Thread by @BrynnTannehill

Just a reminder: because of non-proportional representation and demographics: in order to break the filibuster and overcome the R+6-7 bias in the Senate, Democrats would need to win 3 straight elections by 19 points to make abortion legal nationally. 1/n

They need to win the national vote several times in a row by 5+ points to have a shot at breaking even.

Most forecasters look at the 2024 landscape, and don't think there's much of a chance for Democrats to hold the Senate past the 2024 election. 2/n

Mitch McConnell has promised that if Republicans regain control of the Senate in 2022, that he will not let Biden put any more Supreme Court justices on the bench. He would keep seats open for up to 6 years if he had to. 3/n

Starting in January 2023, there is probably no meaningful hope of changing the composition of the court.

It is estimated that the US's already sky high maternal mortality rate will rise by 21% as a result of Dobbs v. Jackson. 4/n

Most states are so gerrymandered that changing the composition of the state legislature is effectively impossible. The GOP has been able to maintain super majorities in the WI legislature despite losing elections by up to 10 points. 5/n

Because SCOTUS has approved political gerrymanders vis GIll, in most states that ban abortion there is no realistic hope of reversing these bans by voting out the incumbents who put the bans in place.

Only 8% of US House seats are competitive due to gerrymandering. 6/n

A few states allow voter initiated ballot initiatives or state constitutional amendments. However, SCOTUS has allowed state legislatures to effectively overturn them. Example: Floridians voted to restore the voting rights of felons overwhelmingly. 7/n

The (gerrymandered) state legislature turned around and passed a law requiring felons to prove they have paid all court fees before rights can be restored. Problem is, records in Florida are so sloppy that it is effectively impossible to do so. 8/n

This requirements was as fair as a 1950's literacy test to vote, and thus the ballot initiative was thwarted by politicians who cannot be voted out of office, aided and abetted by a SCOTUS put in place by Presidents who lost the popular vote. 9/n

There are VERY few good options for bringing back abortion rights after Dobbs v. Jackson. The US political and legal system is so broken that it is completely immune to the will of the people. A lot of legal minded folks can see the writing on the wall. 10/n

The loss of an implied right to privacy under the 4th amendment, and institutionalizing the Glucksberg Test is likely the end of guaranteed access to birth control, same sex marriage, and the return of sodomy laws throughout the US South (at least 12 states). 11/n

AT the same time, LGBT people are being labeled pedophiles and groomers, our trans children are being taken away by the state, and our existences obscenity. It's not hard to see a future where Texas is has banned SSM again and is yanking kids from loving LGBT homes. 12/n

We can already see that the GOP wants to ban abortion throughout the US in 2025 by ending the filibuster and passing a national law. GOP legislators are talking about women being prevented from leaving states to get abortions elsewhere. 13/n

Other states are passing fetal personhood amendments that would potentially allow states like Texas to reach into blue states where abortion remains legal (e.g. New Mexico) to prosecute doctors in NM who provide abortions to Texans (possibly under the felony murder rule) 14/n

This sets the US up for the nightmare scenario of red states demanding extradition of women, doctors, and LGBT people who have fled to other states to escape the tyranny of religiously conservative red states that are no longer functioning democracies. 15/n

Yes, this is basically lining up the court for a Dred Scott II decision.

It also sets up the scenario where persecuted people don't stop at a blue state: the end of the line is Canada.

So what happens when the Trumpist US gives Canada the ultimatum: extradite them or else? 16/n

Anyone who studies this is well aware that the US has basically stopped being a functioning Democracy, and that it's only going to get worse from here. The right wing populist GOP is clearly telegraphing where it wants to go: permanent minoritarian Christian nationalist rule 17/n

People who don't study this within this analytical framework, but understand broadly that losing Roe v. Wade is bad and it FEELS like we're heading towards the Republic of Gilead, are rightly alarmed: they may not be conscious of all these things, but they sense the trend. 18/n

And they grasp in a general sense where this goes (though not the specifics)

We're heading towards either a corrupt, authoritarian dystopian nightmare for women, LGBT people, and non-Christians, or a fracturing of the US that ends the American experiment permanently 19/n

Unless these more than one HUGE black swan events, those are basically the options on the table. Pick one.

But somehow, institutionalists want to deny the facts of the situation as I detailed them. 20/n

They demand everyone behave as if voting and protests in designated zones is their best chance to change things, when anyone with a lick of analytic sense can clearly see that the GOP and SCOTUS DGAF about what the majority of the population want. 21/n

They're oblivious to the fact that these systems have failed, and that the public can no longer show their displeasure by voting incumbents out of office, put in different judges, pass ballot initiatives.

The GOP, and SCOTUS, know protests have no effect. 22/n

Which brings me to my point: I look at the hand wringing over the supposed optics of peaceful protesting outside of Kavanaugh's home, and want to put my head through my desk.

This is a mild escalation of things. 23/n

If they're so worried about the decorum, they should be be focused on the reasons WHY people have felt that protesting in front of the court is effectless. It's like complaining that about the fire department using axes in your house when it's burning to the ground. 24/n

Yeah, it's destructive, but way worse than what's happening in the bigger picture.

And the big picture for the US is ****ing terrifying. 25/n