Welcome to the GOP’s Fascist Dystopia

Checking Kids Genitals? Banning Birth Control? The GOP’s Fully Authoritarian Now — And It’s Going to Get Worse

Yesterday, suddenly, a development that had many had been dreading. A Trump-appointed judge in Texas blocked women’s access to Mifepristone — a major reproductive health drug — across America. Swiftly, in response, thankfully, another judge ruled that it was — as it is — perfectly safe, the first judge blocking it on fictitious grounds of being unsafe. That sets up a crisis. It leaves the nation in limbo. Now, some combination of the FDA, the President, and the Supreme Court must decide.

Think about that for a second. One judge in Texas. An extremist, a fanatic, who’s centered his career on blocking birth control on religious grounds. Striking down access to it nationwide. Leaving all of a country of over 300 million people — more than half of it women — in limbo. What do we learn from this?

They’re not just coming for Red States. America’s lunatics — its fascists, theocrats, authoritarians — are coming for all of America. They want to use the law as a cudgel and as a weapon — to make it illegal to…live in a modern society, in a modern way. To enjoy basic freedoms. And they won’t stop here. This is vivid disproof of the argument that the lunatics will see sense. It’s vivid proof, on the other hand, of the opposite point of view, which many of us have taken: that they will go all the way. In this case, that means coming for even more fundamental forms of birth control, like the pill itself, or condoms, just as they’ve said out loud. They are that regressive, that crazy, that fanatical.

After all — as we’ll discuss — they already know that this is a losing issue, politically, in an historic way. A huge majority of Americans — upwards of 70% — think it’s crazy to crack down on reproductive health and women’s rights. Get to the pill and condoms, and those numbers go up to 90%. But the Republicans? They don’t care anymore.

That needs to be said and understood out loud. They don’t care anymore how unpopular their policies and agendas are. They don’t care how much ire they raise in Americans. They don’t care that their regressive dystopia is a major, historic loser politically — in race after race. They don’t care anymore, because, well, they have bigger plans for all of us, which involve living in a fascist dystopia before democracy can reclaim its mantle.

Why not? Let me flip the question on its head.

The fascist dystopia the GOP wants to make America? It’s attempts are now accelerating. Hardening. Intensifying. They are mounting a blitzkrieg on democracy — a legislative one — in the last ditch, desperate hope of destroying democracy, so that there’s none left to fight back with. So that by the time Americans — who reject all this en masse — can oppose it, it’ll simply be too late. At least in enough ways, enough places, enough forms. They are trying to outrun the clock of their own impending implosion. Their reasoning is that if they can turn America into a fascist dystopia before they can get fully taken out of power, well, then they’ve succeeded.

And in a sense, they’re right.

Let me chart, quickly, how bad the acceleration of the GOP’s attempts to turn America into a fascist dystopia really is. Just in the last few weeks alone? The Tennessee Three were expelled from the House, for “breaching decorum” — protesting guns after yet another school shooting. Unconstitutional, a removal of not just free speech, but the Mother Right of self-governance: they represented hundreds of thousands of voters. Pretty good way to remove votes, huh? Idaho made it illegal to cross state lines to seek womens’ healthcare. What does that mean? Border checks? A theocratic gestapo checking women’s emails and text messages, their intentions about going to another state? Putting families and friends who help them in prison? Meanwhile, Texas wants to set up an SS-style vigilante paramilitary border force immune from prosecution — giving the most violent Jan-6th-style lunatics guns and badges. Florida banned abortion at 6 weeks, before most know they’re pregnant — and that’s after banning books, history classes, and the word gay. Meanwhile kids — kids — are under attack in state after state just for being different.

The most insane form of all this? The GOP wants to check kids genitals. Yes, really. We’re going to discuss that. But first, see what it is. An acceleration. A spiraling out of control. The fanatics are drunk with power, mad with hate and rage. They are turning America into their fascist dystopia, in surreal ways now. Checking kids private parts? What happens after that?