Commentary-View from the South: US and global politics danger-close to boiling over
In a sudden burst of activity, multiple Southern states have imposed draconian new restrictions on abortion and are going hammer and tongs after transgender kids. Books are burning, families are fleeing, and lives are at risk.
There has been a woman arrested and charged w murder (hurredly dropped) in TX. Neighboring Oklahoma just passed an abortion ban-to block abortions by women fleeing Texas. Kentucky and FL too, just one day ago as this is written. Some Southern/MAGAt states have made it a felony for doctors or even parents to attempt to get gender-affirming care for transgender youth under 18..
The assaults on women and trans kids are going to force a great deal of medicine underground. When this goes bad, women and trans kids won't dare go to the hospital due to reporting to the police and possible felony charges. People will die, perferring that to life in prison. Still more will throw in the towel and commit suicide. The there will be the angry and infuriated survivors of these deaths, who will know exactly who is responsible for their suffering.
In FL, Governer DeSantis (AKA DeSatan) has gone so far as to target Disney for their muted opposition to the "Don't Say Gay" bill targetting any mention of LGBTQ issues anywhere in the schools, or availablity of books on these subjects in school. As books burn and teachers are muzzled, GOP bigwigs talk of targetting Disney's copyrights, of which Disney is a notoriously aggressive defender. This is essentially "going nuclear" against FL's potentially most powerful opponent of DeSatan's anti-LGBTQ pogrom. A pogrom it is, and kids will die if it is not stopped. Burning books has been a notorious hallmark of Fascism in the first half of the 20th century and now we see it again.
The South is by no means the sole offender. NYC has sent the NYPD to raid hundreds of unhoused tent cities in a matter of weeks. In Washington DC, "Bowser's Panzers" the bulldozers sent against tent cities, are doing the same at a slower pace. Destroying people's homes and belongings by the thousands has a considerable potential to lead to violence in return, as Israel learned and is still learning the hard way in the West Bank. Thus, DC and NYC may have as much potential for upcoming political violence as Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, and Kentucky do. In Grand Rapids, MI, a cop just executed a Black motorist for a bad tag by kneeling on his head and shooting him. Once again, a cop's knee is an instruments of murder in the supposedly progressive North.
Do not think for one moment that fascists on the order of Abbot, DeSatan, etc will stop at abortion and trans kids under 18. That's about as likely as Putin stopping at Ukraine's western border if Ukraine is somehow defeated. ALL LGBTQ rights are next after trans rights. Birth control, divorce, and sex outside of marriage are next too. As the world learned in WWII, in dealing with overt Fascists, the "domino effect" that did not happen in the Cold War becomes a brutal reality.
This is going on while Senator Manchin's dogged defense of the filibuster has let GOP voter suppression laws take effect throughout GOP dominated states. The fallout from Manchin's politics is even worse than the fallout from his "gob" coal burning at W Va's Grant Town Power Plant. It is incredibly unlikely that anyone outside the GOP can overcome the voter suppression laws, as Black and Brown people througout the South and West lose their rights to vote. As for those who will be able to vote, a 2017 Washington Post poll of white men registered to vote found 75% of them were registered as Republicans and about 1/3 agreed with at least one statement on a list of white nationalist positions. Thus, the 2024 GOP Primaries might become the true 2024 Presidential election, with Trump and DeSatan as the frontrunners as of now.
Speaking of Ukraine, that too is on the verge of an absolute and total blowup, with no more quarter asked or given on any side. Senior Russian officials speaking in the highly censored Russian state media and TV have called for concentration camps for Ukrainians who oppose the invasion. They have speculated that "30 to 40 years" of "re-education" would be required. They have issued a genocidal call for the complete erasure of Ukraine as an identifiable country or culture. Putin has gone so far as to remark favorably on rape by Russian soldiers as in WWII. There are unconfirmed reports chemical weapons have been used by Putin's invaders, and even Biden has called out Putin for genocide and other war crimes.
Elsewhere in Europe, French ultranationalist and fascist Le Pen is in position to potentially win the upcoming Presidential election. If she does while Putin is still in power and either Trump or DeSatan wins or "wins" the 2024 US Presidential election, the possiblity of a Washington-Paris-Moscow Fascist axis will then exist. Also possible is that the Ukraine war goes nuclear after Putin pushes someone too far-or he starts losing so decisively as to fear for his head.
Get ready for a very rough ride: the next year and beyond may make 2020 look like 2016 as "accelerationism" goes mainstream in the far-right and GOP.
