An Open Letter to The Washington Post

Calls for civil protest will destroy our future

This is an open letter written in response to this article published by the WaPo editorial board.

Hello,

I am emailing you in response to the recently published opinion by the editorial board calling for an end to protests at the homes of SC justices.

I will do my best in this message to conceal the terror and rage I feel watching my country fall to fascism. Instead, I will outline to you what seems to be the future I will have to face and ask, very sincerely, that you take the time to read it.

Following this supreme court decision, Democrats will lose the house and senate. Gerrymandering and anti-democratic policies across red states will prevent any amount of rage from giving Democrats power in enough US states to protect abortion at the local level, and even federal elections are and will be at risk from Republicans who will do everything in their power to reject inconvenient results.

As we speak, Wisconsin, a state which voted for Biden, elected a Dem governor, and in some elections has voted 60/40 for a dem legislature, is still controlled by the GOP. They are currently using their power to replace the officials who certified Biden’s win. Between voter suppression and outright refusal to certify results, it is possible, even probable, that Democrats will never again win the Presidency or Senate.

When Republicans retake the government, they will immediately attempt to pass a national abortion ban (as well as continue to consolidate their power in the courts). This ban, if passed, would lead to a federalism crisis.

But even if Republicans do not pass a national ban, GOP states will absolutely attempt to prosecute or even extradite women who get abortions in other states. Texas has already attempted to prosecute one woman for a miscarriage, and is turning citizens against each other with the promise of bounties. Mass data collection by unscrupulous tech companies and even outright GOP organizations (in the lineage of Cambridge Analytica) will use their data to track women seeking abortions (or even basic reproductive care!) and sell that information to states like Texas, using the bounties as a revenue stream.

A blue state, possibly California, will either refuse or even legislate refusal to extradite or punish women who fled to California for reproductive care, or far worse, it will comply. The courts and/or congress may even issue a descision or law like the fugitive slave act, requiring California to extradite. At this point, America will either collapse into fascism as the blue states back down, or it will Balkanize.

If abortion is not the trigger, something else will be. A dozen states are gerrymandered beyond recovery. The Senate and Supreme Court are deeply and inherently undemocratic institutions (by explicit design) which are acting to subvert the will of Americans. There is no longer any path within these institutions that will allow us to escape that fate.

I am 24 years old and engaged to be married next year. I am studying for law school. I have four siblings, a nephew, and a niece. I want kids of my own. I am terrified. What happens in the next 5–10 years will be the difference between raising a family and fighting a civil war. The human cost of what the Supreme Court is doing is not measured merely in women’s lives, but in the lives of 300 million Americans who desperately want to live well.

Calls for civility, like the one you published, are far past their expiration date. In my lifetime, calls for civility have not prevented the rise of an openly fascistic GOP, which harasses women outside of clinics, calls for violence against trans children, and storms the capital. Even if you can convince Democrats to act civilly, that will do nothing to save civility. The GOP is not asking or waiting for permission. Civility is already dead.

You have real power, as a journalist and as an institution, to change the future. You can stand for democracy by endorsing whatever is necessary to save it. You can understand that no election alone can give me my future back. Or, even if you can’t endorse “uncivil” protest, you could at least ignore it.

By condemning a perfectly legal and, frankly, barely confrontational, mode of protest, you are instead helping to hand the US over to the GOP.

And you will share responsibility for all the lives they destroy.