Opinion

Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake — who despite her defeat may yet be a Republican vice-presidential contender — has filed a new lawsuit ostensibly aimed at reversing her loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs. Lake appears to be going for a hat trick of courtroom defeats, which remains no match for her idol, former President Donald Trump, who lost more than 60 cases after the 2020 election.

The first of Lake's lawsuits, filed earlier this year, was dismissed in August. It sought to replace Maricopa County's voting machines with paper ballots.

That was former President George W. Bush’s reported take on former President Donald Trump’s angry inaugural address back in 2017.

And that seems to be the consensus on the farewell speech last week from Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake), who, notably, dismissed his frequent foe, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as being “batshit crazy” during her first year running the state.

Everyday people, especially the poor, the working class, Black and brown folks, a large majority of women, LGBTQ people and members of other vulnerable and disadvantaged communities do not have the privilege of ignoring danger. Nonetheless, many of them also practice denial as a coping mechanism, when they arguably should know better.

In the end, any major peril — such as climate change or the current global democracy crisis — will affect everyone, rich and powerful or otherwise. The difference will largely concern the circumstances and timing. Ignoring a problem cannot solve it.

Tuesday is supposed to be a good day. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law, making it illegal for any state to invalidate, repeal or negate the legal marriages of same-sex or interracial couples. No doubt the ceremony itself will all be smiles and hugs. Still, as Biden acknowledged in the White House statement, the bill is only necessary because of "the uncertainty caused by the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision," which reversed Roe v. Wade, in which Justice Clarence Thomas openly invited the right to challenge Obergefell v. Hodges and give the court a chance to destroy the national right to same-sex marriage.

The media coverage of the bill largely framed it as a sign of social progress, focusing on how a strong majority of Americans (71%, according to Gallup) support same-sex marriage. This included glowing coverage of the minority of Republicans who voted for the bill, which threatened to eclipse the real story, which is that the majority of Republicans in Congress very much voted against it. The religious right, which still controls the Republican party, has not given up on its mission to repeal hard-won gay rights and make homophobia the social norm again. On the contrary, this past week's news cycle underscores how, if anything, the Republican backlash against LGBTQ people is only getting nastier, despite strong evidence that such rhetoric is contributing to an atmosphere of violence and hate crimes.

Sometime during the next session of Congress, Republicans will check the box on one of their perennial agenda items whenever a Democrat is president: Threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy if the president doesn't submit to their demand to slash the safety net of senior citizens.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Still, until that latest string of debacles, he'd been getting away with a lot for a guy who'd been long digging a brazenly illegal hole - or more accurately warren - that should have landed him in prison decades ago. Maintaining the delusion he and his cult followers are above the law, he just made a video for a "Patriot Freedom Project Holiday Open House" - yes, MTG named it - to support those poor people in jail for trying to overthrow the government on Jan. 6. "It's a very unfair situation, and we're going to (be) looking about it and talking about it very, very strongly," he babbled, playing his air accordion. He escaped unscathed from the Dining-With-Nazis-and-Urging-We-Terminate-the-Constitution fiasco thanks to reptilian Republicans who could only stammer out a limp "the question is how we move forward" and people will "take into consideration a statement like this." Mainstream media wasn't much better: Two days later, on Page 13, the New York Times reported his call for terminating the Constitution "draws rebukes." Twitter: "Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews draws rebukes." And the frantic rants of HOAX AND SCAM AND FRAUD! kept coming.

This week, things got more real, in part thanks to Special Counsel and "weaponized monster" Jack Smith, who's "hit the ground running" - so much so that, despite fears about how long it would take to gather a team, do his research etc, just two work days after being appointed he sent grand jury subpoenas to officials in 3 swing states (Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin) where fake electors tried to help do the coup thing, seeking all communications with Trump or his lackeys. Smith will run the DOJ investigations into both Jan. 6 and the stolen documents. By all accounts, he is Trump's worst nightmare: A 30-year-veteran prosecutor who began his career at the New York D.A.'s office, he has specialized in public corruption and organized crime cases, headed criminal litigation for 100 prosecutors in violent crime and financial fraud cases, run the DOJ's public integrity unit; since 2018, he's been chief prosecutor for the ICC in The Hague for war crimes and genocide. Colleagues describe "a person of action" who "operates very quickly," "knows how to prove a case," "leaves no stone unturned," will "do what he's going to do," and is a "literally insane" cyclist and triathlete.

Asked "which is the more hawkish party,” anyone remembering the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George Bush would immediately answer "the Republicans.” They would remember that the Democrats, shattered by the Vietnam War, had renounced what President Carter termed "the inordinate fear of Communism,” while the hawkish foreign policy stance of FDR, Truman, Acheson and JFK migrated to the Republicans. That was followed by Reagan’s military suppression of a Soviet-inspired coup in Grenada and full-scale land wars under the Bush administrations, culminating in the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But during Ukraine's recent war to repel Russia's invasion, those roles have been begun to be reversed. The Biden administration, along with NATO, pledged military assistance to Ukraine, which after a slow start, has been robust. Apparently the Democrats are now the party of neoconservatism. By contrast, Republican opposition to funding Ukraine’s war effort grew from three to forty-seven no votes, and likely incoming Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said there will be no “blank check” for more assistance.

For at least seven years, Donald Trump and his neofascist movement have inflicted abuse of many kinds on the American people — emotional, physical, financial, spiritual and psychological. The Republican Party and the "conservative" movement have, for the most part, been eager participants and accomplices in this abuse.

As the 2022 midterm elections suggest, many Americans are finally trying to break free of this abuse. That, however, is the most dangerous time in any abusive relationship, when the abuser often lashes out and does everything they can — up to and including extreme violence — to keep the victim under their control.