Great piece Mitch, you really captured the zeitgeist of the moment. Plus you raised the very important question of "where do we go from here?”
I know you see the seeds of a "women's revolt" against the Trumpublicans in this moment but I am less optimistic. Two out of three White women voted for Trump in 20'. This is what they voted for, they see this as a win.
Women are not united on this issue.
I know it sounds insane but I was there in the 70's when the anti-ERA, anti-feminism backlash started. Lots and lots of women, particularly White Evangelical women do not support the right to abortion.
They believe women shouldn't be having sex outside of marriage. FULL STOP, NO EXCEPTIONS. If you do, and get pregnant, you should be punished for being a slut.
It's the same weird thinking you sometimes hear from women who support mandatory burka wearing, or female genital mutilation. The idea that women have to suppress their sexuality because men cannot control themselves.
They argue that this suppression liberates them instead of enslaving them. And they vote for it, in big numbers.
This ruling probably isn't going to change that very much. The majority of White women are probably still going to vote Trumpublican in 22' and 24'.
This isn't just a story about "evil men" doing this to helpless women. Women make up 52% of the US population. If they were united on this issue, abortion would be a constitutional right.
This goes back to the fact that 2 out of 3 White American's votes Trumpublican (most "Independents" vote Trumpublican, they just don't want to admit it socially). For a lot of them this is a racial issue.
The part they don't say loudly is that this is about White babies. Think about this, in the last year of the Trump clusterfuck it came out that women were being sterilized in ICE detention centers. Without their knowledge or consent.
No one was prosecuted for this crime against humanity. In the alt-Right media space there was actually applause for this crime.
"How else are you going to keep them from coming back and dropping an anchor baby?"
Was the common viewpoint.
"It's their own fault. They broke the law coming here and we have the right to preserve our sovereign integrity. If you are going to give citizenship to every baby born on US soil then you have to disincentivize all these brown women from coming here to drop a baby and game the system."
They don't care about saving babies. They care about saving White babies.
What this does do, is give them a way of criminalizing Black, Latina, and Liberal White women. Just like criminalizing Black men has resulted in 40% of them being stripped of the right to vote, this will give them massive opportunities to criminalize women.
Taking away their right to vote.
The shape of the "New America" the Trumpublicans are working towards is becoming more clear. They won't stop holding elections, that would be un-American. But only the “Whitest” 60% of the population will get the privilege of voting. Because letting criminals vote is just crazy.
The appearance of Democracy without actually being a democracy. White minority rule forever.
That's what's coming if they win in 24'. Don't count on any help from White women in stopping it.
