Last night, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as the new Supreme Court justice who will be filling the seat of the late and iconic Ruth Bater Ginsburg. Today, she will be sworn in. I am utterly disgusted by this and incredibly saddened that this is even happening. It feels like Barrett taking a seat on the Supreme Court is the end of many basic rights for myself and my loved ones, as she and her party have made it abundantly clear that they aim to target the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade, LGBTQIA rights, and many others. It feels like nothing and no one is safe unless you're a straight white Republican man, and I fully mean that.
This semester has been so hard. It feels like we are constantly faced with one political turmoil after another. Add grad school, a pandemic, and attempts at a personal life on top of that, and things are pretty rough right now. This shit sucks. It feels like a constant struggle to stay afloat. It's like I'm in a constant state of mourning, but there's never enough time to fully process things before the next bad thing happens.
The confirmation and swearing in of Barrett is terrifying and I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what will happen, particularly what her appointment will mean for the election next week, as it has been made clear that she was rushed in just in case Trump needs the Supreme Court to override the election results in some way. Then, there's the impending idea that healthcare will be taken away from individuals through the ACA, during a literal pandemic. The Republican party has expressed that they want to make it to where upon turning 18, people are kicked off of their parents' insurance and forced to find their own plan. I don't know about you, but I don't know many 18 year olds that can afford their own health insurance, especially at a time when 1) there's a pandemic, 2) jobs are harder to find as a result of that pandemic, 3) not many companies want to hire 18 year olds for decent wages on the notion that they don't have "experience" and it is unlikely they could afford insurance at this age.
I'm also afraid for what this confirmation means for women's rights and LGBTQIA rights. This can't be good in any way, as again, Barrett and her party have made it clear that they want to set back progress by at least 40 years, if not more, to directly set back these groups of people and limit their rights. It's terrifying and I am just so tired.
It feels like the one remaining hope I can hold onto is that Biden might win the election, but after the shit show of 2016, I am incredibly cautious with my optimism. So now, I guess we just sit and wait, praying that things could possibly turn out okay.
I don't know if my optimism is even "cautious" anymore. It's just kind of...there, buried in the back of my day to day operations. I can't let go of it entirely. I refuse to. But it is rough. I know we recently spoke in class about confusion being a good thing, and while that is probably true in our case studying all this material, I wish confusion about basic human needs weren't so "confusing" to other people.
ReplyDeleteAbbie, I have honestly been racking my brain to come up with a remotely positive outlook for this. In the worst case scenario where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wins the election, ACA is renounced and Roe v. Wade overturned. What then, huh? Anyway, here's what I came up with:
ReplyDeleteMarijuana has been illegal under federal law since the 1930s. Yet, by 2005, 9 states had legalized the drug either recreationally or medicinally. In Gonzalez vs. Reich, the Supreme Court held that marijuana was illegal and couldn't be legalized on a state by state basis because a)commerce clause and b) the supremacy clause. It was already illegal under federal law, therefore, state law must also abide.
Fast forward to 2020. There are ONLY 11 states where marijuana is fully ILLEGAL. In the other 39, marijuana is either fully legal, medicinally legal, or decriminalized. (Though to be fair, Indiana is considered "mixed" because CBD oil is legal.)
It's important to remember that just because the Supreme Court rules one way or the other, it doesn't mean there is an immediate reaction. In fact, the court is notoriously ridiculed for the fact that they have no enforcement power. Look at Brown vs. Board of Education. Even when Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned, separate but equal was deemed inherently unequal, and schools were ordered to desegregate with "all deliberate speed" it looks several years and several more Brown v. Board cases to actually desegregate the south.
I suspect that even in a worst case scenario, Trump is elected, ACB helps overturn Obamacare, there's still the matter of actually producing the legislation and the public policy and the health care procedure to actually deal with the consequences of overturning ACA.
Long, boring story short, hopefully you will have a job with health insurance by the time worst case scenario hits.
I know what you mean. I find myself daydreaming about a Biden cabinet, and then mentally slapping myself for "jinxing it." I don't have anything helpful to say, except I hear you, I see you, and I agree. This shit sucks. I'm holding onto the idea that based on the popular vote in 2016 and the polls now, there are more of us than there are of them. I have to believe that's going to matter.
ReplyDeleteAbbie,
ReplyDeleteI share in your feeling of being afraid. This has been one of the most terrifying times with the combination of COVID, the protests earlier this year, and now this. I think this just goes to show the atmosphere of fear that Trump has created through his rhetoric. He wants us to be afraid in an effort to keep us quiet and subdued. Thankfully, it appears this fear isn't keeping people down. All we can do is cross our fingers for this election to initiate some good change in US politics.