America 1.0 had jumped the shark before Roe decision, but we can start anew

There were perhaps a couple of dozen abortion-rights protesters outside the venerable U.S. Supreme Court steps at 10 a.m. on the gray summer Friday when Roe v. Wade’s nearly 49-year run as law of the land finally and predictably ended. As soon as news spread of the justices’ 6-3 ruling spread, there were hundreds, and as morning turned into afternoon there were thousands, as tears morphed into defiant chants: “We won’t go back! We won’t go back!” and “Our bodies, our choice!”

Across the way, Democratic members of Congress — having failed for decades, or arguably not trying too hard, to codify women’s reproductive rights — streamed out of the Capitol and burst into a confusing chorus of “God Bless America,” apparently celebrating the passage of gun safety legislation and oblivious to the protest.

They were shouting, and singing, into a vast abyss. The object of the crowd’s rancor — the six right-wing justices, including several who’d lied to the nation during their confirmation hearings that the 1973 Roe decision that established national abortion rights was settled law — probably were not there. America’s angst-ridden afternoon seemed to prove how hard it is to know what to say, or sing, or do, when something is dead or dying.

Because let’s be honest: America 1.0 — the analog version of democracy that was drafted here in Philadelphia in the late 18th century — drove off a cliff in 2016. That was the year that Mitch McConnell — the soulless, corporate-funded, respectable face of the movement to deny legitimacy to this nation’s first Black president — grabbed the steering wheel while stealing the Supreme Court seat that helped make Friday possible. That was the same year that the kind of authoritarian clown that Alexander Hamilton and James Madison tried to warn us about hopped into the driver’s seat and, fueled by populist resentments, slammed through the guardrails.

Six years later, we keep bouncing off the rock wall. First was Jan. 6, 2021, when the unthinkable of an attempted coup plotted right in the Oval Office was nearly pulled off, and violence in the very halls of the Capitol left five dead bodies and a trail of blood. Now comes June 24, 2022 — a date which will live in infamy, as a runaway Supreme Court with the lowest level of public trust since polling began, with five lifetime justices named by presidents who were losers of the popular vote, made a ruling that a whopping 66% of the American people did not want.

But here’s the scariest thing: We still haven’t crashed into the bottom of the gorge. Justice Clarence Thomas made that abundantly clear Friday in a shocking concurring opinion in which he said the high court’s willingness to undo the established precedent of abortion rights is just the beginning of an era when the hallmarks of expanded societal rights in America — including the use of contraception, same-sex marriage, and LGBTQ rights in general — will be on the chopping block. The same Justice Thomas whose wife was an enthusiastic participant in the events leading up to Jan. 6.

Did I mention that all these things are connected?

The American counterrevolution already occurred in 2016. That’s when a Congress controlled by senators from smaller states getting a minority of the votes cleared the way for a president (also elected by the minority) to anoint unaccountable lifetime judges who can impose their philosophy on the majority of Americans who think otherwise. That philosophy is deeply rooted in ideas — white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, and domination by an elite oligarchy — that trace back to when our badly outdated and deeply flawed Constitution was written.

Friday was a big day on many levels. The end of unrestricted, nationwide access to abortion is a stunning rollback, upending the American story that we tell ourselves of ever-expanding civil rights, and it will mean very real pain for people in terms of forced births, or dangerous covert procedures, or just the loss of personal freedom. But it’s also one of those pivot points — like Jan. 6 or Nov. 8, 2016 — for taking stock of the American Experiment writ large.

It is a strange time because there is so much happening. And some of it is imbued with hope — but hope that feels weighed down, perhaps fatally, by America’s baggage. Just a couple of hours after the Supreme Court ruling, the House gave final passage (with a light sprinkle of bipartisanship) to the first major gun safety legislation this millennium — a half-a-loaf measure that isn’t the major gun control that’s needed but will save lives through improved background checks and more money for mental health.

Yet that step forward came just one day after a giant step back by our radical right-wing Supreme Court, which greatly expanded the right to carry firearms in public and thus nullified successful gun control laws in a half-dozen states. Like the Roe v. Wade overturn, the court’s Second Amendment ruling was wildly out of step with the American people.

» READ MORE: What Supreme Court leak confirmed: This is no longer the America we grew up in

Then there are the House Jan. 6 committee hearings, which for one shining moment captured the nation’s attention by exquisitely making the case that Donald Trump’s coup-plotting and exhortations to political violence were clearly part of a criminal conspiracy. The hearings have boosted public support for criminal charges — now 58%, and that was before a new round of damning testimony — and have perhaps grabbed the attention of the Justice Department, with a spate of FBI raids on top GOP officials. But again, Trump’s history of getting off the hook (and perhaps fear of more Jan. 6-style violence) has many doubting if justice can be done.

This is the intersection of two problematic things. The first — America’s ancient strains of racism, sexism, and a growing Christian nationalism, fearful of change in a nation of growing education and diversity — is the stuff of entire books. But it’s important to know that their faction is not the majority of Americans. Which brings us to the second problematic thing: That this smaller faction is using the quirks of the American system to dominate.

In the wake of Friday’s Roe decision, leaders of the Democratic Party expressed outrage but offered little in the way of practical solutions other than begging voters to give them a more workable congressional majority in November’s election. But this seems the much-discussed definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different solution. We don’t just need to work the system better. We need a better system.

The all-time low 25% approval rating for the Supreme Court is the ideal opportunity for radical reform. That means expanding it to 11 and probably 13 members — which would acknowledge its expanded workload but also wipe away the stain of McConnell’s immoral hijacking of the court in 2016. Expanding the court would also be a time to start appointing justices for fixed terms and not for life.

In the short term, this would require some kind of miracle inside the Beltway — a spinal transplant for President Joe Biden, perhaps, and then using that new backbone to somehow line up 50 votes for ending the filibuster, just one of the many gimmicks thwarting true democracy. Miracles do happen in politics, if the people make them happen. Everyday folk are going to have to march, boycott, block traffic, or whatever because voting is both important and not enough.

And maybe a broader, more muscular movement can do the even more impossible — acknowledge that the 1789 Constitution isn’t all that for governing a gigantic, diverse nation in 2022. We could start by scrapping the Electoral College and tackling the antidemocratic nature of the Senate, and the other pro-democracy reforms that are now beyond our reach. This would be a revolution to create America 2.0 — but a peaceful revolution is what this moment calls for.

The bus plunge of American democracy is already crashing. We won’t get anywhere until we figure out how to build a new bus.

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