Poster Boy

I’ll spare readers the details, but I’m in recovery from an unpleasant illness (not Covid, per home testing). Hopefully, the worst has passed, but if this column makes more sense than usual, credit whatever pathogen took up corporeal residence.

Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, is a heartless Christo-fascist. Under several indictments, like Trump, he’s the “Death to America” poster boy for America’s future if Trump and Republicans like him control America’s government. This is not subject to question. It’s as obvious as Trump’s escalating, dangerous rhetoric, spewing forth at rallies and from “Truth Social” like lava from Kilauea but not as awesome.

You’ve heard the story: a Texas woman, pregnant with a fetus bearing a death-dealing genetic mutation, “Trisomy 18,” was advised by her doctors to have an abortion; not only to terminate the doomed pregnancy but to protect her own health, as she’d already had three visits to emergency departments to deal with consequences of carrying this malformed tragedy. Because Texas abortion laws are red-state restrictive, she needed a judicial order. Which she got.

Immediately, Paxton threatened to jail the woman and any doctor who’d do the abortion; and punish hospitals who’d allow it in their facilities. Then, the Texas Supreme Court, a panoply of rightwing religious zealots, one of whom was arrested 37 times for (with judicial impartiality) harassing women at abortion clinics, stayed and later aborted the lower court order.

For what possible reason? To the benefit of whom? Forced to be born, the baby would either be a stillbirth or die shortly after. Carrying the baby to term in emotional misery, the mother could well lose the ability to become pregnant again.

Other than vindictive cruelty and a desire to impose a most perverse form of “Christian” theocracy on all Texan women because they can, what justification can there be to demand such an outcome? If it’s God on their “minds,” well, He sentenced the baby to death at the moment of conception. Is the God they believe in the sort to do that and then glory in the mother’s gestational suffering? That’s not one I’d want to believe in.

Nor is it a party, were I a past, present, or future mother, of which I’d want to be a part. The party that, wherever it’s in control, is passing draconian anti-abortion legislation, imposing its legislative will, born of religious extremism, on all who do or, more importantly, don’t share their radicalism. J.D. Vance, once a respected author, now Senator from Ohio and hardcore Trumpist, just said, on national TV, that he knew of no Republicans working to end access to birth control.

One-hundred-ninety-five of them, including their current Speaker, voted against a bill guaranteeing a right to contraception. The bill passed because, at the time, Democrats were in control. Outside of D.C., several state legislatures have tried to ban access. If Republicans gain all-branch power, it’s coming, sure as Santa.

It’s mystifying that a party dominated by religious extremists has also become the Party of Putin, arguably Satan on Earth. (Trump ain’t exactly the Sermon on the Mount, either.) It’s not unreasonable to wonder if some are intentionally working for Russia; but there’s no question Putin craves the re-installation of Trump, who previously gave him everything he wanted. Whatever the reason, like Trump, they’re all but kneeling before him.

And he’s not the only strongman they fluff, bringing representatives of Hungary’s Viktor Orban to discuss defunding Ukraine’s struggle against Putin’s criminality. Using our southern border as a non-sequitur excuse for not providing help in the war, Senate Republicans are validating Putin’s war crimes. How delighted he must be. In fact, Russia has heaped praise on Republicans for denying the help Ukraine needs. After all, it’s clear they prefer dictators. And support candidates who promise to become one. It’s a twofer, they’re saying in Moscow: Republicans will bring down Ukraine, and when it falls, it’ll bring down Biden and re-install our guy Trump.

Speaking of whom, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith took the bold move of appealing directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing lower courts a la the Nixon tapes precedent, for an expedited ruling on Trump’s claim that he has blanket immunity for any crimes committed while in office.

If this were like the Nixon tapes time, when Republicans and their courts included people of integrity, there’d be no question SCOTUS would reject such a ridiculous claim. But, like the Republican Party itself, times have changed since then, for the much worse. In Congress, on the right side of the aisle, integrity is a liability. Just ask Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, or Jaime Herrera Beutler.