Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, who has outlawed mifepristone, the FDA-approved abortion pill
Poof! The 46-year-old Trump-appointed Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk banned mifepristone, the FDA-approved abortion pill, under the 1873 Comstock Act. The law prohibits the mailing of contraceptives, “lewd” writing and any “instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing” that could be used in an abortion.
Just like that America’s women had something else taken away from them from a man in a black robe, declaring his right to make law because he has strong convictions about the way things should be. His decision had no basis in law or precedent. It is an unprecedented decision. Like many of his fellow zealots, Judge Kacsmaryk’s world view is ordered around the dogmas that assert the supremacy of men to decide what is best for women and their bodies on the basis of politics, not medicine, science or individual autonomy and freedom. Old habits die hard.
American women received the right to vote through ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1919. There are American women who are still alive that were born into the world where they had no agency to change anything because they held no power. The first mass marches of women in American history were aimed at stopping the epidemic of violence against women caused by men. Great progress has been made, but it is all at risk because an extremist movement has blossomed that has gained confidence, fearlessness and political will. It is pushing on the walls, and is indifferent to the popular will or reaction. The calculation is zero sum. The possession of power is cause to exercise it fully — without restraint, thought or consideration around the impact in real life.
The cloistered bubbles that comprise the habitats of MAGA judges, ideologues, grifters, militia leaders, neo-Nazis, anti-government nihilists, Proud Boys, Leonard Leo, Matt Schlapp, Fox News, NewsMax and OAN propagandists have their own reality. Didn’t you know? They are trying to save America from the godless tyranny that says all men and women are created equally in the 21st century, and that American freedom means freedom for everyone. They exist in the world where Viktor Orban is an idol, and Putin is a hero. They celebrate gun extremism, political extremism, religious extremism, and increasingly, make clear their ominous and violent intentions. They want power. The MAGA movement is a beautiful mosaic of corruption, extremism and cynicism that delivers nothing to the American people, while fulfilling every fantasy list for every debauched special interest imaginable so long as they praise Trump. The MAGA movement is a hideous amalgam of retrograde discrimination, dogmatic ideologies, and a narcissistic cult of personality that has nostalgia for a different America that was whiter, more male and less free. This is the backlash and it is building.
There is a remedy. It’s simple. The American people should stop this movement cold. They should crush it under a banner that demands better and starts with a coherent vision for the future of American society.
The future imagined at the dawn of the new millennium has not come to pass. The world is careening towards conflict. America is facing a growing domestic crisis in which the fruits of distrust, division, insanity, and conspiracy seem to be ripening into a final electoral showdown in 2024 when Donald Trump will make his final charge. It will be a depressing affair — should it come to pass.
The inability of the pro-democracy party to clearly articulate what occurred after the violence of January 6, 2021, has long been a dismal situation. The MAGA/GOP Congress voted to throw out millions of votes, mostly from black Americans, in their effort to nullify the election, install Trump and crash American liberty. Nullifying votes, banning books, restricting voting, expulsion, threats, intimations of violence, lawlessness and other thuggery have all become standard fare for the MAGA/GOP union of extremists. They seek to reorder America and re-fight the civil rights and women’s rights movements.
The extremist agenda demands both opposition and response. The fight has come and it has found all of us. We are all targeted and so are our children. Judge Kacsmaryk has a very specific vision for their future. It is unacceptable. Resist. There is a fight for freedom underway. As Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress in 1968, famously said:
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
The option to stand on the sidelines is at best an illusion. The stakes are high. America is worth the fight. What will you do?
AI
