Ya can’t blame Republicans for always making rookie mistakes. When it comes to being good humans, they’re rookies. At best. They’re an object lesson in what happens when you do things for all the wrong reasons. They’ve focused on ending Roe v Wade – and “privacy” as a “thing” in American jurisprudence – for fifty years. Not because they actually care about babies or morality of any kind. Every play in the Republican playbook – like every play in the conservative playbook – is meant to get and hold power. The new twist on the playbook is the addition of the word “forever” in all its playmaking. And the new twist on the conservative play to end Roe v Wade is to make that move the vanguard for cancelling ALL rights to privacy.

The Republican/Conservative battle plan focused all its marbles on eliminating Roe v Wade. For reference, “it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.” This is NOT something evangelicals care deeply about. If they really cared about babies as humans, they’d continue caring about their humanity once they left the womb. There’s no evidence that’s ever been the case.

On the one hand, “why now?” is because the conservative court Mitch McConnell and the right wing money built for themselves – spitting in the majority’s face – is finally all in place. They might as well take their shot. But, hurrying them along faster than they’re probably ready is the fact that prosecution – for Trump and countless underlings and co-conspirators – is imminent. Political campaigns are built on money and advertising. It’s going to be hard for Republicans to do that when both their money and their candidates are under indictment for “seditious conspiracy”.

Brian Ulrich – a member of the far-right Oath Keepers – entered a guilty plea last Friday to seditious conspiracy making him the second Oath Keeper to cop to sedition. The Oath Keepers’ co-founder Stewart Rhodes along with eleven other Oath Keepers have all been charged with seditious conspiracy. The thing about “conspiracy” is you don’t have to be actively engaged in a conspiracy to be considered a conspirator. Being aware of a criminal act – but not reporting it – that’s another way to conspire. We always have to ask “why?” Why not report it? Are you protecting someone? Who would that be?

If the Oath Keepers are guilty of “seditious conspiracy” then others in their orbit will be equally guilty. That’s how conspiracy works.

I hope the Republicans understand that a thread pulled on the insurrection sweater will unravel the “Trump won in 2016” sweater, too. Take Russia out of the Donald Trump equation and Trump never becomes POTUS. The GOP leadership knew even before they nominated Trump that Russia owned him. As current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy put it upon entering a GOP leadership meeting on June 25, 2016 (having just exited a meeting about Ukraine), “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!”

If you thought the guy you were about to nominate to be president was being compromised by the leader of a hostile foreign government, wouldn’t you want to explore that a little further? Wouldn’t you want to involve the FBI, say, in establishing whether this is true or not? The Republicans didn’t do any of that – explore the story or involve the FBI in their suspicions. Instead, the Republican leadership chose to “keep it in the family”.

That’s keep the fact that their about-to-be presidential nominee was under Putin’s thumb a secret. Now, why would any patriotic political party do such a thing? Maybe they ain’t so “patriotic”… The reason the GOP doesn’t want anyone to know that their presidential candidate was and is a corrupt traitor is because then we’d all realize that they, too, are all corrupt traitors. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long for those realizations to BE the zeitgeist.

The Trumpublican base couldn’t give a toss about legitimacy. The rule of law and the Constitution are impediments to their permanent minority rule agenda. But aspiring to permanent minority rule and actually achieving it are two very different things.

I think of it like show biz. Having been atop the show biz mountain (I’ve written and produced feature films and TV shows working alongside some of the very biggest names in the business), I know this: getting atop the mountain is indeed hard but it’s nothing compared to what it takes to STAY on that mountain.

That’s what screws up most people who achieve celebrity or fame – or even the big money. Their goal, pretty much, was to get those things. Hoping to get them isn’t the same has actually getting them. Actually getting fame can overwhelm. It’s far more powerful a thing than most of us can imagine. But, having such a high intensity spotlight trained on your every move is more invasive and disruptive than most people can even imagine.

What drops next? We don’t know what happens when a vicious, white, backward-looking minority attempts to impose their will on a diverse, aspirational population. America in 2022 is not Weimar Germany. And Americans aren’t American the way Germans are German. That is, diverse Americans aren’t American the way white Americans are “American”. In the eyes of many white Americans, diverse Americans aren’t in any way “American”.

Germans had an easy time getting other Germans to fall in line with fascism. White supremacists and Republicans here in America won’t have it anywhere near as easy. The people they’ll be trying to impose their will on are neither white nor Republican. And they happen to be the majority. By a lot.

Now women are going to put Republicans in their electoral crosshairs. I can definitely see how Democrats and women and progressives sell what they want America to be going forward. I’m not sure I can see how Republicans will do the same thing. For starters, what are the Republicans selling (aside from racism, misogyny, ignorance, hatred and gross incompetence)? You have to sell something in a political season. If you don’t know what you’re selling, the other guy will sell it for you and at your expense.

The GOP is now the poster child for “Be careful what you wish for!” The problem is, whatever those pirates are wishing for, it always seems to be America that “gets it”.