The old GOP had a problem. How do they sustain power while serving the interests of only 1-2%? The answer: stir the hornet's nest, then build a coalition of the angry who will, in their fury, look past their own interests and support a plutocracy. The quid pro quo? White, working class conservatives who felt rejected by identity politics, anxious about abortion, and squeamish about non-normative sexuality were weaponized by the GOP to fight their irrational culture and restroom wars.
But the lynchpin to the old GOP's success was Roe v Wade. The abortion issue allowed the plutocracy to be the party of extraordinary immorality on one hundred issues but still win so-called "morals voters" on this single issue.
The sine qua non of the plutocratic GOP was that the abortion issue was alive. They told voters they'd end abortion, but that was never their intention. With abortion gone, millions of self-described morals voters could turn to other value issues and to self-interest and the old GOP would be unable to win.
If the votes were counted.
When the hard Christian right, the Handmaid's Tale folks, found an authoritarian, sociopathic, instrumental Kleptocrat (Trump) who would sell his soul and his country for a dollar, they joined forces. They drove out the old GOP, a party thriving on bitter disappointment and anxiety, replacing it with a vastly accelerated brand of overwhelming hate. Trump's macho and aggressive campaign histrionics and his unwillingness to leave office in 2020 suited their temperaments well.
The old GOP assumed they had to win elections by counting votes, so they needed the abortion issue alive. The Christo-Fascists got to work burning down civil rights knowing the only way they could sustain power would be by suspending democracy.
To be clear: a plutocratic party used the abortion issue to string along tens of millions, with no intention of ever actually ending abortion rights and their gravy train. The Christo-Fascists that have replaced them have no such qualms: they imagine divine power, they find democracy and the Bill of Rights repugnant (their backward interpretation of the 2nd the exception), and they have no intention of counting votes.
A plutocracy serving the 1% does not give up its biggest political asset while it plans to honor democracy.
This path has been trodden by many authoritarians before them. Their latest buddy, Putin, became unconstitutional in 2008 (or at least in 2012, when the puppet administration passed from power), for instance. The Christo-Fascist cabal on SCOTUS did not pull this trigger before being assured that 2022/2024 and beyond have been secured.
The Christo-Fascists do have an Achilles heel and this may be our best hope: they are filled with hubris despite the astonishing gaps in their understanding of the world. 2022 and 2024 may not in fact be a done deal. The American Republic may not yet be dead. Honorable men and women insinuated into corrupted GOP state election machines in AZ, GA, MI, WI, and PA may have a moment of conscience. They may not prove willing to toss aside millions of black and student ballots. They may not be able to set aside entire election results and replace them with a corrosive, entirely corrupted GOP machine.
This may be even more likely if the votes cast are overwhelming. Many corruptible men and women may justify stealing or hiding a few votes, perhaps even 1% of the vote, but some of them may not stomach a wholesale theft, a blatantly transparent Christo-Fascist Coup.
That's our silver lining. That they pulled the trigger on Roe and the totalitarian devastation of civil rights before they had fully secured their Coup. That Americans wake up, turn out the fascists at the polls in overwhelming numbers, and a couple of dozen quiet heroes counting votes say
"Hell, no, GOP. I won't be part of a Coup. Today, I choose to honor my oath to the Constitution, instead."
