Shards from the embattled republic

Links to ponder or perhaps enjoy:

Legal writer and defense lawyer Teri Kanefield: 

Deep doo-doo is a recognized legal term well known to defense lawyers everywhere.

Margaret Renkl, who lives in the neo-Confederate state of Tennessee:

Twenty-first-century Republicans are always demonstrating a truth that the Roman historian Tacitus understood back in the first century: It is part of human nature to hate someone you have hurt. ...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 

When you’re too lazy, arrogant, entitled, complacent, or cowardly to search for the facts and understand the consequences to others of your actions, then you aren’t “good people.” You can tell yourself otherwise so you can get through the day. You can hide among others like yourself who do the same thing. You can all gather in a place of worship and proclaim yourself God-loving. But, on some level, you know better.

... Republicans need a bogeyman to rally fearful conservatives because they have no platform to address the country’s economic, educational, and social issues. All they have is an enemies list.

 

Feminist journalist Jill Filipovic:

Every single state that has refused to expand Medicaid so that more moms and babies can get health care is a a “pro-life” state. Every single Republican-dominated legislature passing anti-abortion laws has at least a few Republican members who understand full well that criminalizing abortion is going to mean worse health outcomes for women, and will also mean fewer doctors and nurses willing to work in labor, delivery, and obstetrics. They do it anyway.

Columnist and student of our history Jamelle Bouie: 

The reality of the “parents’ rights” movement is that it is meant to empower a conservative and reactionary minority of parents to dictate education and curriculums to the rest of the community. It is, in essence, an institutionalization of the heckler’s veto, in which a single parent — or any individual, really — can remove hundreds of books or shut down lessons on the basis of the political discomfort they feel. “Parents’ rights,” in other words, is when some parents have the right to dominate all the others.

Catherine Rampell explains why Americans are so pessimistic about their finances. Sure seems right for tax season.

... Americans are frustrated by rising costs, yes. But they’re also frustrated by how much more attention they must pay to these rising costs — attention that is itself costly. This hidden strain on families is likely to continue for some time, even if some headline economic measures continue to improve. And if those improvements stop, and more people start to lose their income entirely, the current low-grade malaise could curdle into something much worse.

Student of politics Yascha Mounk via Persuasion podcast:

... conspiracy theories are actually deeply revealing of the person who believes in them. My model of the world is that it's a really chaotic place in which there are a bunch of powerful and affluent people, but nobody actually has a tremendous amount of agency, even the President of the United States. Even a billionaire feels very constrained within the various logics of their field of endeavor.

The truth is that nobody's fully in charge. And that's pretty scary. But if you believe in conspiracy theories, actually, what you end up thinking is that there are these thirty evil guys, and they get together at Bilderberg or Davos or whatever and make all the decisions; and if only we could replace them and put good people in charge, instead, then things will be great. There is something that is actually essentially reassuring about the implicit causal model of the world that conspiracists have, and I think that's part of the reason for its appeal.

Columnist for The Washington Post and retired naval officer Theodore Johnson: 

An uncomfortable question lurks beneath the anxiety about our nation becoming majority-minority. It is rarely asked out loud, and never in mixed company. The bluntness of the inquiry might feed existing divisions rather than lead to better race relations. But it must be asked and answered to satisfaction: Is the American republic for White people only?

 The question will strike the ear harshly. It can’t be helped. For the essence of it — how comfortable are White Americans in a democracy where people of color increasingly hold political power? — is the most important question in the nation today.

... This is subtly, but significantly, different from voter suppression. Angst and anger over particular groups’ increased participation in democracy is giving way to a despair associated with being governed by those groups.

Sunrise.