Trump has won.

From Slate:

In October, a three-judge panel intervened in a different case challenging a separate set of Louisiana abortion limitations. The panel declared that abortion providers lacked standing to challenge much or all of the state’s abortion regime, a ploy that can insulate anti-abortion laws from judicial review altogether.

Republican appointees to the 5^th Circuit make little effort to conceal their disgust with abortion. Ho accused women who terminate their pregnancies of furthering eugenics in a December concurrence. (His slander of these women is not only offensive but factually inaccurate.) Ho also praised the “the millions of Americans who believe in the sanctity of life,” insisting that Roe has no “basis in constitutional text or original meaning.” He even urged courts to hold hearings on “fetal pain,” writing: “If courts grant convicted murderers the right to discovery to mitigate pain from executions, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be even more solicitous of innocent babies.”

Where justice goes to die.

It's difficult to communicate how bad this is, as most of us are completely unaware of what a circuit court is, much less the 5th circuit, etc. But none of this is relevant anymore, and short of the icy hand of Death claiming the entire bench during a freak golfing accident, these men have immense power in shaping our day-to-day lives in invisible ways and will continue using it as a blunt hammer against all things different than them.

In my view today, Donald Trump was the Right's endgame: the summary of 30+ years of long-play gaming of the political system to favor highly focused outcomes from voter suppression to court-stacking, and of course, the endless war on women and by proxy, matriarchy.

(This may explain the pseudo-feminist fantasy appeal of Ms. Maisel, a character we are led to believe grew up in New York's upscale Jewish culture but also didn't. I digress...)

I also think contemporary analysis of his "appeal to voters" has been a little too forgiving in its reptilian brain simplicity. His message can be distilled to this: "You can fuck whatever you want."

This...freedom - an unchaining if you will - of the pure ego from all the lassos so peskily adorned by civil inconveniences like morality, law, etc is such a powerful suggestion from the top of America's Mt. Olympus that its easy to miss. I, too, am guilty of overthinking this.

Trump's impeachment will most likely plod along well into the next election cycle, cementing the right's hold on critical political infrastructure. This is foregone at this point.

I am out of answers and energy.

All I have left are warnings.