Deplorables

As we learn more about the plot to overthrow the 2020 election, Chauncey DeVega notes that Hillary Clinton's warning from 2016 was understated.

Today's Republican Party is in fact a right-wing extremist organization, and fascist in all but name. Its followers and voters embrace and act upon those values and beliefs. To claim that there is some other Republican Party, somehow separate and distinct from right-wing extremism — as too many commentators and political observers do — is to assert a difference that does not substantively exist. Ultimately, Hillary Clinton's [recent] Guardian interview makes clear that she too fails to consistently and accurately describe the party that she warned us about five years ago.

DeVega is not optimistic that the press and political class will respond adequately.

American political insiders are deeply invested in the familiar, nostalgia-colored mores of American politics. To acknowledge the existential threat of the Jim Crow Republicans and the [fascist] movement is too traumatic and terrifying for the political class to properly contemplate. Indifference, fantasy and soothing lies about how everything will inevitably be OK in America appear to offer a much easier path than doing the difficult and dangerous work required to save American democracy.

Matters are now so dire that it is now not a question of whether American democracy will succumb to a nightmare reign of full-on fascism but rather when that will happen. If America's neofascist movement continues to gain momentum, Joe Biden will be relegated to the role of a speed bump or an asterisk in American history.

Global Public Heatlth and Climate

An editorial published in over 200 medical journals calls for worldwide efforts to halt climate change.

We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.

The risks to health of increases above 1.5°C are now well established. Indeed, no temperature rise is "safe".

Thriving ecosystems are essential to human health, and the widespread destruction of nature, including habitats and species, is eroding water and food security and increasing the chance of pandemics.

The consequences of the environmental crisis fall disproportionately on those countries and communities that have contributed least to the problem and are least able to mitigate the harms.

[G]overnments must make fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organised and how we live.

Update (October 21):  A report published by The Lancet warns about a health crisis.

There is no safe global temperature rise from a health perspective, and additional warming will affect every U.S. region. Today’s adverse health impacts of climate change are varied and widespread. All of us have been or likely will be affected by climate change, with some hazards more easily recognizable than others. Climate change is worsening heat waves, amplifying droughts, intensifying wildfires, supercharging hurricanes, and fueling flood risk through increased heavy rainfall events and rising sea levels.

Misogynist Triumph

Despite nearly 50 years of precedent, the Supreme Court allowed a Texas law to stand that essentially overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The new law, Senate Bill 8, effectively bans abortions at six weeks, when many women don't yet realize they're pregnant. It also deputizes private citizens who can receive bounties of up to $10,000 for suing anyone accused of "aiding and abetting" patients who seek an abortion in Texas.

Amanda Marcotte summarizes the stakes.

[T]his support for the Texas law is an open invitation to every state legislature run by woman-hating Bible thumpers to pass versions of their own. Accompanying the law will be more dehumanizing rhetoric, treating women as livestock who can't be trusted to make decisions, or even acknowledged as capable of making decisions. Because debasing women has always been what the anti-choice movement is about. Now Americans will start to see the real life damage such hatred can wreak in women's lives.

Hopefully, David Frum is correct when he warns the GOP may face a major backlash from voters.

Texas Republicans have just bet their political future in a rapidly diversifying and urbanizing state on a gambit: cultural reaction plus voter suppression. The eyes of Texas will be upon them indeed. The eyes of the nation will be upon them too.

Update (September 8):  Amanda Marcotte warns us not to let Republicans off the hook for seemingly saying dumb things.

The Texas abortion ban isn't something that idiot anti-choicers stumbled into by accident. It was carefully crafted by highly educated, intelligent people who spent years researching ways to overturn Roe v. Wade while pretending that's not what they did. They are manipulative and diabolical, and have had incredible success, despite holding views that are wildly unpopular. It may feel good to write such people off as "ignorant," but that is the last thing they are. They're smart as hell, and that is why they're so dangerous.

Update (September 21):  The legal challenges have begun.