YES, Republicans HAVE, "Opened THAT Door", and THEY WILL REGRET IT...

 

YES, Republicans HAVE, "Opened THAT Door", and THEY WILL REGRET IT...

The Hartmonitor

Opinion by Douglas Hartman

April 11, 2023

This moment may foretell the beginning of the end for Republican arrogance

It was bad enough three Tennessee legislators were put up for expulsion from the state legislature for engaging in a protest over the Republican dominated body’s refusal to consider and debate a bill banning assault weapons after three nine year-olds and three adults were murdered at a Nashville school. It was worse the vote on expulsion resulted in only two of the three actually being expelled from the chamber for violating its rules. But what was even worse than that was of the three, the two Black legislators were expelled while the White legislator, who engaged in the same “disruptive behavior,” was not.

Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson delivered spirited statements extolling the tenets of American democracy in their defense prior to being expelled from the body as did Representative Gloria Johnson, who was spared expulsion by one vote. But afterward, all three stood together with supporters under the rotunda of the Capitol building amid chants from the hundreds of young people calling out members of the Republican super-majority as fascists and racists.

It was an ugly scene, but at the same time a beautiful thing. Three democrats, two Black men and one White woman, standing together amid a sea of mostly younger and largely White supporters who had come to the state Capitol to support them and their stance on what has to be one of if not the largest issue of our day: Gun control, who can access them and what kind of guns.

Defiant in the face of a party in power that is clearly inclined to act arbitrarily and arrogantly despite popular demand and sensibilities, the Tennessee Three did not bend a knee to members of the oppressive majority. Rather, they called them out first from the well of the House chamber and then from under the building’s dome. There, they were joined by a crowd of young activists dismayed but not dissuaded by the Tennessee House Republicans unwarranted exercise of raw political power.

Add to that the Good Friday announcement by a court in Texas with a political operative for a judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s decision to ban the FDA approved drug, mifepristone, because of its use in inducing medical abortions, often after a miscarriage when fetal viability is not an issue. Then on top of all of that add Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ failure to disclose he’s been accepting gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for decades from a conservative mega-donor. It would appear there is a growing crisis in confidence in Republican governance. If a political movement can track to a moment in time, this might be it.

It’s been apparent for years now Republicans are afraid of the country’s changing demographics, they should be, but they keep doing everything possible to realize their worst fears: the formation of a coalition of voters of color, women, and college educated urban and suburbanites who reject their positions on everything from guns to woman’s health care.

It’s like watching a horror movie where everyone in the audience is yelling “Don’t open that door!” But the guy on the screen, and the next to meet some ghastly end, goes ahead and opens it anyway.

Republicans have opened that door. So, they shouldn’t be surprised when they get exactly what they don’t want. But, it will be exactly what they deserve.

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