Monday, December 13, 2021

ANS -- Facebook conversation about Gavin Newsome, from Sara Robinson

Here's another interesting Facebook conversation.  it's about Gavin Newsome's dramatic move about guns, parallel to Texas' abortion law.  
--Kim



This is brilliant. I was waiting for some state to do it, and I guessed a while back that if anyone would, it would be Newsom.
This is a trademark move for him: make a big gesture that brings forward the human realities of the debate, and let the results re-frame the political conversation around it. The first time he did this was in 2005, when he was the mayor of San Francisco. He simply declared that same-sex marriage was legal in his city -- the first jurisdiction in the US to allow it.
The marriages were only valid inside the city limits, but that wasn't the point. The point was that once the nation saw photos of hundreds of happy gay couples standing outside City Hall -- and noticed that the sky was not, in fact, falling in as a result -- there was no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. He showed us all what that future would look like, and most of us loved what we saw. The happy season only lasted a few weeks before higher authorities put an end to it; and it would be another decade before SCOTUS made same-sex marriage a national reality. But as a political matter, it was a done deal from that moment. He'd brought us over a threshold from which there was no turning back.
If California passes this law, SCOTUS will be forced to reckon with just how much of this vigilante fuckery it really wants to enable. The threat to the court's Constitutional powers will no longer be abstract. They may try to split the hair that guns enjoy explicit Constitutionally protections that abortion rights do not; but that's going to be irrelevant when a dozen other states start popping up with laws that allow civil prosecution of all sorts of other things some of their citizens don't like.
Newsom seems set on making the consequences of justices' choices very, very real, just as he made same-sex marriage real. It's political theater at its best, and this guy has got a real flair for it.
13Evan Robinson and 12 others
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  • Stephen Benson
    it is a sound tactic. although republicans are not afraid of hypocrisy. it's kind of a hallmark trait for them.
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    •  · 15h
    • Sara Robinson
      Stephen Benson It is, to put it precisely, a stunt. A big one. But there's nothing wrong with a well-placed political stunt.
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      •  · 12h
  • PJ Manney
    SCOTUS wants states' rights, SCOTUS is gonna get states' rights. I wonder how many more culturally controversial laws will be enacted? How many other ways will states be different once you cross a border? How many ways can states be different, until it doesn't make sense to be allied as a nation anymore?
    I think it IS a genius move. But left as precedent, it's going to lead to a redefinition of "united states." More like Europe, if we can avoid a civil war. But who knows if we can? We'll see, that's for certain.
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    •  · 14h
  • Colin Summers
    If we are going to be more like Europe then I would allow for the Texit. And a FLAxit, too.
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    •  · 13h
    • Sara Robinson
      Colin Summers And CAxist. Texas and California are the two states that are most culturally and economically coherent, and have the mass and momentum to do well as independent nations. They could leave, and do well. Ironically: they're both also lone star states, having been independent nations in the past.
      Hawaii has the same history. It has less cultural, economic, and population mass; but they make no bones about wanting to be back on their own. If CA went, HI would have every incentive to follow.
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      •  · 12h
    • Colin Summers
      Following the EU model, I would like Hawaii, Texas, California, most to stay, to share a currency, have free trade and open borders with one another. I don't need Florida. Most people travel to there in one direction, anyway.
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  • Colin Summers
    And I already take it back about Texas, I know there are a bunch of liberals there trying hard to get it back to where it was.
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    •  · 13h
    • Sara Robinson
      In fact: the central fact of the GOP's nightmare is that Texas is turning blue at a rate of about 2% every four years. At that rate, by 2028, it will be firmly in the blue column. And once that happens, the GOP will never win the White House again.
      This is the big clock that's ticking for them, the one that's forcing them to the wall in their attempts to seize control of the country. They're almost out of time, and they know it. And they'd rather break it than let us win.
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      •  · 12h
    • Colin Summers
      Gloria Steinem once talked to a small group I was part of (I am sure she said these things publicly), and said the most dangerous time for an abused spouse is the moment they decide to get out. From the moment of that decision to actually finding sanctuary is where most lose their lives.
      Nell has always held that is where we are with the patriarchy, most firmly represented by the GOP.
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      •  · 12h
    • Sara Robinson
      I think Nell is spot on, as usual. The past 40 years of feminism has gone down remarkably easy, if you compare it with previous mass attempts by women to escape the bonds. The men gave up quite a bit with relatively little fight...at least, for a while.
      But now, we've reached the point where men themselves are actually going to be forced to change. So far, three generations of women have won our freedom by reassuring men that we'll just make some changes over here, but they won't really be affected much. But the younger generations aren't willing to take the second shift. They're increasingly unwilling to marry at all -- depriving young men of the unpaid house slaves/emotional support elves/sex serfs that marriage was supposed to guarantee them. We're also not willing to let men steal all the focus at work any more.
      And they're furious. This wasn't supposed to cost them anything, but now it's costing them everything that made being a man special -- having half of humanity trained to drop everything and serve you, any time, any need, at no charge to you. So here comes the backlash, at long last.
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      •  · 12h
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  • Bruce Miller
    I was impressed with this move. And you're right Sara, this is similar in that regard to his gay marriage move. In general, Newsom isn't particularly progressive or *ag*gressive in pushing Democratic policies, but this is an obviously good move and he deserves credit for it.
    When he was elected Lt. Governor and Jerry Brown Governor, Brown wanted him to head an economic-development task force. But Newsom's big idea was to ... imitate low-wage, low-regulation Texas! Jerry quickly took him out of that role and put in a flaboyent former BofA executive who was willing to promote a more progressive approach. (And I know we can't judge people by their ex-spouses. But Newsom's first wife was Kimberly Guilfoyle, now Donald Trump, Jr.'s partner and and she's an over-the-top Trumpista.)
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    •  · 1h
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