We are in a Fight for Civilization with the Ghoulish Ghosts of America’s Past

The majority must swiftly move to wrest control of the country from the swindlers who stole it

When I think back to my adolescent years in Alief, Texas, I remember it as a relatively apolitical time. To this day, I couldn’t tell you the political affiliation of a single friend from that period. It was an era of innocence and friendships were based on personality, not politics. It’s not that divisions weren’t present, given that it was the heart of the Reagan era. However, it was the predawn of a time when politics became all-consuming and degenerated into existential tribal warfare.

The Republican coup of America’s Supreme Court has forced me to revisit my youth. The seeming “peace” and “stability” was a mirage. It derived from the underlying dominance of white fundamentalist Christians, who accepted us if we laughed at their cruel “jokes” and accepted their dominion over culture, media, family, government and religion. We “harmoniously” existed in their world because we played by their rules.

In the 1980’s, America was painfully transforming into a more tolerant society. The ghoulish ghosts of the past were in retreat, but always lurking in the shadows. Looking back, I recall the students in my school who had confederate flag belt buckles and worshipped guns. I thought they were odd, with their peculiar southern obsessions, but not particularly threatening, as mass school shootings weren’t a thing yet.

I remember Danny, an imposing, tobacco-spitting redneck who wore black boots and an enormous cowboy hat, who was a few grades ahead of me. One day while I was playing basketball, he randomly approached with a psychotic look and angrily inquired, “Hey, Jew, if Jesus Christ ain’t the son of God, who the hell is?”

I recall times when Hispanic custodians would enter our school while students would yell racist epithets. My mother worked as a speech therapist in the school district and recalls proselytizing coworkers. They’d begin their cloying pitches by asking, “What church do you go to,” as if it were unthinkable to follow a different religion or have no religious affiliation at all. She also recalls a teacher in her school who was fired for being gay.

A picture from my teenage years in Texas (1984)

I think back to the time I was attending a Houston Rockets basketball game. During a timeout, the public address announcer read election results. He excitedly revealed that a gay rights referendum was crushed. They crowd wildly cheered as if our team won the NBA championship. When Republicans pine for the “good ole days” that’s the society in which they want us to return. 

Meanwhile, a popular, churchgoing history teacher I had, spoke of how he had driven through a gay neighborhood. Crinkling his face in revulsion, he pantomimed how a loving gay couple he saw were touching each other’s butts. He launched into a profane monologue, which he delivered to impressionable sixth graders of how disgusting these “perverts” were.

So, let’s drop the conservative pretense that “gay” has only recently been discussed in schools. Right wing teachers, and students, have been talking about gay and transgender people in the classroom for eternity.  Today’s odious “Don’t Say Gay” laws are passed specifically to stop positive discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity. If LGBTQ people are denigrated, their gag rules likely don’t apply.   

Gender equality, at the time of my matriculation, was a work in progress. The boys spent a good portion of their days devising ways to get laid. If a girl “put out” she was reduced to a “slut” or a “whore”.  The girls who adhered to strict sexual church standards were treated worse, in some respects. They were reduced to “prudes” who were probably “dykes”. Damned if they did, damned if they didn’t.    

In high school I played on a public school basketball team that coerced players into “student led” worship. Our sectarian prayers always ended with the words, “in Jesus’ name we pray.” The Jews and Buddhists and atheists kept quiet, lest we be accused of upsetting team cohesion and unity. We had no choice but to accept the prayer, because we needed to please the coach if we wanted to get off the bench to play. So, we sat there quietly, and the majority trampled our constitutional rights. That’s just the way it was.  

The acceleration of social change, as well as the formation of our current political battle lines, took shape during my late teenage years. My political awakening came at the same time as my sexual awakening. As I contemplated dating, I was stunned to learn that the Supreme Court , in 1986’ Bowers vs. Hardwick, told me that I, as a gay person, wasn’t allowed to have sex.

“What?  This is happening in America,” I thought?  

There was no rational or reasonable basis for Bowers, other than a few justices found the thought of gay people having sex “yucky” and against their religion.  These supposedly thoughtful legal scholars breezily determined that my most basic human needs were an afterthought. They insouciantly decided that I was destined to spend decade after decade, horny and lonely. If I tried to find relief for their court-imposed despair, I chanced a humiliating arrest and a criminal record, which could have wrecked my life. Though Ruth Bader Ginsburg was talking about anti-abortion dictates, her words equally applied to sodomy laws when she said that such rulings reduced targeted  Americans to “less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

In 1991, I enrolled at the University of Florida. We were young and idealistic students who would no longer tolerate being second-class citizens or sit quietly while conservatives blatantly lied about our lives.  Our LGBTQ student group hosted panels in classrooms. While our educational efforts changed hearts and minds, there was also a backlash from those who opposed change.

It was during this period that I first heard the phrase “politically correct”. The conservative student newspaper assigned that slogan, popularized by radio host Rush Limbaugh, almost exclusively to LGBTQ issues. It littered its pages with acrimonious stories of how conservatives were victims of speech police because they could no longer openly call us “faggots”. When we hear “politically correct” today, it encompasses broader issues and evokes images of liberal excess, some of which is true. However, we should never forget the vile origin of this canard.   

In college, I started going to gay bars, a few of which you had to cross busy streets to return to your car. On many occasions, people would throw bottles and yell homophobic epithets at customers as they scampered in fear across the asphalt to the safety of their automobiles. Sometimes people were harassed, intimidated or beaten up. The hatemongering was greatly exacerbated by AIDS hysteria that infected much of the nation. Most of the time we enjoyed ourselves, but there was always the possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The prospect of being gay bashed has never completely vanished, particularly for transgender Americans, but overall, the climate is much safer. Until now, with white supremacists invading Pride events.  

In the early 90’s, the incipient bubbling, belching wrath of today’s right wing was initially exploited by Newt Gingrich. In his rise to Speaker of the House, Gingrich, a partisan reactionary, who torched bipartisanship in Washington, channeled southern rage against President Bill Clinton. Gingrich and his goons despised Clinton as a hippie, gay loving race traitor. When Clinton was warmly referred to as the “First Black President” for his friendly relations with African American voters, these hicks seethed with volcanic fury. Gingrich was a force of pure evil who rode this wave of white resentment to political power. Later, the Tea Party channeled the noxious impulses of this spiteful movement  

In the years since college, I dedicated myself to fighting for human rights.  Astonishingly, we achieved monumental success that far exceeded our initial expectations. Support for marriage equality has reached a whopping 70-percent. LGBTQ people serve openly in the military. Progress for racial minorities and woman have also become a reality. We accomplished the impossible, electing America’s first black president.

However, when Barack Obama was elected, the number of right wing hate groups skyrocketed. The crusty Old Guard who ruled for centuries, turned on our political system and soured on America. Though, they still dressed in ostentatious “flag drag”, they no longer revered democracy. It was a wonderful system when victory was all-but guaranteed. But now that their antiquated views were unpopular, majority rule suddenly seemed like an impediment to power.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was an early adapter to the new political model. He came from a conservative southern state dominated by white Christians. Adept at reading the room, he declared his primary mission was making Obama a one-term president. While he failed at achieving his goal, he was wildly successful at stacking the Judiciary to ensure that an undemocratic white minority ruled for decades.

McConnell’s sinister plot to capture the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, was a complete rupture of our system. His efforts came to fruition when he denied Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, a fair hearing. McConnell’s superficial rationale for rejecting Garland was that America should not seat a new Supreme Court justice in an election year. Then, he shamelessly reversed his pious proclamations and spearheaded the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the High Court, only a few months before an election.

McConnell’s bad faith was so outrageously brazen and beyond the pale, that it wrecked the institution, almost beyond redemption. His appalling, in-your-face hypocrisy, and his full-fledged assault on democracy, has taken America to the brink of collapse.

The American people helplessly watch, churning with white hot fury, while the court’s religious fanatics ram their church rules down our throats. Undeterred by their unpopularity, this motley crew of crackpots masquerades as fair-minded judges.

Sure, conservative members of the Supreme Court look the traditional part in their black robes, but this crazy cabal operates with zero moral authority, is devoid of truth, absent of trust, lacking in credibility and is grossly out of step with public opinion. Their preordained, agenda-driven church-inspired opinions aren’t worth the cheap paper they’re written on.

Make no mistake, the court is bucking public opinion and not representative of America. According to a CBS/News YouGov poll taken after the abortion ruling, 59 percent of Americans — and 67 percent of women — disapprove of it. The 10 states in which public opinion polls show a majority of respondents oppose abortion rights have about 11% of the U.S. population. The Los Angeles Times reports, “abortion rights are favored by more than 50% of adults even in most states that are rushing to put the court’s ruling into effect by banning or heavily restricting abortion.”

The “Coup Court’s” reactionary rules and dictatorial diatribes, thinly disguised as legal opinions, are not to be blindly followed, but deliberately breached and aggressively circumvented. For example, red states should be flooded with abortion pills. Blue states should harshly punish anyone as stalkers who cross state lines to investigate women receiving abortions. Corporations in forced-birth states must relocate to civilized states.

In fact, this phenomenon is already happening. Luis von Ahn, the co-founder and CEO of the popular foreign language learning app Duolingo Tweeted:

“To all Pennsylvania politicians: I love that Duolingo is headquartered in Pittsburgh and that y’all use it as an example that successful tech companies can start here. If PA makes abortion illegal, we won’t be able to attract talent and we’ll have to grow our offices elsewhere.”

The wicked wind of this tainted Supreme Court blew into town, descending like a biblical plague over our beloved country. We knew this day of reckoning was coming.  Yet, when the nimbus cloud of sickening self-righteousness and dense fog of fanaticism fell upon our families it still took our breath away. We felt the full weight and sheer horror of losing our country in real time to a Republican-orchestrated judicial coup.

In sweeping language, that often reads more like a manifesto from a demented ideologue, the Supreme Court bull-rushed unpopular, nation-altering rulings that ended the right to abortion, expanded access of concealed weapons in cities, funneled taxpayer money to support favored religious schools and green lit public school officials engaging in coercive and showy displays of worship.   

The final putrid puzzle piece for the fracturing of America, is former twice-impeached President Donald Trump. His primary role in this drama is using his venomous personality and malignant magnetism to gaslight and inspire society’s worst elements to express their racist rage, homophobic hate and misogynistic madness. The result has been years of unrelenting, vicious partisan warfare, inflammatory culture wars, the busting of norms and widespread corruption that has intentionally incinerated any shard of remaining national unity. We have reached a tragic point where it’s difficult, with a straight face, to call our country the United States of America.  

The venom is only worsening in the aftermath of the Dobbs abortion ruling. At a Saturday Donald Trump rally, Rep. Mary Miller said, “President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday.” The enraptured audience cheered with approval. Lest one give Miller a pass for her racism, she once praised Hitler for saying “‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

It turns out that the retrograde forces of my youth, that were in retreat as I matured, never fully disappeared. These villainous characters, oozing out of the muck, are as recognizable as they are repugnant. I remember their ilk well from my teenage years in suburban Texas. These irascible rubes have returned, many with weapons of war, to drag the country backward. They want to limit the options of women, disappear LGBTQ people and put minorities in their “place”. Just as they did every single day when I was growing up.

As the forward-looking majority celebrated Pride and cheered on progress, these primitive, backward barbarians seethed in the shadows and organized in the woodwork waiting for their glorious return to prominence and power.

To paraphrase Donald Trump, they patiently “stood back and stood by” until their day of delirium arrived. Well, that dark moment is now upon us and unless this ill wind is rolled back, the clock will be turned back.

What gives me a sense of hope is that Republicans resorted to theft of our political system and outright violence because we rejected the poison they were peddling. They have not beaten us fair and square, nor have they secured a mandate for their monstrous agenda. These scoundrels and serpents lied and swindled their way into power. They are a loud, morally bereft minority willing to push America asunder to bully their way to full totalitarian control.

We cannot let our fear or disappointment drive us to despair. It is crucial that we never forget that we are the majority, and if we fight together, we are mightier than our foes. As we stand at a crossroads in American history, we must fully commit to dislodging this ignorant, primitive, invasive species, which is alien to modernity, allergic to democracy and at war with The Enlightenment. They are against art, literature, education, civil rights, free thinking, diversity, political freedom, religious pluralism and basic morality.

We have no choice but to awaken from our long slumber and prepare for a slugfest that will determine the rest of our lives and the future of civilization.