the specifics on what they would do after a big Democratic win this year.

What Democratic Politicians Should Be Saying Right Now

• “The current Supreme Court is illegitimate because it is dominated by extremists who ignore legal and Constitutional precedents to arrive at extremist decisions. This is not a court that is providing or representing justice or the majority of the American people. It does not deserve respect.”
• “This SCOTUS was deligitimized when it was stacked by Senate Republicans who violated their constitutional duty to advise and consent on justices when Pres. Obama was in office, denying his constitutional right to have a justice nominated and confirmed then hypocritically rushed an unqualified Trump-nominated justice onto the court during the 2020 presidential election.”
• “Civil disobedience is an important tool when the majority’s rights are denied by a corrupt and unethical court.”
• “If Democrats win big this November, netting at least 2 more seats in The Senate and retaining control in The House, we promise to end the Senate filibuster, at least in cases involving constitutional rights. Having done so, we will immediately pass a law that legalizes abortion nationally, we will pass voting rights legislation to prevent future attempts at rigging elections to allow the tyranny of a fringe minority over the majority, we will enlarge the court to 13 members so power resides with justices who respect the Constitution and precedent and pass further reforms on the court, and we will pass strong gun control legislation to get assault weapons out of the hands of mass shooters and reduce the plague of gun violence. And that’s just the start to the work we will do to restore and fortify our democracy so that it reflectes the will of the people.” And adding DC and Puerto Rico as states would also help better democratize The Senate and The House (they are citizens!).

What Democratic Politicians Should Be Doing Right Now

• Proposing bills that offer workarounds for women trapped in forced-pregancy states such as providing Morning After pills at federal facilities in each state including post offices and federal office buildings. Subsidizing or offering tax credits to those who must travel out-of-state for abortion services. Expanding VA and any other federal medical facilities for citizens in a state that outlaws abortion.
• Preparing the next budget bill that can pass through reconciliation with funding for abortion services on federal property in states that have banned it as a wedge to reverse the killing of Roe v. Wade. Since items in reconciliation bills need to display a fiscal impact as a central component, develop projections of the massive cost to the U.S. economy, federal medical programs, and the skyrocketing social and economic costs of greatly increased poverty from forced pregancies year after year. Also, the costs of sidelining thousands of women from high income jobs and socially critical work.
• Begin impeachment hearings of Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsich for perjuring themselves under oath during their congressional hearings when both stated that they firmly viewed Roe as settled law and they respect stare decisis/legal precedent. Without their perjury, they would not be on the court to perpetrate this betrayal of legal precedent.
• Subpoena Clarence Thomas for hearings on ethics issues regarding his decisions on matters involving his wife Ginni and her work with seditionists.
• Draft a proposal for enlarging and reforming the Supreme Court, ending lifetime appointments, possibly rotating justices in and out of the court.
• Work with organizers and politicians in abortion-ban states to mount propositions on state ballots to make abortion a right.
• Collaborate with Dems running for state offices to turn legislatures and governors’ offices Democratic and able to overturn anti-choice laws.
• Provide Dem voters with a gameplan that lays out which Democrats in which states need the most support to best help Democrats increase their control in The Senate to overturn the filibuster and help Democrats hold onto control in The House.
• Organize all Democratic politicians behind the same message for November’s election and repeat it endlessly in the media (like republicans do with “Inflation!” and “Gas prices!”), “Even if you like the Republican who represents you, the party with the majority of members in Congress controls the country. Vote for Democrats if you want to rescue our democracy, vote for Republicans if you want them to finish the job of destroying it.”

We are at war right now and we just lost a major battle. Those intent on crushing our democracy are energized by their coup over the majority and they’re frothing at the mouth to build upon it with outlawing other civil rights like the right to contraception and gay marriage. As the old saying goes, you can’t win a war if you don’t even know you’re in one. Our politicians need to be on a wartime footing now. This is a time for bold statements and rallying cries, for leadership on what specifically we can do now and what we need to do in November and beyond to win this war.

There’s a reason that each recent election has been deemed “the most important election in our lifetimes”. Because each year, we slide deeper into an unprecedented depth, away from a constitutional democracy.

It was true in the past and just as true this November. We represent the majority, we have the strength to pull it back in place if we only use it.

To all who love this country, believe in justice and want to protect our democracy from the political thugs who are rabidly taking it down…let’s do this!