Donald Trump’s ongoing tantrum over the so-called “SAVE America Act” is puzzling, because there’s no reason to think that it will help Republicans win. College-educated people, who are disproportionately Democrats, are more likely to have the ID required to vote than rural and working-class voters, who lean more Republican. 

But honestly, I don’t think it’s that deep. Trump hates voting, full stop. He wants to be a king or a dictator. So anything that takes away someone’s right to vote is a step down the path to his goal, which is the end of elections. That, and the obvious fact that he’s not smart or patient enough to understand minutia, so explaining how his bill could backfire won’t register.

The mainstream media is treating the Supreme Court’s decision to protect birthright citizenship as a major loss for Trump, but sharp observers swiftly recognized something disturbing: Four of the Court’s nine justices voted in favor of pretending the 14th Amendment simply doesn’t exist. Oh, they have some strained argument of seeing some secret “just kidding!” caveat to the plain text that says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens, but no one believes they are operating in good faith with such reasoning.

Of course they also claim to be “originalists,” which was also always untrue. But that Republicans are liars is not news. What is novel and alarming is that the Supreme Court has become so cavalier about overt social engineering. 

It’s not just that the four justices were on the verge of blowing up a constitutional amendment that has defined American citizenship since 1868. In another decision this week, the conservative majority decimated a century of jurisprudence protecting the right of Congress to set up independent federal agencies. This continues their project of giving Trump king-like powers. 

I’m old enough to remember how Republicans used to accuse the left of “social engineering,” mostly because we want legal abortion and marriage equality. That was always a lie, because both movements were about recognizing legally what people were already doing. 

These Supreme Court decisions look way more like genuine social engineering. It’s tearing up — or getting close to tearing up — generations of laws that most people take for granted, and all because a bunch of deluded ideologues think they can manifest their fantasy of a U.S. free of both regulation and non-white people. These people make even rigid communists seem down to earth and commonsensical.

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On a recent short for “Standing Room Only,” I took a look at the recent, predictable Fox News tantrum over “Supergirl.” Their argument against it? A woman can’t do what she does! Only a man can, uh, shoot lasers out of his eyes, fly or leap tall buildings in a single bound. 

Of course, this is really silly. Neither men nor women can do superhero stuff, which is why it’s in a movie that relies on CGI and not the Olympics. But this delusion helps explain the Supreme Court ruling upholding laws that ban trans girls from sports, even if they never experienced male puberty and are no different than cis girl athletes. 

Conservatives literally want to believe that having an XY chromosome instead of an XX confers superpowers. Don’t let Brett Kavanaugh’s bad faith ode to female athletes fool you. MAGA hates cis female athletes as much as trans ones, because they defy the right-wing belief that all men are physically superior to all women. 

Think I’m exaggerating? Trump told anti-trans activist Riley Gaines that he could beat her at swimming. She is bigot, but she did place 5th in an NCAA national championship. The average man, who is middle aged and has a 40” waist, probably couldn’t beat her. Trump can’t even compete with her at climbing one step. 

It’s frustrating because feminists and LGBTQ+ activists aren’t denying that, at the top levels of sports, cis male athletes are stronger and faster than cis female peers. Testosterone confers some advantages! But what the right wants to deny is that human bodies are also pretty diverse, especially when you factor in age and fitness training. A young woman is often stronger than an older man. Fit women can often lift heavier weights than men who don’t work out.

What right-wing men want is to be told they’re physically superior to all women, regardless of reality. And trans people are getting screwed over to uphold that fantasy.

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