There has been plenty of commentary on how Republicans, who have been chasing the car of abortion rights for so long, now that they’ve caught it they don’t know how to deal with the bumper stuck in their teeth.
The religious far right, which has had a few wins over control of women’s right to make their own reproductive decisions, is now trying to go full Gillead on the country by going for a national abortion ban—and going after birth control. There’s some far right obsession with the idea of forcing women to have children.
Margaret Atwood of course paints the chilling dystopian vision of a future America—named Gillead—ruled by religious fanatics where forced births are the rule of the day. If a fiction writer can envision this kind of a future, why not present-day religious fanatics with an eye toward a Bible that only says what they say it says. (Another feature of the Gillead Atwood created.)
Republicans are trying to protect their depredations of our rights by preventing people who disagree with them from voting. If fully accomplished this would give them a mandate as fake as Trump’s tan.
A measure in Ohio for example is up for a vote on August 8th. Issue 1, as it is called is a referendum to increase the necessary votes for citizen initiative on a ballot from a simple majority to a threshold of 60 percent. It is a Republican effort to gut the ability of the citizenry to directly propose and vote on laws and modifications to the state constitution.
This type of referendum along with voting restriction efforts in nearly half of our states are an effort by Republicans to cement their positions of power regardless of the will of an actual majority of voters.
But signs they are going too far are everywhere. Perhaps the latest is this ad opposing Issue 1 on August 8th in Ohio. Frankly it is brilliant:
The fact that Republicans have overplayed their hand, and continue to to do so, is obvious to everyone but them. This leads to a prediction that we’re going to see more highly creative presentations like this one.
The biggest error the far right is making right now is to assume that the actual majority thinks as they do. But as Napoleon said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Marty Kassowitz
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
