Opinion

But there is another element, rarely discussed, that makes “Succession” without equal. To borrow a phrase from Trump’s 2016 campaign, it takes right-wing politics seriously, not literally.

In “Succession,” a Fox News-like ATN founded by Logan Roy, a monstrous aging patriarch, rules the airwaves and politics. Flashes of ATN leave no doubt as to its politics. It packs enough hate into its chyrons to make Tucker Carlson envious: “Equality Activist Caught With Child Porn ‘Bonanza,’” “Gender Fluid Illegals May Be Entering the Country ‘Twice,’” and “Tech Giants Plan to Force America to Eat Lab-Grown ‘Human Meat.’”

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the abortion drug mifepristone will remain available while appeals play out on a lawsuit that sought to take the drug off the market. The fate of mifepristone is critical to abortion access because medication abortions account for a majority of terminations in the U.S. and most of these are carried out with a two-drug regimen that includes mifepristone.

The fact that the high court granted a stay doesn’t automatically mean that the justices will vote to keep mifepristone available. However, it’s noteworthy that only two justices--Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas--opposed the stay.

The last thing I said about the eldest member of the United States Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority almost certainly failed to lift your confidence in American democracy. I said that Justice Clarence Thomas is telling us he’s above the law, that there’s nothing we can do about it, and that by telling us there’s nothing we can do about it, he’s telling us who he is: a terrible man who will tell us what the law is until the day he dies.

While I almost certainly failed to lift your confidence in American democracy, I didn’t intend to decimate it. We should keep on keeping the faith. Democracy is complex. Liberal democracy is more complex. Causes have effects. Decisions often have serious but unintended consequences.

Starting in 1898, the Bayer company of Germany marketed diamorphine as an over-the-counter cough remedy and pain reliever under the brand name Heroin, taken from the German word for “heroic”; it took a generation to discover how addictive it was, leading to it being banned in the US in 1924 and around the world in the 1930s.

Heroin’s power comes from its ability to reach below our level of conscious control and stimulate the body’s natural opiate system, producing a sensation of pleasure and fulfillment that sweeps away everyday concerns, seemingly answering all of life’s questions and problems.