Rowing back progress

Although today’s US Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs Wade had been leaked some time ago, the reality of it still came as a shock. Even as economic inequality has deepened in the last decade or so, the left has been able to console itself with the idea that the social gains of the last 50 years or so were more or less secure. It’s harder to believe that now, with the Conservative wing of the Court openly gunning for every progressive gain from voting rights to interracial marriage.

On the other hand, the fact that this decision is so clearly out of step with US public opinion, and has only come about as a result of the flagrantly undemocratic packing of the Court, might be the straw that finally breaks the unfathomable reverence US liberals pay to the Constitution, a document drawn up two centuries ago by white male slaveowners to preserve their dominance over society. If that is too much to hope for, then at least the elections in November might see some blowback against a Republican Party which engineered this assault on the civil liberties of 51.1% of the population.