News Commentary / Supreme Court analysis

There is Still Hope for America

A big sign that you don’t have to despair our country will auger into the ground. But, we aren’t out of the woods yet. You still have some work to do.

Just when it seemed like our captain on the 767 went completely insane and was auguring the plane in a slow corkscrew into the ocean, we had someone step in and take the controls away from him.

It has been a rough couple of years on the airship America.

At first people thought it was just turbulence. Maybe the captain will straighten the plane out. Alas, he didn’t. Every time we had a drink on the tray table or a meal, he jerked the controls throwing everything out of wack. Then, he’d get on the intercom and yell something crazy.

“You must DOMINATE!” he screamed into the mic as everyone looked around at each other in horror as the words slurred throughout the cabin. He obviously has gone insane.

The captain is intent on taking the plane down.

The co-pilot, Mitch McConnell, was all in favor of it, yelling “Yee Ha!” as the captain spouted something about the plane slamming into the open sea would be beautiful. “We must remember those glorious rebels who fought against the United States! We will join them in hell sometime soon!”

Mitch McConnell laughed and said “Aye, Captain! Your wish is my command.”

Making it worse, the captain was tuned into the worst talk radio shows on the shortwave, instead of air traffic control. The only input he was getting was from the most strident folks intent on causing chaos. Making the plane slam into the ocean would be their claim to fame in the history books. Some people thought the transmissions were coming from foreign adversaries pretending to be friendly partisans.

Some of the American media folks secretly hoped they’d be the next Father Charles Coughlin for the modern age. If they couldn’t be famous for attracting large audiences, maybe the history books would remind people of the way their had the ear of a mentally-unwell captain.

Just as the captain was screaming, “End civil rights for the transgenders!” a crew of pilots who had been dead-heading and asleep in the back finally woke up and said enough. They broke down the cockpit door and took the controls away from the madman.

The lead deadhead captain said they had co-equal power to run the ship and the current captain was clearly endangering people on the airship America.

Today the Supreme Court told the President that LGBTQ+ people are covered by civil rights protections under Title 7. The Supreme Court’s decision in a workplace civil rights case saying that the plain text of the law says people are covered by civil rights will straighten the course of America for a while.

Trump appointed Supreme Court Justice joined with Chief John Roberts and the liberals on the Court to put a stop to the President’s efforts to whittle away civil rights.

Writes Gorsuch in Bostock vs. Clayton County:

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

The good news is that the Supreme Court’s 6 to 3 decision — with two of the conservative justices joining the liberals to preserve LGBTQ+ and other people’s civil rights by extension — means that the Court will look at the language for interpreting laws. If it says people have civil rights, then people have civil rights.

Now, there is a part up to you. Congress could decide to change the civil rights laws. When the GOP was in charge, they took an ax to voters’ rights. If they are able to get control of the House and aren’t removed from the Senate, you can be sure that their bosses will tell them to continue to strip American’s of their rights.

Their leader, Donald J. Trump, gleefully announced an end to transgender civil rights. He has been making announcements and rally dates on anniversaries of massacres to send signals to his rabid base that he doesn’t care about people who aren’t his voters.

It isn’t a coincidence that Trump announced his first rally would be held on Juneteen in Tulsa, Oklahoma where whites attacked and killed black people in horrific riots targeting what was known as “Black Wall Street” because of the numbers of prosperous black-owned businesses.

The event remains one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history, and one of the least-known: News reports were largely squelched, despite the fact that hundreds of people were killed and thousands left homeless.

— History.com

Then, Trump set a rally in Jacksonville, Florida on the anniversary of “Ax Handle Saturday” where hundreds of white rioters beat peaceful civil rights protesters in 1960.

Trump cares for no human. People are just objects in his mind. He craves power and admiration from despots and dictators.

— Chris Hedges

The good thing is the Supreme Court, including one Trump appointee, is willing to stand up to protect the Constitution and civil rights.

Now, you have to also do you part and vote in November.

Vote against the candidates who want to walk lock step with the insane captain.

It is up to you.

Chris Hedges, J.D., is an editor of ILLUMINATION.