The Counterpublic Papers vol. 7 no. 23

Last week Rusty Bowers, Arizona House Speaker, testified before Congress about the orchestrated coup attempted plotted (poorly) by Trumpian cabal. Speaking plainly and clearly he laid out a case as to why Trump should be prevented from holding office (at least) and should be tried for insurrection.

And then not long after his testimony, he was asked whether he would vote for Trump again if he  ran against Biden in 2024.

He replied in the affirmative.

For those looking for a reason why Bowers would simultaneously seek to defend democracy from Trump and promise to vote for him if he were to run, we only need look to Friday’s ruling, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. Bowers’ defense of democracy was deeply religious—during the hearing Bowers said explicitly “…it is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired…to do [what Trump and others] just asked me to is foreign to my very being.” He wasn’t asked his opinion about when life begins, or about personal autonomy. Neither of those ideas were important to the trial. But it doesn’t take much to make the connections. For Bowers and arguably millions of others, Trump was a broken vessel put there by God to make what happened Friday happen.

How to respond given this?

Anyone who thinks that abortion providers have been sitting on their hands for the last few years haven’t been paying attention—arguably since Trump’s election they’ve been preparing for this moment. The leak likely helped increase the pace of their planning and may have saved lives. President Biden did make a speech forcefully defending women’s right to choose and promising to defend that right—particularly as expressed through women traveling over state lines to garner abortions, through the courts—and noting that Roe v. Wade will be on the ballot in the Fall 2022 and 2024 elections. However when asked whether he believed the SC was in need of structural transformation, he simply replied that he thought the decision was wrong. Largely because the Democratic Party has been a center-right party committed to stability and security through markets to the extent they’ve been committed to structural transformations they’ve only been committed to the structural transformations needed to make us (and the government itself) behave like market actors. They haven’t been committed to the structural transformations needed to make our society more democratic in several decades.

Because of this, while Ocasio-Cortez is right we cannot naturally assume the Democratic Party will do anything more than urge people to vote, defend individuals and businesses who support a woman’s right to choose, and fight against laws such as those proposed by Mike Pence to make abortion illegal nationally. It’ll be our job going forward to make the party (and politics in general) function productively—to make it articulate a more forceful vision that includes structural transformation. Without that productive vision—without a vision that gives people something to fight for as well as strategize around—we will soon find ourselves in an even more dystopian world than we currently seem to be in.

(And yes. The Democratic Party too is a broken vessel. Yet and still, the turn into politics requires a party and it’s the one we have.)

For those interested in things to do now, this provides a good start. And for those interested in research on abortion politics, the folk at Politics and Gender have removed the paywall for articles dealing with abortion politics until the end of August.

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When the ruling was leaked one of my friends suggested that they’re going to come after Brown vs Board next. On Friday another of my friends suggested that affirmative action in college admissions was next.

Both of these statements reflect a certain type of common sense that I think has to be contested.

This common sense is based on three different propositions.

First that the cabal responsible for the ruling cares about racial segregation as a sort of primary organizing factor as opposed to a secondary one. Second, that the cabal responsible cares for how resources in elite institutions are allocated—although we’ve a long way to go when we talk about Affirmative Action in college admissions we’re really talking about Harvard, not the small private universities that dot much of the Midwest. Similarly we’re talking about the University of Iowa, not Iowa State, University of California Berkeley, not Sacramento State. Finally, it presumes that Roe v. Wade isn't already a black issue.

None of these are true. The cabal we’re now in conflict with does care about race. Their conception actively conflates race, nation, state, and religion. When Rep. Mary Miller applauds Friday’s ruling as a victory for “white life” it isn’t really important whether she meant “white life” or “right to life.” What’s important is that the crowd not only didn’t respond quizzically they responded affirmatively. What’s important is that swapping out “right to life” with “white life” doesn’t really change the substance of her speech that much—even though there are definitely black men and women who are happy with the ruling. Ending abortion in their view will help increase the odds that they’re able to return the nation to its roots.

But the natural set of policies that come from this are policies connected to what Margot Cannady calls “the straight state” (and what Jackie Stevens wrote about in Reproducing the State). Clarence Thomas said as much when he suggested that he’d revisit substantive due process.

One of the ways that the right has achieved power and cultural prominence is through creating a robust network of alternative institutions. While I wouldn’t go as far as to argue that they don’t care about Harvard, I’d go as far as to argue that the white nationalist evangelicals don’t believe that Harvard is legitimate, and if they could somehow dissolve Harvard with the strike of a pen they would. Given this, why would they care about how slots at a school like Harvard are decided?

Affirmative Action is likely to fall perhaps as soon as the upcoming year. But it’ll be a byproduct of the power that the white nationalist evangelical right has achieved, not a central result.

There’s one other problem with these arguments.

Finally, as to the idea that Roe vs. Wade isn’t already a black issue? It is. 

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I’ve been listening to a summer playlist based on War’s “Summer.” Most of the songs in the playlist are ones I grew up listening to. But listening to them with adult ears makes me even more appreciative. Parliament Funkadfelic’s “Aqua Boogie (Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)” never made much sense to me when I heard it as a kid. But there’s a line that, once I heard it with adult ears, blew my mind:

“With the rhythm it takes to dance to what we have to live through, you can dance in the water and not get wet.”

I don’t think you can find a more succinct and poignant conception of resilience in the face of oppression in the sonic arts.

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More to say, a lot more, but I’m out. If you’re in the Baltimore area, stop by Red Emma’s on Thursday. A lot of my folk have turned to writing memoirs (I still have to finish my thoughts on Adolph Reed’s memoir that isn’t a memoir but that’ll have to keep). Baynard Woods is one of them. Looking forward to hearing him talk about his new memoir Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness. Hope to see some of you there. And keep your head up. Can’t see the way forward if you’re looking at the ground.