(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . They mean to roll back more than we ever suspected [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-07 Along with many of the rest of you, I watched with horror as Tennessee lawmakers took the unprecedented step of expelling two of its members from its House chamber, and all, ostensibly, for the crime of disrupting official proceedings. Three had originally been targeted for removal, but in the end only two, Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson—young Black upstarts—were given the boot. Their crime? To have participated vocally in support of their constituents heartfelt desire and intent to reform gun laws in this country. Their actions are easily seen as being part of peaceful, though intense, protest. One used a bullhorn on the floor of the House, which was at the time in recess. For this, two lawmakers were removed from their posts entirely. The prospect of removal was alarming from the start, but the fact that one of the Tennessee Three, Rep. Gloria Johnson, was spared while the others were not—that’s what gave away the game. Though this is no game, and the stakes are higher than most people even now imagine. This was a drastic “cure” for a minor disturbance. Pundits wondered aloud if Tennessee lawmakers had really thought this through, as this story became known not only nationwide but internationally as well. “The world is watching” is a cliche, but the phrase came alive yesterday as news stations carried live the abomination of the clawing away of a key cornerstone of democratic governance, that of being represented by those persons duly elected. The optics were wrong, pundits opined. Not only did that Republican supermajority fail to address the substance of the controversy—the need to reform gun laws in the wake of a deadly and preventable school shooting—but they would come to regret “the politics” of their actions. This was said as though the conservatives had simply not given this ample consideration. They knew. They realized exactly what signal they were sending. And that signal was picked up, too: MSNBC’s Alex Wagner mentioned during the handoff between Chris Hayes’ show and hers that other Republicans in other states had pointed to Tennessee as a leader in how these things get done; and that in fact the Republican supermajority in Wisconsin was already openly discussing how they might impeach the newly elected Supreme Court justice, before she has even taken up her role, before she has made any official decisions. Tennessee, to these Republicans, is a beacon. It’s a template. Just as we saw with abortion rights rolled back across the country in states with Republican-held legislatures and governors, just as we saw with book bans, just as we saw with anti-trans legislation and other forms of suppressing or criminalizing the identity expression of young people, this will seem isolated at first, but will spread and pop up like a cottage industry. It will be “put in play,” as they say. What conservatives are communicating to their base is this: “We have the power. We can remove these people without any consequences whatsoever. We don’t have to work with them; we can just get rid of them. This is how we take our country back. We stop pretending.” This has been a terrible two weeks, but it’s important to reexamine the landscape. We have a former president under criminal indictment. GOP House Representatives, led by the MAGA caucus, disrespected the separation of powers by interfering in the criminal proceedings, demanding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg come before them and divulge his evidence and materials before even the advent of the trial, before they even know the charges leveled against Trump (who, unfathomably, remains their standard-bearer). Trump, for his part, has called Bragg an “animal” whose “master” is an international Jewish banker whose very name has become a slur. These are not undertones, and they are not disconnected. In Tennessee, nine-year-olds were slaughtered in an apparent sacrifice to the deities of the AR-15, and yet lawmakers proudly donned lapel pins, replicas of the weapon. They observed no mourning. Tucker Carlson and his cronies twisted the story immediately, scapegoating the trans community and saying that this was no time to give up your guns. No time for remembrance of the victims: clutch the gun, and seethe with the same resentment as though the weapon had been taken away. The spectacle was obscene. But for this campaign to work, gun owners can never feel sympathy for the victims of gun violence. It must always be a binary choice. But beyond that, this is a playbook that has been consulted many times in the last few years. We saw it with the confirmation hearings of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She was a diversity hire, it was said. We saw it with Brittney Griner, who was seen as jumping the line of politically held prisoners, as though there were some quota system to be fulfilled in spiriting her home. We see it with the grouping of the local DAs who have amassed evidence against Donald Trump, where he has essentially called them subhuman and claimed that he is being targeted because he is WHITE. There’s no subtext anymore, y’all. FFS, we’ve got a Supreme Court justice who famously has a mixed marriage and even he is gunning to overturn Loving v. Virginia. This is out in the open. Last year, Trump called on his supporters to be willing to lay down their lives to remove critical race theory from schools. We know there’s no CRT being taught in secondary schools, only in higher education, but that's not the point. He needed a rallying cry. And now we seem to be hitting a critical mass. GOP school board members are being eaten up by the anti-CRT machine, mauled in the cause, the hallucinatory drive, the manufactured zeal. This is the movement, and they are ratcheting up. Nearly a year and a half ago, I made a side mention of what I called nlove, an affliction of animus that some Americans felt toward President Biden, who has been so visible in his elevation of superlative Black folks to positions of great responsibility. Those afflicted with nlove see this as an indication that Biden has forgotten himself, has instead participated in the subversion of American order. He came up as Barack Obama’s #2, providing that initial sense of stability to a certain swath of voters; then once he himself moved into the Oval Office he nominated and continues to surround himself with persons of color, from his own vice-president on down. These people see this as a direct betrayal, a harkening back to another time when colored people held the reins of power: Reconstruction. This nation was founded on predominantly Christian values, by predominantly Christian people. We just want to keep that in play. We just want to keep our roots alive and not let this reconstruction, this tearing up of our nation’s roots, and a new set of values is being pushed on us. It literally is. — Ken Peters, pastor of Patriot Church in Knoxville, TN, October 2021 These people, full of this trait, this flaw of nlove, see Biden as an n-lover. And thus we find ourselves here. Donald Trump is running on the insurrection. He is courting white supremacists as we speak. GOP lawmakers across the country, especially those in chambers that enjoy a supermajority, will replicate what Tennessee lawmakers have done. Guns will be inseparable as an issue. The scapegoating of tiny minorities will continue apace, will grow in intensity. Where this is all headed, I cannot tell you. But it’s clear that the GOP is marching right over the cliff into the realm of fascism. What we saw in Tennessee yesterday was clear fascism, the rawest example yet. And they’re not done. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/7/2162631/-They-mean-to-roll-back-more-than-we-ever-suspected Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/