The tipping point.

April 7, 2023

          Due to illness, I am unable to produce a newsletter this evening. Not to worry, my illness is following the same trajectory experienced by eleven other members of my immediate family. For those who follow my Managing Editor on her blog, she won’t be publishing this evening, either. I hope to be in touch over the weekend.

          But I cannot leave the events of today without comment. In three respects, America reached a tipping point on Thursday. It may take months or years for us to appreciate that fact, but historians will mark April 6, 2023, as the high water mark of the retrograde, anti-democracy movement of MAGA extremism.

          In particular, the naked racism of Tennessee Republicans in expelling two Black legislators but not a white legislator for identical conduct in protesting gun deaths of schoolchildren has removed any ambiguity about the racial animus of MAGA extremism. One commentator described the events in the Tennessee legislature as the birth of “the New Civil Rights Movement.” Because that second birth occurred under the scourge of gun violence directed at children, the merger of those movements will be unstoppable. We witnessed two powerful voices emerge in Tennessee on Thursday. They will become national leaders in a movement that will attract new constituencies to the civil rights, anti-gun movement.

          The second tipping point was the publication of the Pro Publica report that exposed the grotesque corruption of Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars (possibly millions) in the form of free travel from a Republican megadonor and failed to report those gifts as required. In truth, the corruption of Justice Thomas has been replicated by other members of the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court. We need only scratch the surface to find that corruption. There is no turning back. And make no mistake, John Roberts has presided over the open wound of corruption during his entire tenure. He must be held accountable for his dereliction of duty, as well.

          Finally, Idaho has criminalized the constitutionally protected right to travel across interstate lines. MAGA extremists have converted the Dobbs ruling that there is no right of privacy in the Constitution into a perverse mandate to deny Americans other rights that are plainly protected by the Constitution. They are doing so under the guise of regulating reproductive liberty. That strategy will lead to the demise of the GOP. Indeed, we have seen the seeds of their destruction in Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

          There is much to discuss about the events of the day, and there are other wonderful sources available for commentary. As a favor, I ask my regular commentors (and you know who you are!) to help lead a discussion for members of the Today’s Edition newsletter community by taking on one or more of the above subjects in the Comments section.

          Thanks! I plan to be in touch over the weekend.