But Is It Fascism?

Johnson and Trump at the G7 meeting in Biarritz, 2019.
White House photo via Wikipedia.

George Monbiot compares the politics of Trump and Johnson to historical fascism in an opinion piece for the Guardian.  Excerpt:

Is the resurgence of fascism a real prospect, on either side of the Atlantic?

Fascism is a slippery, protean thing. As an ideology, it’s almost impossible to pin down: it has always been opportunistic and confused. It is easier to define as a political method. While its stated aims may vary wildly, the means by which it has sought to grab and build power are broadly consistent. But I think it’s fair to say that though the new politics have some strong similarities to fascism, they are not the same thing. They will develop in different ways and go by different names.

Trump’s politics and Johnson’s have some characteristics that were peculiar to fascism, such as their constant excitation and mobilisation of their base through polarisation, their culture wars, their promiscuous lying, their fabrication of enemies and their rhetoric of betrayal. But there are crucial differences. Far from valorising and courting young people, they appeal mostly to older voters. Neither relies on paramilitary terror, though Trump now tweets support for armed activists occupying state buildings and threatening peaceful protesters. It is not hard to see some American militias mutating into paramilitary enforcers if he wins a second term, or, for that matter, if he loses. Fortunately, we can see no such thing developing in the UK. Neither government seems interested in using warfare as a political tool.

Trump and Johnson preach scarcely regulated individualism: almost the opposite of the fascist doctrine of total subordination to the state. (Though in reality, both have sought to curtail the freedoms of outgroups.) Last century’s fascism thrived on economic collapse and mass unemployment. We are nowhere near the conditions of the Great Depression, though both countries now face a major slump in which millions could lose their jobs and homes.

Not all the differences are reassuring. Micro-targeting on social media, peer-to-peer texting and now the possibility of deepfake videos allow today’s politicians to confuse and misdirect people, to bombard us with lies and conspiracy theories, to destroy trust and create alternative realities more quickly and effectively than any tools 20th-century dictators had at their disposal. In the EU referendum campaign, in the 2016 US election, and in the campaign that brought Jair Bolsonaro to power in Brazil, we see the roots of a new form of political indoctrination and authoritarianism, without clear precedents.

It is hard to predict how this might evolve. It’s unlikely to lead to thousands of helmeted stormtroopers assembling in public squares, not least because the new technologies render such crude methods unnecessary in gaining social control. As Trump seeks re-election, and Johnson prepares us for a likely no deal, we can expect them to use these tools in ways that dictators could only have dreamed of. Their manipulations will expose longstanding failures in our political systems that successive governments have done nothing to address.

Though it has characteristics in common, this isn’t fascism. It is something else, something we have not yet named. But we should fear it and resist it as if it were.

What I Say: I get Monbiot's point. But nevertheless, beware of an October Surprise - a suddenly trumped-up war, or the Washington equivalent of the Reichstag fire.

How Time Does Fly

I just wanted to say that to somebody.  Hard to believe.  It was a great turning point in my life for several reasons not now of interest to anyone but me - and even I'm tired of hearing that old story, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing much.

I was going to write more here - went through several attempts at an essay, but they all kept turning into deadly dull autobiography, and none of them seemed quite right.

So I'll just say how quickly time goes by: from the summit of 60-something, the view is much larger and wider than at 20-something, and you wonder how you got to be this old so soon.  But this commonplace observation is hardly worth your time, so I'll just stop here and wish all my truckbuddies a happy, peaceful July.

God knows we can all use a rest after the past month of upsets and uproars in all directions.




Released in September 1970, this was the "official song" of my graduating class in high school - still a pretty tune after all these years.

Hello, Vlad - Donnie Calling

I'm tapering off on current events now - but I feel I have to post this for the record.



The long summary from CNN, horrifying but predictable, is here - well worth your time to read it. Excerpt:

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.

The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest. . . .

One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President.

In other words, the alleged leader of the free world is that big, dumb, conceited, hateful, fifth-grade braggart, the brown-noser, the school-yard bully, the creep that nobody liked except a couple of his partners in crime.

Is anyone surprised? The tapes and transcripts of those calls, if ever released, will be a bigger scandal than the Watergate tapes ever were.

I wonder when the public will get to hear or see them.


Bonus, 7/1/20: This just out from the Lincoln Project:

How Low Can You Go?

Back in the late 1980s when I was 30-something, my two girlfriends from college and I went out on the town one night at a popular new nightclub called Studebaker's - a franchise now apparently defunct. We usually got together for a long, leisurely chit-chat over lunch or dinner at some nice restaurant, but this time we decided to go see what all the fuss was about.

The joint was hopping:  a huge, brightly lit room with a crowded dance floor and a gleaming, honest-to-God Studebaker convertible perched on a dais at one end. Probably there was no motor in it, but it looked showroom-new, and people kept taking turns climbing in, sitting on the back where the top folds down, singing along to the oldies music and waving their arms to the rhythm - of course we eventually took our turn there, too. It was great fun.

The drinks were delicious, the music was marvelous, and everybody was joyously well-behaved.  At some point, the staff set up a limbo stick, and a crowd immediately lined up to go under it, dancing their way through.  Even your staid and sensible Head Trucker - normally the very soul of decorum - got into the spirit of things and joined the line.  The stick was not set very low, and people were merrily dancing their way under it with ease, leaning far backwards.  Everyone but me, that is.

Just as I got my waist under the stick, and my chin on a level with it, I realized too late that to go an inch lower would require the use of certain back muscles which had lain entirely undisturbed since I was a schoolboy climbing on the monkey bars in the playground, and who were now loath to be roused from their slumber.  Chagrined and perplexed as to how to proceed without knocking the bar down or collapsing on the floor, I hesitated for a second in order to give reverent consideration to the laws of physics.

But of course hesitation is fatal on the dance floor.  During that brief second, two other people, one on each side of me, not to be hindered for a moment, came limbo-ing through without so much as a by-your-leave, followed closely by other impatient folks.  The crowd was not about to allow time for a rethink or a redo - onward, onward, onward!  Too bad for you if you can't make it.  Out of our way!

Mortified, I somehow managed to get on through by a kind of crablike crawl - most undignified.  But this humiliating experience did teach me a significant lesson about human nature:  if you can't run with the big dogs, better stay up on the porch.  

This principle applies in ordinary, everyday life as well as in society at large.  It is one thing to dance your own dance to the music of the moment - it is quite another to be completely out of step and out of tune with everyone around you.  In the latter case, you can waste all your strength and joie de vivre in a lonely, forlorn, unwinnable battle - and what purpose would that serve? - or you can pull off the road and let the traffic diesel on by, going hell-for-leather whither it will.

Only rarely does a single determined soul turn the tide, in the name of a noble cause; but such cases are few, and beyond the strength of most.

Your Head Trucker, now old and gray, and less limber each year, cannot keep up with the mad rush of the modern world.  In the last month, I have used what little talent I have to express outrage and call for reform - just one small voice, joined to a great chorus of others.  I have said my piece, and more I cannot do.  The world is rushing madly around and beyond me, on either side - I have no power to stop the flood or divert it from what seems a looming disaster of willful ignorance and arrogance on both sides.

For several years past, I have paid less and less attention to the news of the day because it is so awful and so depressing - in this great moment of crisis, I have refocused my attention on current events, but now I notice that the upset and dismay are intruding upon my hours of rest and filling my waking mind.  News in this day of endless and often mindless reportage, 24/7, is very much an addictive drug - some people are even called, deservedly, "news junkies."

But it serves no good purpose for myself or for anyone else to fill up my thoughts, day and night, with such an obsession; in fact, it is positively detrimental to my physical and mental health. In any case, I have long since outlived my time - this present age, even before the current uproar started, is not at all to my taste. I feel myself very much a stranger in a strange land - an exile far from home. And of course, one can never go home again.

So let the current generation make of it what they will - perhaps a better world, or perhaps something even more ugly, vulgar, and brutal than the present one - even so, why should I let that destroy my serenity and peace of mind?  I have no power to help or hinder.  I am an old man without family or posterity, and much closer to the end of life's course than its beginning. Soon enough I shall be a thing that is past knowing. I have had my day, a full cup of joys and sorrows - but now the sun is low in the sky, and the night is coming when I shall rest from all labors.

So I think I will now attempt to redirect my thoughts and spirit to more peaceful things, abstaining from further comment on current events, unless something truly earthshaking happens - and please God, it won't. In the past month on this blog, I have stated very clearly where I stand, and I am sure that my stand is very much in line with the moral arc of the universe, and of the highest Good - that patient, impartial, eternal Love that moves the stars.

So this old dog is going to lie back down in that shady spot on the porch.  If any of y'all want to run yourselves crazy chasing cars, have at it. I'm done.

Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.

--Ecclesiastes 4:6

Happy Pride 2020

Imagine if there was a President who celebrated Gay Pride . . .




A few dates to remember in the progress of gay rights over the last half-century:

June 28 - July 3, 1969: Stonewall Riots, New York City

June 28, 1970: First Gay Pride marches, NYC and other cities

May 20, 1996:  Romer v. Evans

June 26, 2003: Lawrence v. Texas

December 22, 2010: Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed

September 20, 2011: DADT repeal implemented

June 26, 2013: United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry

June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges

June 15, 2020: Bostock v. Clayton County


Today's quote:

I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people:  they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications.

I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

--Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), 2008

Bonus: The Night Michelle Escaped from the White House

To Make Myself Clear

I am in process of listening to a podcast by CNN's Don Lemon about racism, doing it slowly so I can take notes and be sure I catch all the points that are made; perhaps I will summarize it here when I get done listening.  For now, though, I just want to say that I think I have made my thoughts and feelings very clear in the last few weeks about where I stand on the burning issues of the day:  police reform and equal justice under law.

Those issues - at the top of a long list of issues - need immediate attention, and are getting it, even as I type, in Congress as well as in many big cities and small towns across the breadth and depth of this country, with impetus from politicians and ordinary citizens alike.  Well and good.  What I call "a revolution of hearts and minds" has made a remarkable beginning and should be sustained at all levels until it is accomplished - by reasonable and lawful means.

I am on board with peaceable assembly and petitioning for redress of grievances, as the Constitution puts it; these are fundamental American rights, and the free exercise thereof has been essential from the very beginnings of this country in our never-ending progress towards "a more perfect union."

What I am NOT on board with are mindless rioting and hell-raising just because young hotheads can get away with it.  A protest and a riot are not the same thing.  Nor am I on board with mob violence and undemocratic destruction of public monuments.  If need be, a statue or monument can be removed to private property; there is no essential need to destroy it.  What is needed is to change people's attitudes, which violence does not do.  It gets people's attention, sure - but not the right kind of attention.

NOR am I on board with the cunning rhetorical trick of calling everything and everyone you don't like an example of "white supremacy" and "systemic racism."  That is painting with far too broad a brush; it is unfair, unjust, and untrue.  (I know - I grew up in the segregated South.  No one under 50 today has any idea of what legal white supremacy looks like.)

It will also not get the victims of police reform and political oppression what they want.  In society, as in physics, for every action there usually is an equal and opposite reaction.  An unreasonable, unjust push in one direction will likely provoke an unreasonable, unjust shove in the the opposite direction.  A punch in the eye invites a return punch on the nose.

It will also lose them the goodwill and support of many innocent bystanders and people of good will.  It is a fundamental rule of human life that if you want to get respect, you have to give respect.  It's not all about you.

And now - as I have privately feared - this orgy of destruction threatens to go far beyond the bounds of any conceivable justification.  There are voices - perhaps only a few, and certainly unreasonable - voices now calling for the destruction of monuments to Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and anyone else who does not meet an absurd 21st-century purity test.

Not even Lincoln - the closest thing we have to a secular saint in the pantheon of presidents - is exempt from condemnation.  Voices are calling for the destruction of his statues.  And for the destruction of Mount Rushmore.

And even for the destruction of all images of "white Jesus."

Okay, obliteration of identity, history, and religion - what does that sound like, folks?  What is the logical next step - a "final solution" to end the threat of "white supremacy" forever?  Huh?  Where is that line of thought going?

This is madness.  This is hateful.  This is would-be tyranny.  This is evil.

This is not America.  Two wrongs do not make a right.

This is the time to settle down and think carefully about how to make our union more just, more equal, more perfect.  For everyone.

It is not the time to strike a match to the powder keg, and destroy the good and the bad in one big blowup.

You have been warned, people.  Don't listen to the crazies on either side.  Don't go there.

Back off.  Please don't go there.  We would all regret it, and we would all suffer.  Horribly.


P.S. - Nobody has anything to fear from me - I'll be hiding under the bed, out of the crossfire.


More mindless violence: Gay state senator beaten, kicked in the head by rioters at Wisconsin statehouse. The Hill reports, "Demonstrators also tore down two statues, including Wisconsin's motto Forward and the likeness of Col. Hans Christian Heg. Heg was a Norwegian migrant and an abolitionist who died for the Union Army during the Civil War. The Forward statue stood outside of the state Capitol and is a symbol of progress and devotion, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society."

Notes from the Revolution, 6/22/20

. . . a revolution of hearts and minds . . .

Today in Talladega - see story below.
Click to enlarge.

An assortment of recent news stories that give food for thought and inform the conversation on the momentous issues now gripping this country. Your Head Trucker may have more to say about some of these things another time, but for now, take a look and see what you think.


Have Trump Voters Changed Their Minds?  CNN's Van Jones reports (June 19 2020):




Black Georgia Sheriff Justifies Shooting of Rayshard Brooks:  CNN's Brianna Kellar discusses the shooting with Burke County Sheriff Alonzo Williams (June 16, 2020):




I'm Gonna Talk about You, Connie: Local activist Gary Chambers calls out the Baton Rouge School Board in no uncertain terms last Thursday in Louisiana:



More video and background here. At the end of the meeting, the board did vote to change the name of the school.


Cuomo Fears Election Setup: Governor Andrew Cuomo believes Trump's objections to mail-in ballots are a ruse to ensure a contested election in November (June 22, 2020):




I Stand with Bubba:  Fellow NASCAR drivers and crews gave a massive, moving show of support to driver Bubba Wallace in Talladega, Alabama, today:

Richard Petty's statement of support.  Click to enlarge.

Update, 6/23/20: No Charges in NASCAR Noose Incident.  The FBI says that noose was the tied-up pullcord of a garage door, and had been hanging there that way since last fall.  Well, if it wasn't an act of hatred, it was certainly the occasion for a wonderful display of love and unity in Talladega.


Update, 6/25/20: NASCAR Releases Photo of the Noose. NASCAR president Steve Phelps said at a press conference that "a thorough sweep of the 29 tracks and 1,684 garage stalls at the speedway, authorities found 11 pull-down ropes tied in a knot -- but only one noose," the one found in Bubba Wallace's stall. "We further determined that the noose was not in place when the October 2019 race weekend began but was created at some point during that weekend," Phelps said. "Given that timing and the garage access policies and procedures at the time, we were unfortunately unable to determine with any certainty who tied this rope in this manner or why it was done."

Sunday Drive: It Is Well with My Soul

As performed by black Gospel singer Wintley Phipps:

The Pot and the Kettle

I don't feel like posting much today, but I will say this:  over on Joe.My.God., commenters are gleeful about the Republican infighting over the Empower Texans audio clip that trashes Gov. Greg Abbott and mocks his disability.  Well, that's fine - a couple of potty-mouthed Republicans inadvertently blowing up their own party is a fit subject for scorn and ridicule.

I have no personal feelings about Abbott one way or the other - he is an elected official at the head of the Republican hegemony in this state, and that's all I need to know.  But I notice that about half the commenters are ALSO mocking Abbott's disability themselves.  This is filthy.  It doesn't matter which end of the political spectrum you are on.  If you do that, you are no better than the creeps on the audio clip - at the bottom of the moral cesspool.  Despicable.

In the past, commenters on JMG have frequently said much worse things about other people, as well as relished the thought of another civil war in this country - "Yeah, bring it on, we'll kick their racist butts," and such as that, as if it would be like a teenage street-corner rumble - not giving a single thought to what immense harm and ghastly suffering it would cause many millions of people who, unlike their prissy, petty little selves, are not young and agile and fleet of foot.  For this reason I have tried to train myself in these last few years not to look at the comments on JMG and other websites - in fact, I wish comments would disappear from news sites altogether.

You cannot claim the moral high ground - the "right side"of any argument - if you are just as nasty and hateful as your opponents.  God forbid any of these neanderthal, rock-throwing creeps on either side gets the upper hand in our society - I can't support any of them.  The political spectrum is not flat - it is a ring, and at either end, extremism and egotism end in government-by-thug; there is very little difference between a thugocracy, a dictatorship, of the right or of the left.  Both are abominable.

Hatred is not an American value, and neither is contempt for the disabled.  This is not about freedom of speech at all - it's about simple decency, without which there can be no society worth living in.

Notes from the Revolution, 6/16/20

. . . a revolution of hearts and minds . . .

Police chief Joseph Wysocki marching with protesters
last week in Camden, New Jersey.

Starting Over: "The City That Really Did Abolish the Police," at Politico. Excerpt:

As a movement grows in American cities and suburbs to overhaul police departments and confront their long records of racially unjust, violent enforcement, Camden [New Jersey] is one rare—and complicated—success story, a city that really did manage to overhaul its police force and change how it operated. And it took a move as radical and controversial as what some activists are calling for today: Camden really did abolish its police department.

And then the city set about rebuilding the police force with an entirely new one under county control, using the opportunity to increase the number of cops on the streets and push through a number of now-heralded progressive police reforms. And with time, the changes started to stick in a department that just years earlier seemed unfixable.

Over the past two weeks, Camden has become an example of reform that works—cited in articles, tweets and on network shows as an example of what can go right. And it’s true that the reforms produced real change in the statistics: The excessive use of force rates plummeted. The homicide rate decreased. And new incentives laid the groundwork for a completely new understanding of what it meant to be a good cop.

“You had to change the underlying principles of the way police officers were being trained and taught, and the culture in the department,” said former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who supported the changes in Camden. “The most effective way to do that was to start over.”

Then and Now: CNN asked black activists who were on the front line of civil rights protests in the 1960s to comment on the current demonstrations.  Excerpt:

It's not that things have gotten so much worse (now). It's just it is so much more obvious and apparent to everybody.--Charles Black, a leader of the 1960s Atlanta Student Movement

You've never seen as many white people marching (as now) -- never in history. We've been carrying this burden by ourselves, and you feel, they say, (like you are) carrying the cross. You feel like the cross is a little lighter today because you see other people carrying the cross with you.--Miller Green, one of the Freedom Riders

What's different is the variety of people at those marches, and that is sweet sunshine from heaven to me ... This is a wake-up call, and more people woke up this time than before.--Dr. Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine

The March on Washington, 1963

Dancing in the Street: Last week in Atlanta, National Guard troops and protesters danced together - something that never happened in the 1960s:





Also last week, Politico interviewed ten National Guard troops about their presence in Washington, D. C., in the now-notorious Lafayette Square photo op:

Many Guardsmen said they felt uncomfortable with the way they were used to handle the unrest because demonstrators lumped them in with the police. They felt that while they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, their presence at times intimidated Americans from expressing their opinions and even escalated the tension.

And in the case of Guardsmen involved in the Lafayette incident, some felt used.

“As a military officer, what I saw was more or less really f---ed up,” said one D.C. Guardsman who was deployed to Lafayette Square last Monday and who, like some others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely. The official line from the White House that the protesters had turned violent, he said, is false.

“The crowd was loud but peaceful, and at no point did I feel in danger, and I was standing right there in the front of the line,” he said. “A lot of us are still struggling to process this, but in a lot of ways, I believe I saw civil rights being violated in order for a photo op."

What I Say:  It has done my heart good to see the innate respect for civil liberties and American ideals shown by many police and military all across the nation, from the front lines right on up to the highest command levels.  Despite the killings and beatings and horribly bad decisions some have made, it does seem to me, surveying the scene from my seat high up in the digital bleachers, that the majority of police and military people are - like most civilians - aghast at George Floyd's brutal murder as well as committed to safeguarding every American's inherent right peaceably to assemble and to seek redress of grievances.

Last week, a two-block-long parade of demonstrators marched right by the house here, and the police were marching with them, escorting them through town with police cars fore and aft: protesters and police all moving together with a common goal of peaceful assembly at the town square - which is as it should be.  Unfortunately, your Head Trucker was asleep at the time; had I been awake, I would have gone out and waved my American and rainbow flags in support.

If you were to survey the list of recent protests all across the nation, especially in the South, as I have done over on Wikipedia, and if you were to take the trouble to look at the source citations, as I have done, and watch the local news videos from all sorts of small towns and small cities, as I have done, you would notice crowds of blacks and whites mingling freely with united purpose.   This would not, could not have happened in my childhood in the segregated South.

This is not to deny the existence of racist attitudes in all parts of this country, as the nightly news keeps reminding us.  To be sure, hateful bigots still infest the backwoods and back alleys of the South and North - some of them are highly placed, and some are even pillars of the church - but there are many good and decent folks in those small towns too.  And in almost every demonstration I looked at in those small Southern towns, the police, the sheriff's deputies, and often the mayor were out in force - not against the protesters, but in solidarity with them, guaranteeing their right to safely protest.

In other words, they and we are all one American people, in or out of uniform, regardless of race, creed, sex, or color: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  And that gives me hope that we will all get through this time of outrage and sorrow together, make right what is wrong, and build a more perfect union - the unending task and high duty of every generation in these United States.

Supreme Court Rules: You Can't Be Fired for Being Gay

Wow!  Oh my, what a happy, happy day - the Civil Rights Act protects the gays and trans folk too:

Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences. Major initiatives practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit. 

Hooray!  Read the Court's 6-3 ruling (172 pages, PDF) here.


NBC News reports today's stunning decision:




And your Head Trucker is ashamed to report that he did not really get the whole trans thing until he learned about Aimee Stephens - who, sadly, died last month of kidney failure:



According to the ACLU, this is the first trans civil rights case ever heard by the Supreme Court.


In short:  If you don't have time to read the whole decision, Amy Howe at Scotusblog offers an overview of the ruling, written by Justice Gorsuch - remember how everybody feared he would be such a conservative jurist? - as well as the dissenting opinions.  Among other things, she notes:

Gorsuch addressed some of the broader concerns that the employers had raised in the three cases, about the effect of the court’s ruling on issues like bathrooms in the workplace, locker rooms and dress codes. None of those issues, Gorsuch reiterated, were before the court in these cases. Instead, he stressed, the court is ruling only that an “employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.” Whether sex-segregated bathrooms or locker rooms or dress codes might violate Title VII “are questions for future cases,” Gorsuch wrote.

The same is true, Gorsuch added, for questions involving the relationship between Title VII and federal laws and constitutional provisions protecting religious freedom. Although “other employers in other cases may raise free exercise arguments that merit careful consideration, none of the employers before us today represent in this Court that compliance with Title VII will infringe their own religious liberties in any way.”

Caution:  It appears from a quick glance at the Wikipedia article on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the law applies only to an employer "who has fifteen (15) or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year"; however, your Head Trucker is no lawyer, and you should consult an attorney if you have any questions about the law.

Silver lining:  Michelle Goldberg opines in the New York Times on the irony of this decision in the era of Trump:

[T]he thrilling 6-3 decision the Supreme Court just issued upholding L.G.B.T. equality wouldn’t be as devastating to the religious right if it had happened under a President Clinton.

Before Monday, you could legally be fired for being gay, bisexual or transgender in 26 states. Now the court has ruled that gay and transgender people are protected by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex. The decision has extra cultural force because it was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, and joined by the conservative chief justice John Roberts. . . .

The phrase “But Gorsuch” is shorthand for how conservatives justify all the moral compromises they’ve made in supporting Trump; controlling the Supreme Court makes it all worth it. So there’s a special sweetness in Gorsuch spearheading the most important L.G.B.T. rights decision since the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

This isn’t simply Schadenfreude. The fact that this momentous ruling was written by a right-wing judge sends a message that progress on L.G.B.T. rights will be very hard to reverse.

More is needed:  Justice Kavanaugh's dissent is well-written, well-reasoned, and well worth reading in full, going as it does to the very heart of constitutional government in these United States.  Susan Howe summarizes:

He began by acknowledging that the arguments for “amending” Title VII “are very weighty.” He also observed that the Supreme Court “has previously stated, and I fully agree, that gay and lesbian Americans ‘cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.’” But, he continued, the job of judges is “not to make or amend the law,” and, as it currently stands, “Title VII does not prohibit employment discrimination because of sexual orientation.” . . .

Kavanaugh contended (and appeared to agree with his colleagues in the majority) that courts should follow the ordinary meaning of the words in a statute, because that is how both members of Congress and the public would understand the law. . . .  And here, in Kavanaugh’s view, the ordinary meaning of the phrase “discriminate because of sex” does not extend to discrimination based on sexual orientation. . . .

Kavanaugh concluded by acknowledging “the important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans. Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law. They have exhibited extraordinary vision, tenacity, and grit—battling often steep odds in the legislative and judicial arenas, not to mention in their daily lives. They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today’s result.” But Kavanaugh reiterated his belief that Congress, rather the Supreme Court, should have been the source of that result.

Frankly, your Head Trucker is inclined to agree with Justice Kavanaugh on the simple basis of plain English.  In all honesty, it does seem like doublespeak for Justice Gorsuch to say on the one hand that the Court must be bound by the plain text of the law; and on the other hand, to define the word sex with a meaning that is not part of the plain English meaning.  To say that cat means all four-legged creatures is not to state the meaning of the word, but to add meaning to the word.

However, if a law were to forbid, let us say, cruelty to cats, and you interpret it to mean that cruelty to all four-legged animals is forbidden, then that is good morality, but bad English and bad interpretation, and highly liable to be contradicted by another interpreter.  Because it is good morality, we will accept what the Court has so graciously given us; but can we count on it to be a lasting gift as years go by?  Or merely a cupful of smoke?

It's also important to note that the Court's ruling does not rest on any constitutional right; the justices based their decision solely on the Civil Rights Act, which is merely a federal law, not the Constitution itself.

Therefore, to remove all possible doubts and objections in future, it is imperative that Congress itself amend the Civil Rights Act to specifically prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Do keep that in mind, fellas, as we move forward - always remember that the Supreme Court can change its collective mind, and often has, down through the years. The protections we received today must be cemented into federal law at the first opportunity.

The same goes for for the right to same-sex marriage declared by the Court five years ago in Obergefell v. Hodges - which Chief Justice Roberts angrily dissented from at the time as another example of "legislating from the bench."

Of course, Congress can change its mind, too, and laws can be repealed; even provisions of the Constitution can be changed or removed by amendment.  Nothing in this life is ever entirely sure and certain forever; but a law enacted by vote of the People or their representatives is somewhat harder to overturn than a court decision, especially if it reflects the popular will of the time.  And according to the polls, it seems that equal rights for gays and trans folk is indeed the popular will in America at this time, by about 2 to 1.  So let's be sure to nail this ruling down in law.

Meanwhile, again I say: Hooray! The gays are people too. We have a right to exist. And work and live and love, just like everybody else on this planet. Hooray!  Hooray!  God bless America!

And I have lived to see this day.


Bonus:  Former President Obama tweeted out this message today: