The betrayal

Eight Democratic US Senators—well, seven Democrats and one “Independent”—just underscored why Americans have so little trust in the Democratic Party, and they also managed to undo all of the progress the party has made in recent months. Worse, they did it and got absolutely nothing in return. Calling this treachery is far too kind.

Here’s the list of the Gang of Eight Senators:

Dick Durbin (age 80), Illinois, who is not seeking reelection next year. John Fetterman (age 56), Pennsylvania, term expires 2028. Maggie Hassan (age 67), New Hampshire, term expires 2028. Tim Kaine (age 67), Virginia, term expires 2030. Angus King (age 81), “Independent” from Maine, term expires 2030. Catherine Cortez Masto (age 61), Nevada, term expires 2028. Jacky Rosen (age 68), Nevada, term expires 2030. Jeanne Shaheen (age 78), New Hampshire, not seeking reelection next year.

Here’s the thing: NONE of those folks will face the voters next year, and cynics are already suggesting that’s why they were the “negotiators”: They could provide cover for vulnerable Democrats in the 2028 elections, while also allowing the much-disliked leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, to vote “no” on the deal while still getting what he wanted, namely, an end to the shutdown.

A different view I saw was that this was a bigger game. First, the House will have to come back into session, that means that Arizona’s US Representative-elect, Adelita Grijalva, will have to be sworn-in—finally—and she will be the 218th signature on the Discharge Petition to release the Epstein Files so everyone will know exactly what the convicted felon did to be named so much in the files, which certainly appears to be the reason Republicans are trying so hard to prevent the files ever being released. Also, the story goes, there will be a special election in a Republican district in Tennessee that may narrow the odds of succeeding in forcing the release of the Epstein Files. By re-opening now, they can act on the files.

The people pushing that theory also point out that Republicans will now be forced to go on the record in support of raising ACA healthcare premiums, and they’ll have to go through this again in January. Yeah, well, no, not really.

The Gang of Eight got a promise that the Senate will vote in December on extending ACA subsidies, but Republican promises are worthless. Even so, let’s humour them and pretend they really will hold the vote in the Senate—so what? Maga Mike Johnson, the antichristian Speaker of the House, has already made clear the subsidies will never be taken up by the House, so no House Republicans will be on the record. And there’s still no guarantee there will be a vote in the Senate, either. The Gang’s other excuses reasons were about things that the courts are already resolving—and there’s no guarantee that the regime will obey any court orders, nor that they’ll actually honour any deals on those issues.

Thanks to the Gang of Eight, early next year ACA healthcare premiums will go up two, three, four—even seven or eight—times. Yes, Americans will be furious about that, but will they really blame only Republicans, or the 8 Senators who caved to Republicans? Or, will they blame all Democrats? It could well become a “both parties are useless liars” thing, driving down voter turnout next year, also helping Republicans.

Even if there’s some sort of hidden strategy here, how on earth could they convince voters of that, when it would look like they were just making excuses for caving? And, also, what about all the Democrats who did the right thing and held the line and voted no? They will be tarred with the same brush as the Gang of Eight. This is especially bad because voters responded strongly to Democrats actually fighting the regime—finally!—and it’s one of the main reasons why last week Democrats had the best election night in YEARS, only to have the Gang of Eight throw it all away.

There’s nothing that can be done about this now that the eight caved, but pressure must begin to convince the six who aren’t already retiring next year to retire at the next election. If they don’t retire, they must be primaried and fired by the voters. They betrayed all the hard work and sacrifices of their colleagues and in both Congress and the states, and also ordinary people who felt energised and engaged, and there have to be consequences for their betrayal of the American people.

The one thing we know for certain is that things will get much, much worse for the USA and its people. Republicans are now smugly certain that they can do whatever they want, and Democrats won’t do anything but, taking a cue from Chuck Schumer, send a strongly worded letter.

The USA deserves much better from Democrats, and for a time, they got that. The Gang of Eight wrecked it all.

Ask Arthur 2024, Part 3: Racism and change

With one more post in this year’s “Ask Arthur” series, I decided to talk about the remaining “heavy” topic today rather than end the series with it, for no particular reason other than it felt right.

So, today’s question is from Roger Green, who asked:

From your vantage point, how has race and racism changed in the United States compared to, say, when you were living in the United States? Was Obama's presidency helpful or harmful in addressing racism; likewise, black lives matter, affirmative action, DEI. What has moved the needle in terms of race in America and in which direction? While you're at it, you could talk about race in New Zealand, which is a different animal, I know.

This topic is one of the most fraught because the opinions have become so polarised, and, for many it’s become a kind of moral litmus test. In my opinion, and from what I’ve seen and experienced personally, the folks on the Left seem to approach the topic from lived experience or based on their values (or both). In contrast, those on the Right seem to come, more often than not, from a place of fear and/or ignorance—which doesn’t mean they’re stupid, just that they’re uninformed, and, sadly, too often by choice.

I watched race and racism in the USA improved steadily, culminating in the election of President Obama. The rise of the “tea party,” however, led to a rise in openly racist rhetoric, leading up to and getting stronger after the 2010 Midterm Elections. To me, it’s been all downhill from there, and the situation is worse now than it was before I left the USA.

President Obama’s election in 2008 broke a barrier, one that can’t be rebuilt. Now, the idea of a black man being president is no longer weird, because it’s already happened. In that sense only, President Obama’s election in 2008 was very helpful. However, he also played down the historic nature of his election and administration, so it didn’t have the legacy-building it could have had. That, however, wasn’t the reason the USA started slipping backward: That was the deliberate work of the Rightwing.

The USA’s Rightwing spent a lot of time and effort spreading propaganda that was built on deliberate lies and disinformation, like, for example, when they said the Affordable Care Act would lead to “death panels”. Many Republican leaders, elected or not, used dog-whistle rhetoric to imply that President Obama and his supporters were "less than” in many ways, though often unspecified. Again, this took flight with the rise of the teabaggers, something I wrote about a lot at the time.

Affirmative Action was a useful policy for reducing systemic barriers to black people (in particular) breaking getting a chance in education and employment, but it was created in a different time when politicians saw the value in lifting up those who had been deliberately excluded from so much of society. Its success reinforced opposition from traditional conservatives, and created resentment among white people who felt that if someone else succeeded, it inevitably meant they (the white people) would have to fail. That was absurd, but telling disgruntled people that their feelings are absurd and not based in reality doesn’t make the disgruntled folks change their minds, it makes them more firmly disgruntled and very angry, something that inevitably leads to reactionary politics and turning back the clock. So, Affirmative Action started out as a positive, but because the resentment of white folks was never properly addressed, it became a flashpoint for everyone who was certain (though almost always wrong) that they’d been deprived of something by “a minority” person. Its downfall was predictable.

The Black Lives Matter movement was, like President Obama, the victim of unrestrained and often unhinged Rightwing rhetoric. By the time that BLM emerged, the Rightwing propaganda system was fully developed and operational, and when combined with legacy media failing to report fairly or accurately, that meant it was possible for people to never hear facts or reality in reporting on BLM, and that meant it was easily scapegoated by white folks who blamed it as an example of why they weren’t rich and CEO of a major corporation (or whatever).

This same fate befell DEI and even Critical Race Theory.

DEI is something that many people didn’t understand at all. Some may have had “cultural training” of some sort at work, which was intended to make sure workers weren’t insensitive to fellow workers or customers who were different from themselves, but it morphed into meaning a different version of affirmative action, leading to their claims that “unqualified” people were supposedly given preferential treatment over “qualified” people who were passed over because they weren’t part of a recognised minority, and that, in turn, led to it becoming an all-purpose epithet against anyone who wasn’t a white, cisgender, heterosexual male, such as, derisively calling someone a “DEI-hire”.

It’s certain that everyone spewing angry rhetoric about CRT has never had anything to do with it, since it was only ever part of graduate-level coursework in very particular fields. Many of the folks complaining the loudest barely completed high school, if that, and because they didn’t know what CRT was, they bought the Rightwing propaganda that it was about teaching 5 year old white kids to hate the fact they’re white—because so many of 5 year olds are doing graduate coursework at universities these days…

So, overall, race and racism have gone backward in recent years, and the main reason is that for far too many Republicans, nativism, white nationalism, christian nationalism, etc., have become defining characteristics of their politics, something that’s been driven by an extensive Rightwing propaganda media ecosystem and politicians eager to exploit it.

You didn’t ask about this, but one of the solutions, in my opinion, is to develop a strong alternative media ecosystem for the centre and the left, one that reports fairly and accurately, without resorting to the lazy “both-sides-ism” of the legacy media, nor the deliberate disinformation the Rightwing uses. If we can’t get back to facts-based and reality-based policy discussions, we won’t have a hope of moving things forward.

Pretty much everything I’ve said is also true for New Zealand, albeit with local flavour and issues specific to this country. The current Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, the leader of a rightwing populist party, campaigned using rhetoric lifted directly from the USA’s MAGAts. Just like their Dear Leader, Winnie (as he’s “affectionately” known) railed against transgender people (such as, he wanted a law that would require restaurant and cafe owners to ensure the public toilets customers used matched their birth gender—though he never said how that was to be done, like, maybe a quick genital check?), and he said that every policy he didn’t like, no matter how sensible, was "woke"—including government programmes designed to help Māori. In a plot twist, Winston is Māori.

Similarly, the leader of a hard-right neoliberal party, and set to become Deputy Prime Minister in around six months, David Seymour, railed against “special treatment” for Māori, and wanted a national referendum on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, the nation’s founding document, to strip out everything he decided was “special treatment” for Māori in favour of one standard based on English law and customs. He, too, is Māori.

The current Prime Minister, the leader of the conservative National Party, has also railed again Māori, including demanding that all government agencies must use their English language name first and most prominently. This was in reaction to government departments using their Maori name first, as is the ordinary custom. For example, we used to have Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand, and now those two are reversed. Similarly, Waka Kotahi–NZ Transport Agency is also switched around. In both cases the English name is stylised at a much larger type size than the Māori one. It will surprise no one who knows anything about me that I continue to use the Māori names, and exclusively. 

In doing so, the PM was pandering to the older, mostly white base of his party who “don’t like all that marry [sic] stuff” (older white folks often incorrectly pronounce Māori as “marry”, and it often seems deliberate. During the campaign, the PM said that “no one” could remember the Māori names of government agencies and got them confused, which was an incredibly condescending thing to say: The English names of LOTS of government agencies have changed—sometimes multiple times—and yet the PM apparently thinks that people magically didn’t have any difficulty remembering the changed English names.

Those of us who oppose the current government call it the “Coalition of Chaos” (or CoC) for their general incompetence, the corruption of some ministers, their lies, and their ulterior motives for some of their initiatives. But nowhere is opposition stronger or louder than against the COC’s “war on Māori”, as the loudest critics put it. The haka in Parliament and the <i>massive</i> hikoi (march) to Parliament are probably the best-known overseas. The PM agreed to support Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill only to the First Reading, and then will oppose it at the second and third—something that Seymour has attacked, of course. With National and all the Opposition parties against it, the bill cannot pass, no matter what the mercurial Winston does (though he’s unlikely to support it, if for no other reason than that it’s Seymour’s central policy objective.

Having said all that, there’s a very important way in which New Zealand is very unlike the USA: We can change it at the next election in 2026 by making the CoC a one-term government. If the Centre-Left win the next election, they will undo the worst things the CoC has done to Māori, as well as poor and working people generally. NZ doesn’t have the kind of “establishment consensus” that too often keeps Democrats from making real progressive change when they have power—and, arguably, that’s part of why Democrats lost so badly in 2024. Both the Democrats in the USA and the Centre-Left in NZ have every opportunity to come roaring back in 2026 IF they back real concrete progress. If they do, the conservatives’ failures on race will likely be one of the reasons the Right will be shown the door.

Thanks to Roger for today’s question!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-24”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2024 series:

”Let the annual inquisition begin for 2024” – The first post in this year’s series.
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 1: Pardon?4”
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 2: An Orange hue”

Ask Arthur 2024, Part 1: Pardon?

Today I begin answering questions in the 2024 “Ask Arthur” series. In past years I started with the first question asked, and then continued more or less in order, sometimes grouping questions with similar subjects/themes together. This year, however, one of the later questions is more time-sensitive than the others, so I’ll begin with that one.

Before I begin, though, anyone can still ask new questions: Leave a comment on this post, or see the other options down below, at the end of this post. I’ll call time on new questions in a later post in the series, but I’ll finish this “Ask Arthur” series by December 31.

So: This year’s first question, as is usually the case, is from my pal Roger Green, who asked:

Hunter Biden pardoned by his dad. Orange said, "What about the J6 hostages?" which is silly because orange can do it himself. Thoughts? And also, who else should Joe pardon?

I Can’t think of anything I care about less than President Biden pardoning his son. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that the Right were—or, more likely pretended to be—freaking out about it. I don’t recall a single one of them whining after 45 pardoned his son-in-law’s dad—or any of the other criminals (or his own co-conspirators) that he pardoned. So, their reaction was largely performative, as it so often is. Some of them were even unintentionally hilarious, like the far-right guy who made an “error-filled” movie about illegal immigration who publicly complained about the pardon—despite getting one from 45. Glass houses, and all that.

What I find extremely tiresome, though, is the hand-wringing and rending of garments from those on the Left, including some I like and respect. One legal commentator went to great lengths to condemn President Biden, declared he’d lied about not pardoning Hunter, that his reputation and legacy was destroyed, and he kept droning on about how the pardon violates norms—even though he’s previously noted how the Orange One has already shattered norms and precedent and will do FAR worse once he’s enthroned in January. A prominent political YouTuber I’ve watched for years declared that “of course Biden shouldn’t have lied”, however, he’s also consistently pointed out the old norms are gone, and the incoming guy will do whatever he wants, whether it’s legal or not, and without regard for the Constitution. 

I have NO idea whether or not President Biden “lied” when he said several times that wouldn’t give Hunter a pardon—and neither does anyone else, Right or Left. However, there’s strong evidence supporting the assertion that he didn’t lie. In his statement on the pardon, President Biden said:

No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.

Indeed, “no reasonable person” (emphasis added), which obviously excludes the Republican politicians whining so loudly about the pardon. If President Biden had not pardoned Hunter, the supplicants the Orange One installs at the FBI and as Attorney General would almost certainly launch phoney “investigations” into Hunter Biden, followed by corrupt indictments (indeed, even after the pardon Republican politicians in Congress declared they’d continue with their own phoney “investigations”, anyway, because, well, politics…). A pardon was the ONLY way to protect Hunter from politically-motivated harassment and persecution. I think Joe Biden did the right thing, and I fully support it.

This brings up the question of “pre-emptive pardons” for folks who haven’t committed any crimes, but who the Orange One considers to be his personal enemies because they dared to hold him to account for his many crimes. He absolutely intends to keep his promise of revenge, a promise he repeated many, many, many times over the past couple years. So, should President Biden protect those the Orange One wants to destroy? I think that depends on the individual.

Many of the folks in question are high-profile politicians who can raise donations to help pay for their legal defence against the partisan attacks from Orange One’s minions and their phoney investigations and fraudulent “indictments” (assuming they can convince grand juries to indict with absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any crimes having been committed). If they do manage to somehow “indict”, there are laws against malicious or corrupt prosecutions, and it’s not inconceivable that they could end up with an unbroken record of hundreds of losses in court—unless they get the right MAGAt judge, and, if so, we can guess what the far-right Republican Supreme Court might then do.

Because of all that, and years of partisan harassment and prosecution, some of the folks in the Orange One’s crosshairs may prefer to accept a pardon. I fully understand why they might, and wouldn’t blame them if they do accept one. So far, though, Ive seen that some folks presumed to have targets on their back, like former US Representative Adam Kinzinger and newly-elected US Senator Adam Schiff, have said they don’t need or want a pre-emptive pardon. Will anyone else say they do want one? We know that a Republican House of Representatives “report” “calls for an FBI investigation into [former US Representative Liz] Cheney, accusing her of witness tampering by being in touch with star witness Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide.” The chairman of the committee, Barry Loudermilk (MAGA-Georgia), notoriously gave a tour of the Capital to two insurrectionists right before the January 6 attack, which, whatever Barry might say of it, nevertheless gave the insurrectionists valuable reconnaissance before their attack. Yet, curiously, Barry wasn’t “criminally investigated”.

All we know for sure is that when the Orange One is formally installed in power, he’ll do whatever he wants, rule of law be damned, and that will include pardoning his most obsequious allies—if they’re sufficiently fawning, grovelling, and submissive. Having said all that, I’m not sure he’ll pardon all the people convicted of the crimes they committed on or about January 6, 2021. The Orange One is incapable of censoring or muting himself, and in an interview recently he seemed to equivocate slightly on his earlier promise to pardon them all. Who knows? The guy has never shown that he understands, much less cares about, anything to do with the rule of law or the norms of behaviour for someone in the office he’ll, tragically, soon occupy, and he probably doesn’t understand the seriousness of the crimes so many of those people were convicted of. On the other hand, he wants to be worshipped, so that will probably decide his actions.

The reason that I moved this topic to the top of the list is that last week, some 10 days after Roger asked his question, President Biden pardoned 39 people and commuted the sentences of 1500 others, and there’s no reason to think there won’t be more. I wanted to avoid the Christmas rush. I also delayed publication a couple days so I could tone down my contempt for the Orange One and his party. This post is as dispassionate as I can be—which is precisely why I've avoided writing about US politics.

Thanks to Roger for today’s question!

It’s not too late to ask a question: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret—though, why not pick a nom de question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. To avoid being public there, you can send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Facebook Page.

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-24”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2024 series:

”Let the annual inquisition begin fpr 2024” – The first post in this year’s series.

Will it be counted?

I’ve voted in the 2024 US federal elections, as I always do, but I don’t know for sure that my ballot will be counted. There are several different reasons for that, but all of them have the same cause: Republicans. The party that once liked to call itself “The Party of Lincoln” has now positioned itself as an enemy of democracy, and voters like me are in the party’s crosshairs.

US citizens living overseas indefinitely are entitled to vote in federal elections, just like US military personnel stationed overseas can. US citizens living overseas temporarily, like workers on a short-term assignment from their US employer, or those attending school overseas, would most likely apply for a standard absentee ballot. However, US citizens who are living overseas indefinitely (like me), register through a state-administered federal system, using the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) to register and get a ballot. The FPCA forms require a Social Security number, the number of one’s state Driver license or state ID. Many US citizens living overseas indefinitely won’t have a state driver license or ID card, so providing them isn’t mandatory (it’s probably there to establish ongoing state residency for folks that applies to). All applicants also provide the address where they were last registered to vote. The organisation “Vote from Abroad” has a good explanation of what a “US voting address” is on their website:

As a US citizen living abroad, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place you lived in the US. This general rule applies even if your family no longer owns the property, or you no longer have ties to the state, or you don't intend to return to that address or that state, or if it no longer exists as a residence. It also doesn't matter if you were ever registered to vote at that address.

If you are a US citizen who has never lived in the US, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place your US citizen parent (or spouse) lived in the US. If both of your parents are US citizens, you may use the last US address of either one.

The Republican presidential candidate has been whining constantly about mail-in voting of all kinds, and has repeatedly demanded it be ended (which won’t happen because it would harm Republicans, too), and lately his target has been to demand that no mail-in votes be counted after Election Day. He recently talked yet again (again) about suing to end mail-in voting [this was discussed by Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias and Brian Tyler Cohen on a recent episode of their “Democracy Watch” YouTube series].

This gets at MAGA Republicans’ first attempt to destroy voting by mail: Their hand-picked Postmaster General, who has done everything in his power to destroy postal delivery efficiency and timeliness, something Republicans want because it would mean that completed postal ballots may take too long to be delivered to the various states’ election authorities, just as MAGAts want.

Right now, many US states, including my native Illinois (which is, of course, the place of my own FPCA registration and voting) accept and count all postal ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that are received with a certain number of days after Election day. This long-standing programme has become a particular target of Republicans.

In Illinois, ballots—again, postmarked on or before Election Day—will be counted if they’re received within 14 days after Election Day. On May 25, 2022, a lawsuit, Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections was filed on behalf of three Republicans, including US Representative Mike Bost (R-IL12), who was one of 126 Republican US Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, the infamous and idiotic MAGA lawsuit filed with the US Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election in another state—one they don’t even fucking live in. It was surely one of the most utterly bizarre and offensive legal stunts MAGA Republican politicians pulled, apart from every other suit filed by the Republican loser’s team of misfits and ne’er do wells. Then, January 6, when so many of them tried to stop the certification of the election and install the Republican candidate as president, even though he lost the election, was lightyears worse—as was the violent insurrection the Republican candidate incited.

The Republicans’ Illinois lawsuit argued that federal law requires all US states to hold Election Day on the first Tuesday in November, but Illinois allowing mail-in ballots to be received and counted for up to two weeks after Election Day effectively extended Election Day and, because of that, they bizarrely claimed that votes on Election Day are “diluted by illegal ballots received in violation of the federal Election Day statutes.” Ballots from US Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to vote, Republicans claimed, somehow magically “diluted” other citizens’ votes, because—who know why?! It’s always best to not explore Republicans’ very weird fantasies. The case was dismissed by the District Court, not on merit, but because of a lack of jurisdiction. The Republicans appealed to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but they upheld the District Court dismissal on August 21, 2024. This means the 14-days after Election Day deadline remains—for now.

Meanwhile, Republicans also targeted Mississippi’s law, which has a deadline of 5 business days after Election day for mail-in ballots to be received. On January 26, 2024, the Republican National Committee (RNC), along with local Republicans, filed a suit, Republican National Committee v. Wetzel, making the same arguments they made in the Illinois case, but they also claimed that the extended deadline for mail-in ballots to be received somehow magically violated their right to vote under the 14th Amendment, because, Republicans, or something. A summary judgement on July 28, 2024 reaffirmed the exisiting Mississippi deadline.

The Republicans then announced their intention to appeal to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative—and arguably the most MAGA—in the entire country. We know the RNC did this precisely so that whichever way the court ruled, the loser—either the RNC or the Republican officials in Mississippi if they lost—could ultimately appeal the case to the Republican US Supreme Court, with the (probably) justified hope that the far-right Republican Majority will rule to help their shared party by outlawing the long-established precedent of counting mail-in ballots received before the state’s legislated deadline. In fact, the Republican-controlled Mississippi state legislature offered to repeal the law, but the RNC ordered them not to do that so they could get their Supreme Court to help them.

If the Republican Supreme Court does outlaw the counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, it, together with Republicans’ attempts to destroy the US Postal Service, will directly affect overseas voters like me. That’s because the attacks on the postal service mean it’s questionable whether a mail-in ballot sent from overseas has any chance of arriving by, let alone before, Election Day (no matter when it’s posted), so taking away the extra days many states permit may make it even more likely that the votes of overseas citizens won’t be counted—which is exactly what the Republican Party and its Dear Leader want.

There are a handful of other options for US citizens overseas long-term. Some states allow other means of submitting ballots, including sending them by fax or other electronic means (Republicans will definitely challenge those methods, too). Overseas citizens can drop off their ballots to a US diplomatic post, providing the envelope has the correct postage on it, and the staff will put the ballots in a “diplomatic pouch” to send to the USA, where they’ll be sent to the postal service. This method may cut a few days off the mailing time, however, it could mean a special trip. For example, NZ has two US diplomatic posts, the Embassy in Wellington, and the Consulate in Auckland, so I, too, might have to make a special trip (I’ve heard, though, that ballots can be couriered to a diplomatic post, though I haven’t personally verified that).

Another possible option might be to use a courier service to deliver the ballot, which Illinois law allows. However, it has special requirements, apparently around federal licensing, which usually means major companies. Of the ones I know are acceptable, the only one I know for sure is still operating in New Zealand is FedEx, but as far as I know their only facility in New Zealand is at Auckland International Airport, and there’s no option for collection from individuals. In the past, NZ Post had an arrangement with DHL, who were their US partner for document deliveries in the USA. I didn’t know that was no longer the case until 2020 when I went to send my ballot by courier, and the carrier was a company I’d never heard of. I know the ballot was delivered to Chicago, but I never got a confirmation email that it was counted, so I don’t know whether or not it was. On the other hand, maybe they stopped sending the emails after 2016.

So, regardless of what happens with the RNC’s court stunts, I have no idea whether my ballot will arrive in Chicago in time to be counted, or whether or not it will be counted if it does. This doesn’t matter in that Illinois is a solidly Democratic state, and Harris-Walz will carry Illinois—everyone knows that. There’s no US Senate election this year, so the only other federal office I got to vote for was US Representative, and the incumbent Democrat will win that race. My vote, then, technically isn’t needed—but it was never about that: It’s my duty to vote. It’s my values in action, and my commitment to democracy, neither of which would ever permit me to sit out this election—or to vote for anyone other than Harris-Walz. I hope most Americans are the same.

I also hope this isn’t the last election Americans will ever have, because if the Republicans win, it’s game over. Sorry I have no hopeful words, other than just one: Vote.

Have nice things. Or not.

People have opinions about everything possible. Of course they do: It seems to be a large part of being a modern human. Even so, it’s amazing how people seem to feel the urgent need to spout their negative opinions about things that don’t matter, like pop music. I had two reminders of that this week.

I don’t take part in any of the numerous social media arguments over something in pop culture—movies, TV/streaming shows, music, etc. In general, my feelings about pop culture are summed up in Arthur’s Law:

Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else.

Not everyone feels that way—shocker, I know—and many of the Internet Fights I’ve seen are centred on, or related to, something in pop culture. I honestly cannot understand why people get so bothered about what other people enjoy. To me, it seems like such a colossal wast of time and energy.

I was reminded of this a few days ago when I saw a Facebook “Memory” about what I posted after the death of Prince in 2016. I later blogged about that, and the post incorporated much of what I said on Facebook. At the time, I was taken aback by the fact that some people couldn’t even leave people alone to grieve the loss of an artist they liked and admired. I said:

The Internet has provided a great way for people to share their grief with people who feel it, too, and that’s wonderful for them. Really, that should be good enough for the rest of us.

Of course, it wasn’t good enough for some people who chose to be truly awful to other people. It just felt wrong to me—not the first time that’s happened. That made me think about all the other times I’ve seen people that seemingly decided that the world simply HAD to know how much they hated a particular thing in pop culture, especially in pop music, which seems to draw the greatest level of attacks.

At the moment, there seems to be no one in pop culture who is a bigger target of hatred than Taylor Swift, but, to me, it’s utterly mystifying. My cards on the table before I go a step further: I like a lot of Taylor Swift’s songs—actually, that should probably be written be as “a LOT”. However, I wouldn’t call myself a “fan”, mainly because I’ve never bought any of her music (I’ve added her music to my Spotify library), However, her song “The Man” was one of my favourite songs of 2020, and the music video [WATCH — no, seriously, watch it!] is quite probably my favourite video of that year (and on my list of all-time favourites). It’s one of the things that got me through the first Covid lockdown. All of which is to make clear that I think she’s an enormous talent, even though I don’t call myself a “fan”—actually, am I a fan of anyone anymore? A topic for another time, maybe.

There’s a thing called toxic fandom, and they can be fans of literally anyone in the public eye. Personally, I’m not too keen on the aggressive and toxic fans of the frequently napping oddly-hued senior citizen politician from Florida, and the toxicity of such fans can be alarming. However, the number of such fans is astonishingly small considering how much attention they get in the media. Taylor Swift absolutely has aggressive and toxic fans, too, but they’re self-evidently NOT the majority.

I think part of the problem is the imperative of modern journalism to promote the sensational and even outrageous in order to get clicks on links (and, even still, eyes on broadcasts). It’s the old-timey journalist’s slogan, “if it bleeds, it leads”, or even “dog bites man isn’t news, man bites dog is.” The news media, then, has a financial incentive to give airtime and print space (online especially) to the most extreme examples of toxic fans being toxic, and while such fans are absolutely not the majority of a given fandom, and even though it can be argued they cast a shadow out of more normal fans, that doesn’t make those more normal-behaving fans insignificant.

I mention all that because part of the hatred directed at Taylor Swift is “justified” but some people as their supposed reaction to the antics of some of Taylor’s aggressive and toxic fans. The question is, those particular fans’ behaviour aside, why do so many people seem to hate Taylor so very much? Far too much of the answer comes down to politics and culture wars.

Not long ago, the news was filled with fans of NFL (American football) reacting bitterly to Taylor’s relationship with Travis Kelce, a tightend for the Kansas City Chiefs. Fox “News” picked up the chorus, condemning her for having the utter audacity to go to watch Kelce play, and declaring there was a fix in for the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl so that she could endorse Joe Biden for president amid all the media coverage. The Chiefs won, and, of course, Taylor didn’t say a word about President Biden.

Fox and other rightwing media outlets then switched their attention to Swift’s hugely, insanely successful Eras Tour. Fox performers claimed Swift would use the platform to urge her fans to support Democrats, something that apparently came from her previous non-partisan urging of her fans to register to vote (and they did). Fox performers demanded that Taylor “stay out of politics”, which, oddly enough, is a demand they’ve never made of any rightwing performer since, well, ever. Amazing, isn't it!

With the rightwing media ecosystem promoting hatred of Taylor Swift, it was inevitable it would metastasise. Now, it’s become part of the USA’s far-right religious-political activism.

Today I saw a cut-and-paste share of a Facebook post by a far-right “Christian singer, songwriter, former worship leader,” and failed Republican candidate for Congress (because I’ve never heard of him, it seems prudent to not name him, so as to not give him a Google boost). He wrote on his Facebook post, “Almost half the songs on Taylor Swift’s new album contain explicit lyrics (E), make fun of Christians and straight up blaspheme God. Is this the music you want your kids listening to? Do you think I’m overreacting?” Well, since he asked, yes, I absolutely do.

He shared small portions—in one case a single line—of lyrics to songs from Taylor’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, and I found nothing in those quoted lyrics to be even remotely offensive, so I decided to listen to the songs in their entirety to find out for myself what he was clutching his pearls about.

The fact is, I liked all three songs, and the two the guy seemed to be the most apoplectic about (because he shared more than a single line from them)? I liked those two the best of the three. This doesn’t surprise me in the least. The rightwing is constantly bleating on and on and on about how “the Left”—by which they actually mean anyone who’s not a rightwinger—is “woke” and they’re all “snowflakes” who can’t accept offence and should “just to grow up”, and because this is the rightwing mantra, I have a question: What should mainstream people say about rightwingers when they entirely overreact to a song’s lyric and claim to be mortally offended by “attacks” on supposed Christians and their version of the Christian god? Are they “woke”? Well, yes, and insofar as that has any meaning, it’s their version of it—though they’d probably prefer their version of the term, “red-pilled”. What’s clear is that, by their own definition, they’re being “snowflakes”—people who can’t accept offence.

It’s easy for people to be cynical about their ideological opposites, presuming they’re arrogant, aggressive, that they lack intelligence or, at the very least, self-awareness, and that their defining trait is hypocrisy. It’s also easy to point out things that seem to justify the prejudice, like the pearl-clutcher who attacked Taylor who then used the comments on his post to market t-shirts he sells on his website. Obviously, neother hypocrisy nor grifting is defined of limited by ideology, even though it seems like the Right has more than their fair share of it.

Decades from now, Taylor Swift and all the nonsense thrown at her by the rightwing in particular will be items in history books, but is this really the way her loudest critics want to be remembered, as intolerant pearl-clutching snowflakes? I ask for a very simple reason: The rightwing constantly demands that mainstream people should “just get over it” whenever rightwingers say or do something the mainstream finds offensive or over-the-top. Shouldn’t righwingers do the same?

Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else. No, really!

The graphic up top is something I've seen on social media for several years. Sometimes the graphic has been altered to make a different statement, but the text in this version is the first I saw. I couldn't find who originally created the graphic or where it's from (or even if this version has the original text), however, the first online use I could find was from 2016.

The trouble ahead

New Zealand is facing potentially massive political change as its government veers to the Right. How big the change is will depend on who, precisely, is in the government coalition, and what their demands are. None of that will be known for weeks. That gives at least us a chance to buckle ourselves in.

The Official Result of the 2023 General Election will be released Friday, November 3, and it will determine the final allocation of seats in Parliament. However, there’s also a By-election in the Port Waikato Electorate to be held Saturday, November 25, 2023, and that result may or may not affect the final make-up of Parliament. The make-up of Parliament has never been this uncertain in the 27 years since MMP began.

To be clear, the half million votes to be counted won’t change which party leads Government—there’s no way it can deliver a Labour-led Government, and it won’t give any other party seats in Parliament. Instead, the final results will determine how many seats each party will receive, and that, in turn, will determine whether the National and Act Parties can form government alone, or whether they’ll need support from New Zealand First, the result determining the legislative agenda of the new government.

For example, both National and Act want to raise the retirement age, with Act insanely wanting to start raising it on January 1: Act would force me to wait two more months before I can collect National Superannuation (our government retirement benefit, similar to the USA’s Social Security). That’s obscenely unfair not just to me, but to everyone who’s planned their retirement around National Super, only to have everything delayed longer and longer. Not even Reagan was that stupid, and the increase in the USA’s retirement age changed beginning 20 years later, and people like me had four decades to plan. I guess to a party that mainly cares about the rich, it may seem like no big deal, but it can be a very, very big deal to some people.

The proposed change deliberately ignores some important facts. First, National Super is taxed, so retirees are taxpayers—they’re not getting tax-free cash. Second, working class people—especially Māori and Pasifika peoples—don’t live as long as middle class and above peoples do. As it is right now, large numbers of working class people never live long enough to collect the pension, and National and Act will ensure that even more never do. Finally, the Labour Government under former Prime Minister Helen Clark created the National Super Fund to invest money to help fund retirement in the years ahead. All of which means there’s no urgent need to raise the age, and if the new government insists on raising the age, it MUST be done over enough time so people can plan.

The bottom line is that the campaigns of both National nor Act were dishonest about the need for change, constantly aping the absurd “people are living longer now” talking point as if it was universally true, as if the pension wasn’t actually taxed, and as if there wasn’t a substantial nest egg in place (despite National stopping contributions to the Fund under John Key). However, Winston Peters—whose own political base is largely retirees—is extremely unlikely to to go along with it. If National/Act need Winston’s support, raising the retirement age may not happen.

Act has also proposed Parliament pass legislation to arbitrarily define the “Principles of the Treaty” [of Waitangi], apparently without consulting Māori, and then hold a binding referendum on it. This was part of Act’s dogwhistling on race when it attacked partnerships between Māori and the Crown known as “co-governance”, particularly by the Right. John Key reportedly told incoming prime minister Chris Luxon to not to allow the referendum to happen, or he’d see “hikois from hell” (a reference to protest marches by Māori). Green Party co-leader James Shaw said a referendum could lead to violence. If Luxon can’t stop Act on this point, it’s unlikely he’s be able to control his right flank at all. It’s unclear what Winston would do about a referendum, but he, too, attacked “co-governance” as a dogwhistle to racists. The fact that Australian voters soundly rejected the referendum on an indigenous voice underscores both why Act and Winston dogwhistled on race, and also how ugly it could become if Act’s referendum goes ahead.

Always lovely to see a billionaire relieved when
a pesky centre-left government is defeated.

Finally, there’s no certainty on what programmes the new government will cut. Historically, National cuts funding for health and education, but Luxon promised to raise both—though John Key did, too, and actually oversaw de facto cuts. National usually cuts the taxes of the rich, too, however, Luxon has said there won’t be any such big cut for a year or so. The bigger concern is that the economic “plan” national campaigned on has been rubbished by leading economists, and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) called it a “reverse Robin Hood tax plan [that] enriches mega landlords by hundreds of millions”, having previously noted that only 3,000 households would get the maximum $250 a fortnight benefit from the party’s promised tax cuts, an amount the party constantly promoted during the campaign as if most people would get that much. National later admitted the 3,000 household figure was correct—and then attacked the CTU for daring to point out the reality of National’s “plan”.

No one has any idea what the government led by National/Act (plus or minus NZ First) will actually do, but I think it’s reasonable to speculate that corporations and the rich will do quite well (they always do under National), the poor will be worse off (ditto), and the middle class will largely be ignored, except for bread and circuses to distract them.

Some two and a half weeks from now, we should have a clearer idea of what we’ll all be in for. I feel certain ordinary New Zealanders will be worse off by the end of this term in 2026, and the country will be a much harsher place for a number of reasons—but I deeply hope I’m proven wrong. I honestly doubt that’ll happen, though.

As he sowed

So: Kevin McCarthy now goes down in history as the first Speaker of the US House to be removed from office. Who could ever have seen that happening? I mean apart from everyone on the planet, of course. This was always going to be his only legacy: The worst Speaker of modern times, perhaps ever, created the path to his own inevitable demise from the very beginning. In the end, his ejection from the Speakership was exactly what he himself set the stage for.

McCarthy always came across as a cynical opportunist, willing to do whatever was necessary to get the Speaker’s gavel. He enabled and encouraged the lunatic fringe of his own party, and the worst excesses of the supposedly somewhat less-fringey rest of his caucus. He made his ejection inevitable by repeatedly worshiping at the feet of the party’s deified corrupt and indicted Dear Leader, a man so reviled by ordinary Americans that—mostly because of him and his clown car of sycophants in Congress—Democratic candidates in the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022 exceeded expectations.

The realty is that in 2022 Republicans only won control of the US House because of gerrymandering in Republican-controlled states, something that the courts are now undoing. If it wasn’t for that gerrymandering, the Democrats would’ve retained the US House. And, of course, Democrats also retained control of the US Senate in what was supposed to be a good year for Republicans.

McCarthy didn’t seem to be too stupid to to see how all that pandering to the lunatics in his party would end. When the inevitable end neared, it was obvious and inevitable. There’s now a golden opportunity for true bipartisan, responsible action—which is precisely why it’ll never happen: The few relatively sane Republicans in the US House could join with Democrats to elect Hakeem Jeffries Speaker, then eject the Republican lunatics from their various committees, and allow the House to get back to actually doing its job again, not playing stupid extremist games, wasting the time and money of US taxpayers.

What will happen is that there will be a bitter Republican internal war as the lunatics demand a lunatic be made party leader and then Speaker. The few sane Republicans will—if they have any brains at all—oppose that. However, how long can that go on without causing even more trouble for the country—or even utter disaster? No one one knows, and the Republican lunatics couldn’t possibly care less. They’re too busy acting like 12 year olds.

Still there are two things we know for certain. The first is that the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the lunatic Republicans in the House, and also of the party’s deified multiple-indicted Dear Leader, will only increase ordinary people’s revulsion for Republicans generally, and that will cause the party lose more seats in 2024 than they otherwise might have if they had grownups running their party. The other thing we know is that all of this was inevitable. Kevin McCarthy has absolutely no one to blame but himself. He sowed the seeds of his own destruction, and he richly deserves that walloping he’s received.

Good riddance to the first Speaker to ever be removed from office: It took fifteen votes to install him, but only one to eject him. My only sympathy is for the American people who have to watch this Republican shit-show as the party’s lunatic clowns and morons continue to do absolutely nothing of any value to anyone. The sooner all of them join McCarthy in being forced out in disgrace, the better for everyone—especially the Republican Party—though it looks far more likely that it would take a new, sane conservative party to emerge in order to put grownups back in control of conservative politics, and to finally kick the lunatics out of power for good.

Hope springs eternal, and all that.

The unsupremes ruin everything

Friday evening is normally a relaxing time for me. Sometimes I get together with family for dinner, which is always nice, and then I settle in to watch some TV for the rest of the evening. But this past Friday, as I was beginning to wind down for bed, I got an alert on my iPad that the US “Supreme” Court had struck yet again dismantled more of the human rights of LGBT+ Americans. The ruling—yet another far-right ideologically-driven decision—is part of the Republican far-right majority’s agenda: Make America 1883 Again.

Like most people on the centre and left of US politics, I have zero respect for the far-right Republican majority of the court, precisely because they’ve worked so very hard to destroy the court’s reputation: Instead of standing up for justice and fairness and for ordinary people, and instead of ruling in accordance with the law and the US Constitution, the far-right Republicans are instead engaged in “comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted,” as journalist Ian Millhiser put in the subtitle of his 2015 book Injustices

The Court’s latest ideologically-driven decision, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (21-476) [PDF of the decision], involved a fundamentalist “christian” web designer who thought one day she might like to create wedding websites, but her religious views compelled her to refuse to create a website for a same-gender couple, in the event she ever started providing such services, of course, and if a theoretical same-gender couple ever tried to hire her services. While the supposed “injury” to her was entirely hypothetical, she sued the State of Colorado, anyway—well, the ultra-far-right “Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [lol]" sued on her behalf.

The extremist group has long shopped around for “victims” they can represent in their constant efforts to overturn all legal protections for LGBT+ people—and everyone else they don’t like. They have several suits at various stages of litigation at any given time, and it’s entirely likely that when the Court’s the far-right Republican majority inevitably strikes down Obgergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, Griswold v. Connecticut—and possibly even Loving v. Virginia—the A”D”F will be behind it one way or another.

What’s extraordinary about this decision, and two others just released, is that there was no one who had suffered actual legal “injury” that needed to be remedied. Instead, the Court decided to “afflict the afflicted” in order to “comfort the comfortable” by imposing their own ideological agenda onto everyone else. That could not possibly be more obvious than in this particular case.

When the plaintiff’s firm filed the lawsuit against Colorado, there was no possibility of harm because she wasn’t doing the sort of work she didn’t want to have to do for people she objected to. It’s clear that Colorado didn’t think she had legal standing to sue the state, and part way through the process it emerged that, allegedly, someone named “Stewart” had contacted her through her website’s contact form to try to hire her web services for his marriage to his “husband”. The problem was, the whole thing was faked by someone: He had been married to a woman for 15 years, and even if he was gay, he was actually a designer himself, so he wouldn’t need her services. He also had no idea his name and details had been used in a Supreme Court case.

The plaintiff's legal team claimed, “it’s undisputed that the request was received,” however, it appears that no proof of that has been made public. Still, assuming it really did happen—and, to be clear, it may have happened—it proves nothing whatsoever. The lawyer suggested it could have been a troll, which is possible, but that raises questions, like, who did it and what was their motivation? Mischief or malice? Was it done to strengthen the web designer’s case? We’ll never know because at no point did anyone ever check to see if it was a legitimate request, which is… odd. A legitimate request may have actually bolstered her case if she refused, but not even checking to find out if the request was legitimate just sounds… odd.

The lawyers claimed it wasn’t actually part of the case, anyway, which is technically true (at least, from their perspective), but the fact remains that the one thing that could have suggested real potential “injury” to the plaintiff was never vetted. Even so, the lawyers were happy to continue using the apparently faked contact, arguing after the ruling that “any claim that [the web designer] will never receive a request to create a custom website celebrating a same-sex ceremony is no longer legitimate because [the designer] has received such a request.” Did she, though? And if so, how do we know it wasn’t from a supporter trying to shore up her legally non-existent argument? This just sounds like spin. Obviously, either side in a political dispute like this may try to spin the results to their benefit, but that doesn’t make claims of relevancy valid. [See also: "Legitimacy of ‘customer’ in Supreme Court gay rights case raises ethical and legal flags" by Alanna Durkin Richer and Colleen Slevin, Associated Press]

This same thing—litigants who haven’t experienced any actual legal “injury” runs through two other recent decisions. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (20-1199) [PDF of the decision], which overturned affirmative action in university admissions, the driver was a long-time agitator against affirmative action, not a student. Similarly, in Biden v. Nebraska et al (22-506) [PDF of the decision], the decision that stopped President Biden from forgiving some student loan debt, the supposedly injured parties—six Republican-controlled states—were not actually injured (except for their feelings, perhaps). One state agency that handles student loans didn’t want to be part of the lawsuit (not the least because they stood to make more money if the debt relief plan had been permitted), but was forced into it, anyway, by Republican state officials who used their power to act on behalf of the plaintiff because it was a state agency. In all three of these cases, dubious—at best—speculative claims were accepted by the Court’s Republican far-right majority as legitimate and as good reasons to further erode the rights and freedom of ordinary people in order to, yet again, comfort the comfortable—and to advance a far-right Republican agenda.

For the web designer’s case, the whole rightwing argument was, as it has been in similar cases, about supposed “speech”: They argue that forcing a fundamentalist “christian” to “participate” in a same-gender wedding requires the creative professional to make “symbolic speech” in support of something they oppose on religious grounds. As someone who has worked in creative industries for decades, I think this argument is profoundly stupid: They’re hired to do a job, end of story.

The real issue here is that the rightwing wants their particular religious beliefs to always cancel out the human and civil rights of people they don’t “agree with”, which, of course, is code for, shall we say, “people they dislike very much”. I think that’s stupid, too, because it only ever works in one direction: If a graphic designer, photographer, cake baker, florist, or other creative professional refused to provide services to an opposite-gender fundamentalist “christian” couple because it would mean providing “symbolic speech” endorsing the couple’s religious views that ran counter to the creative professional’s, I feel certain that the current Supreme Court would never permit that objection. Turnabout is not fair play—it’d be prohibited.

The court’s far-right Republican majority is doing the one thing that Republicans have long pretended was an unpardonable sin: They’re legislating from the bench [See: “The Supreme Court’s conservatives are doing exactly what they claim to detest” by MSNBC Columnist Michael A. Cohen]. They’re doing this legislating from the bench in order to force a hard-core ideologically-driven agenda onto everyone. In so doing, the court’s far-right Republican majority is reversing decades of slow, often tortured and halting, progress toward more fairness, equity, and safety for ordinary people, and are instead working hard to raise elites above ordinary Americans—and ordinary people are very ones who  need the protection of the Constitution.

So, yet again, the Supreme Court’s Republican far-right majority has dismantled a bit more of the civil and human rights of LGBTQ+ people. This is far from the last time they’ll do that, and each attack will be just as ideologically driven. This is why defeating all Republicans everywhere is, for now, the only hope for saving democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law. The Supreme Court’s Republican far-right majority has yet again reminded us: Elections have consequences.

One Day More

The video above is from this year’s “Broadway Backwards”, an annual “celebration of LGBTQ+ stories told through the great songs of musical theater,” as it was described by its producer, Broadway Cares. The evening raised a record $765,069 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City.

The YouTube description for the video describes what this is in more detail:

At Broadway Backwards 2023, Les Misérables’ inspiring anthem “One Day More” was set among a modern-day, ragtag group of activists preparing for an equality march in Washington. Philippe Arroyo, Bradley Dean, Jeigh Madjus, Ellyn Marie Marsh, Chris McCarrell, Turner Riley, Alexandra Silber and Paul C. Vogt led the ensemble in an emotive rendition that ended with Les Misérables‘ iconic group march as a giant Pride flag behind them signaled the dawn of a new day.

Although the benefit show was held on March 13, 2023, the video was posted to YouTube on June 2. I didn’t see it until more than a week later, then saved sharing it for June 28 (US time) because it's the 54th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. The connection is simple: If the shadows of these times remain unchanged, a major conflict is coming. It will be inevitable.

When I shared the video on my personal Facebook, I said:

This is an awesome take on the song. I remember that back during the Reagan Abomination there was a popular slogan: “No More Mr. Nice Gay”. We need to bring back that attitude before it’s too late, because if we don’t organise and fight back, they will come for us all, and we’ll suffer the same fate as the folks who sang this song in the original show.

I’ve watched in shock, anger, dismay, disbelief, and fear—sometimes all at the same time—as rightwingers throughout the English-speaking world (and beyond) have been emboldened in their efforts to take away the human rights of LGBTQ+ people, and to criminalise them—or worse, as far-right US “christians” succeeded in doing in Uganda.

This was brought home to me once again when I saw an article published by Business Insider, “Don't say anti-gay: As GOP approval for same-sex relationships plummets, Republican senators insist they're only coming after trans rights, not gay rights”. Republicans are lying, of course.

For decades, Republicans pretended that they only wanted Roe v. Wade overturned so that “states can decide”. Every time anyone dared to suggest that their real agenda was to outlaw all abortions without exception everywhere in the USA, they feigned innocence and repeated their lies. Now, Republican politicians are quite open about their push for nationwide literal or defacto total abortion bans.

Republican politicians are doing the exact same thing about LGBTQ+ rights now: They’re boldly lying, smugly certain no one will realise it. Republicans absolutely will not stop with their war against trans people and drag queens—that’s just a warm up. If they win power, they’ll be coming for the “LBG” part, too, faster than anyone can say “evil liars”.

A recent Gallup poll reported a decline in support for the “morality” of same-gender relationships, and the largest driver of that has been Republicans turning against the very humanity of LGBTQ+ people. This is precisely why we know Republicans will inevitably turn against the “LGB” part of the acronym, too: Republican politicians always pander to the most extreme part of their party’s base, and that base is becoming increasingly—and increasingly aggressively—hostile to LGBT+ people.

Republican politicians—especially those whose lips are firmly planted on the back-end of their party’s Dear Leader—are already using vile extremist slurs like “groomer” and “pedophile” against trans people and drag queens, but considering those same hate-filled slurs were once hurled at gay people, do they really expect us to take their fake denials seriously?! On what planet would that be credible?!

Moreover, the cult members of the Republican Party's leader have been primed for violence, so it’s not hard to imagine increasing numbers of violent attacks on LGBTQ+ people, businesses, organisations, etc., and when that happens, it'll have been Republican politicians’ rhetoric that was the match that lit the fuse. No matter how many crocodile tears they pretend to shed after each attack, the result will be the same: Their words, their lies, and their cynical and bigoted propaganda will have been the motivation for the violence.

And what if they get all the power they seek? They will end marriage equality: If they can overturn Roe after nearly 50 years, they can overturn marriage equality easily, too. They’ll also overturn Lawrence, thereby making simply being LGB a crime (the T already could be by then). I warned about this several times, most recently when the Respect for Marriage Act was signed into law, when I also described why that law may not save marriage equality. When I talked about that same law while it was still in Congress, I described other laws that Republican politicians plan to kill.

So that’s why a simple video of an adaptation of a Broadway song struck me as hard as it did: I saw the possible future if Republican candidates aren’t defeated at the ballot box. Because Republicans are gerrymandering every place they can to ensure they can maintain minority rule, massive turnout by sane and rational voters will be necessary if Republican candidates are to be defeated. In fact, sane and rational voters are the only thing standing between democracy and the christofascism of the modern Republican Party.

I don’t know how this story will end, but the story of Les Misérables didn’t end well for the French people fighting for liberty. Still, hope is a powerful thing, so I continue to hope that this 21st Century version of the story has a happier ending—even that the forces of evil are swept off of history’s stage altogether, thereby changing the story itself and making that one day more bright and sunny.

But: If the shadows of these times remain unchanged? I know one thing for certain: Stonewall was a riot, but if Republicans win the power they seek, we’ll need a fucking revolution—before it’s too late for everyone.

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 385 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 385, “Wet, whiny, inward-looking country”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Imperfect, but still a win

Yesterday, the US Senate voted 61-36 to pass the “Respect for Marriage Act” which will protect same-sex and interracial marriages in the USA from destruction by radical judges on the US Supreme Court. The bill now goes to the US House for it to pass the amended bill. The need to pass the legislation became urgent when the Supreme Court’s radical majority voted to end a 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion, paving the way for more rights to be taken away. The bill is not perfect—no bill ever is—however, it’s still a major victory for fairness, justice, and common sense, which makes it worthy of praise.

The new law, if, as expected, passes the House and is signed by the president, will protect same-gender and interracial marriages, even if the radicals on the Supreme Court overturn rulings that established those rights. To understand what the bill will do, and why it’s necessary, we first need to review how we got to this point.

Ever since the Supreme Court handed down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a constitutional right to abortion, hardcore conservatives worked and schemed to find a way to overturn it. They slowly packed the Supreme Court with far-right extremist justices, finally adding three more such extremists during the term of the Republican occupant of the White House 2017-2021, done prior to his huge election loss in 2020.

In June of this year, all that cynical political manoeuvring by Republican extremists paid off in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which took away the 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion. The radical Republicans emphasised they were far from finished with taking away people’s rights.

The decision, written by Samuel Alito, who has often expressed his utter contempt for anyone who doesn’t share his peculiar far-right religious views, blandly claimed the decision wasn’t related to any other decision, though no rational person believed he actually meant it. He’s used every opportunity to trash all the legal precedents on which the Roe decision was based—and those same precedents also underpinned several other constitutional rights guaranteed by Supreme Court rulings. The relevant decisions, and the rights they guaranteed, now at risk of being overturned are:

Griswold v. Connecticut: The 1965 ruling established the right to use contraception, underpinned by a right to privacy;

Loving v. Virginia: The 1967 ruling established the right to interracial marriage, underpinned by a right to privacy, as well as the Griswold ruling;

Lawrence v. Texas: The 2003 ruling established the right of same-sex couples to have intimate relationships, and was underpinned by a right to privacy, and the Griswold and Loving rulings.

Obergefell v. Hodges: The 2015 ruling established the right to same-gender marriage, underpinned by a right to privacy, as well as the Griswold, Loving, and Lawrence rulings.

Of those rulings, the Respect for Marriage Act will help secure the right to marriage enshrined in both Loving and Obergefell, but will do little to help preserve the right to contraception or private intimate relations, nor can it protect the actual rulings in both Loving and Obergefell. It’s important to note that the radicals on the Supreme Court may still overturn all of those decisions, and that would allow states to make contraception, interracial marriage, private intimate relations, and same-sex marriage illegal in those states. The Respect for Marriage Act can only partially preserve part of the constitutional rights that US citizens now have because of all those rulings that are currently in grave danger.

Here’s how the Respect for Marriage Act can help.

The first thing it will do is repeal the infamous “Defense [sic] of Marriage Act”, a 1996 law that declared in Section 3, “the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” Section 3 was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013 in United States v. Windsor, based on the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution, however, the rest of the law remained in place, and Section 2 was a huge threat if Obergefell is overturned:

No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.

This section was intended to void the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause as it relates to same-gender marriage. By repealing what’s left of DOMA, same-gender marriages will remain legal, even if the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell.

The Respect for Marriage Act will also require states to recognise legal marriages performed in other states, and they can’t discriminate “on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those [married] individuals”, and that “only the law of the jurisdiction applicable at the time the marriage was entered into may be considered,’’ and, further, a marriage performed overseas would also be valid if “the marriage could have been entered into in a State”. This is at the core of the whole issue: The Loving case happened in the first place, after all, because an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, were married in the District of Columbia, where interracial marriage was legal, and went back to Virginia, where it absolutely was NOT.

What’s going on legally is that the Respect for Marriage Act will enshrine in law that for federal purposes the standard for a valid marriage will be “place of solemnisation” (also called “place of celebration”), not “place of residence”. This means that an interracial or same-gender marriage performed in a state (or foreign country) where it’s legal will have to be recognised as legally married in states where it’s not legal. So, if (when?) the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, a same-gender couple married in, say, New York will still be legally married if they move to Texas, a state absolutely certain to outlaw same-gender marriage if Obergefell is overturned (assuming their previous ban isn’t automatically reinstated).

There will be many thorns on the path to preserving liberty: A backward state might defy the Respect for Marriage Act and refuse to recognise an out-of-state same-gender marriage, for example, leaving it up to the Supreme Court to enforce it—if, in fact, the radicals do enforce it, because they could strike down the Act, or even just the full faith and credit provision. Or, backward states may simply refuse to recognise a same-gender marriage where one or both of the individuals are citizens of and/or ordinarily resident in their backward state, but travelled to a free state to marry. The Supreme Court might side with such a backward state.

Those risks aside, the Respect Marriage Act is currently the best hope to protect the constitutional right to interracial and same-gender marriage from the radicals on the Supreme Court. A stronger solution would be to pack the Supreme Court with rational, sensible, non-partisan, non-sectarian justices who actually believe in the rule of law and who would be certain to uphold their oath to defend the US Constitution, and so, its protection of individual freedom and liberty. That seems unlikely to happen, which leaves the Respect for Marriage Act as the best option there is until a brighter, saner day in the future when christofascism is defeated.

Some critics are upset about the carve-outs for conservative religionists (specifically allowing them to not participate in same-gender marriages without legal recourse for any couples discriminated against), and, yeah, I completely get that; I personally abhor special rights for rightwing religionists to impose their beliefs on everyone. However, I have ALWAYS believed that taking 75% of what we want now is FAR better than rejecting that and risking losing 100%.

I saw a commentator say that the better option would be to work to amend state constitutions, like a few states are doing on abortion rights. That’s a lovely idea that will do absolutely nothing right now. The Respect for Marriage Act is the only shot we have at preserving, protecting, and defending a nationwide constitutional right to same-gender marriage. If both Obergefell and the Respect for Marriage Act are struck down, same-gender marriage in free states would still be legal. Sure, if the radicals on the Supreme Court threw out Obergefell, Republicans would propose a nationwide legislative ban on same-gender marriage, but promising a nationwide ban on abortions in the wake of the Dobbs decision hurt the party in the recent US Midterm Elections; a clear majority of Americans appears to oppose Republicans’ culture war attempts to destroy constitutional rights and liberties.

Finally, while the Respect for Marriage Act would protect interracial and same-gender marriages, it’s important to note that it’s highly improbable that any US state would try to enact an outright ban interracial marriage: All states that had such laws in 1967 have repealed them (in 2000, Alabama became the last state to repeal a ban on interracial marriage). For that situation to change, things would have to have become very dire, indeed, and there would probably be a long list of threats to liberty and freedom if that was to happen.

The Respect for Marriage Act, then, is currently the best hope for preserving the right of same-gender couples to marry if the radicals on the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell. It doesn’t compel states to perform marriages for same-gender couples, as Obergefell does, but it’s not clear that a federal law could do that. It also has carve-outs for conservative religionists that, while distasteful, are quite common (they exist in many laws around the world, including New Zealand’s). And, of course, it does nothing to preserve the right to access contraception or the right to have intimate personal relations, which are also under threat from the radicals on the Supreme Court, because both of those are beyond the scope of a law about marriage—and any bill protecting both those rights would attract fierce opposition from far-rightwing politicians and lobby groups.

So, yeah, the Respect for Marriage Act is not perfect, however, it’s still a major victory for fairness, justice, and common sense. It’s entirely worthy of praise.

See also: "The fine print of the Respect for Marriage Act" from CNN, which has a really good summation of how far this USA has evolved on the issue.

Rush Limbaugh is dead

You know the old saying, right? If you can't say anything good about someone who's died, then say nothing at all. Here's my official statement on the death of Rush Limbaugh:

When the war is over

Sometime in the future, perhaps decades from now, the United States’ war with Iran will have ended. Tens of millions will be dead. The world economy will have been destroyed and hundreds of millions of people throughout the developed world will be plunged into abject poverty, the sort that once was seen only in countries they called “the Third World”. Millions of refugees from the war and economic collapse will be moving across borders seeking refuge, food, and water. Most will find none of that. Parts of the planet may even have been rendered permanently uninhabitable. And all of this will be because of the stupidity of one man exploited by the religious lust of other powerful men.

Naturally, that’s not how this story needs to play out, but it’s clearly the direction the USA is moving.

It’s clear that the current occupant of the White House is utterly clueless about how foreign policy actually works. To him, it’s all an ego-driven game in which he must “win” and others must “lose”. It’s what his whole life, personal and professional, has been built on, something his parents clearly taught him.

So, the current occupant of the White House will bumble into war with Iran merely because doing so will flatter his planet-sized ego. He doesn’t care who dies, or how many, as long as he gets to feel like he “won”.

The far-right extremist “Christian” nationalists in his regime are playing on his vanity—and stupidity—to get him to do their bidding. This is precisely why they all overlook his adultery, cheating, lying, and other “sins”: Doing so gets them what they want, namely, the end of the world.

When I talked about their utterly insane “vessel theory” back in March, I talked mostly about domestic policy, but also foreign policy, noting:

“…the radical “Christian” extremists think that the current occupant will “save” the Jews (Israel) from Persia (Iran) by solving a problem the current occupant himself created in the first place. Their Lord (temporal and spiritual alike) moves in mysterious ways, indeed.”

Israel matters a LOT to these radical extremists because they see it as key to bringing about the end of the world. What they hope to do is trigger their mythological battle of Armageddon, which is supposed to be the final war between “good” and “evil”, and when it’s over, Republican Jesus will rule over the world. Details on all that do vary a bit.

The place is located in modern day Israel, which is part of their fanatical devotion to the country, and also because they believe that if they can provoke a massive attack on Israel, it will lead to their fantasy of a “final war”. So, those radical “Christians” live to see others die—and they intend to bring it about, and as many deaths as possible, as quickly as possible.

Another layer to this is that a shrine claimed to be the tomb of Esther is in Hamadān, Iran. This no doubt helps fuel their obsession with Iran.

So, we have a stupid and vain man who can be manipulated into starting a war with Iran by Dominionists hell-bent, so to speak, on destroying the world by causing a war against Iran. Behind the scenes, the PR puffery, the lies, and even his Twitter tantrums are all happening because he’s being played like a cheap violin by those radical “Christians”, and, of course, he doesn’t even know it.

It seems inevitable now that the current regime will either attack Iran or manipulate them into attacking someone in “the West” so that the regime can use it as a pretext for all out war. The radical “Christians” have been spending their lives waiting for that and working toward it.

Even if the current occupant of the White House was capable of understanding how he’s being played, he couldn’t do anything about it: He needs the support of far-right “evangelicals” in order to have any hope of winning the 2020 election. If he turns on them, or if he deliberately turns away from the war those extremists so desperately want, they could well abandon him. That much he does understand, as shown by his constant pandering to them. His ego cannot allow him to create the possibility of electoral defeat, so he will do whatever the radical “Christians” want him to do. His ego must be served.

This can all be avoided if good people do something. Right now, they need to contact their members of Congress to make it clear and unambiguous that they oppose any war with Iran. Most members of Congress are cowards, particularly when an election is looming, and they will even oppose the current regime IF the pressure to oppose its war against Iran is strong enough.

That could delay their war long enough to have the chance to throw them all out in the 2020 elections, but doing so will take an utterly massive voter turnout, bigger than anything the USA has ever seen, if there’s any hope of getting rid of this gang and their religiously inspired war lust. Anything less than a massive turnout, and the regime could win the election, or they could simply refuse to leave and overthrow the republic—AND start their war.

Sometime in the future, perhaps decades from now, people in the United States will look back in anger at one stupid man’s ability to bumble into war with Iran, enabled and manipulated by those with fanatical lust for religious supremacy. Will that be before all the other dire consequences, or after?

The choice is ours.