Working the System: For or Against Democracy

Illustration insert by despardes.com

Mary L Trump at The Good in Us: The system which, depending on your perspective, is either broken or working exactly as designed, is something Mitch McConnell has worked within for years in order to take a sledgehammer to American democracy. No elected official has done more to engineer the white Christian Nationalist super-majority of the Supreme Court than McConnel. Now the Court is itself working within the system to erode democracy further by weakening American’s faith in the Court through its anti-Constitutional rulings and unethical behavior.

Their goal, in the short term, is to advance the Republican Party’s agenda as long as that means making sure Donald Trump is installed once again in the White House to do their bidding. In the long-term, many high-ranking Republicans seem to be gunning for a theocratic apartheid state which requires rolling back the rights of women and Black Americans back to 1860s. Along the way, of course, they must enrich themselves. Because that’s how it works. They care about their ideological agenda of destroying democracy as much as we care about making democracy better, but they also demand to be richly compensated for their nefarious work along the way.

Clarence Thomas’ egregiously corrupt behavior—the gob-smacking number and value of the gifts he has received from billionaire donors that was uncovered by ProPublica in the stunning investigative report by, should be enough to undermine the Court’s credibility, but then there’s Samuel Alito.

Alito outdoes his colleague by several light-years, which is really saying something. In addition to engaging in the same kind of pay-for-play corruption as Thomas, he is an ideologue who has proven himself to be so arrogantly dedicated to his worldview, so warped by his permanent residence in the Fox bubble that he is incapable of ruling with any semblance of objectivity. He is the Court’s poster boy for putting party before country or constitution.

Last week, The New York Times reported that an upside-down flag was seen flying outside of Alito’s house in the days after the January 6th insurrection. Traditionally an upside-down flag symbolizes distress, but Donald’s followers have co-opted the upside-down flag to represent “Stop the Steal”…

More here.