Mike Huckabee And the Dangerous “Joke”
Stop telling people Trump and his sycophants can’t subvert democracy beyond 2020.
Recently, Mike Huckabee took to Twitter to make some outlandish claims that he was going to share during his appearance on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News on December 12th. First, he claimed several parties, including the Democrats were illegally trying to remove Trump from office. For information on how the impeachment process is not illegal, see here. Then he claimed in the same tweet he’s been chosen to head Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign.
Trump himself has “joked” this past June about running for re-election forever.
There are many people who dismiss these antics as a joke or a prank as if there is no way possible Trump could actually pull this off and he and his loyal supporters are just blowing smoke up all our asses to make us anxious for no reason. After all, we have institutions in place to protect us from this sort of thing…right???
Gaslighting from Moderates and Centrists on Abortion
In 2016, there were many cis white men and other Democractic Moderates (but mostly cis white men) who were claiming there was no way Roe vs Wade could be overturned. They assured us the Supreme Court would uphold this important decision and that no matter what, abortion access would be protected, despite the repeated attempts and successes to defund Planned Parenthood and shutter abortion clinics in various states. For instance, in the linked article about shuttering abortion clinics, many of the ones forced to closed in Texas have not yet been able to reopen even though the Supreme Court struck down the state law before Brett Kavanaugh joined the court.
But recently, the Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s law to force its only abortion clinic to perform ultrasounds and force people with a uterus to hear the fetal heart beat before performing an abortion. Never mind that the “fetal heart beat” isn’t a heart beat at all, but a cardiac rhythm as described here. This is a dangerous road leading to the valid fear that eventually SCOTUS will overturn Roe vs. Wade especially since several states, including Alabama and Ohio have passed abortion bans they are hoping SCOTUS will uphold. Roe vs Wade is in real danger now, despite the claims from moderates and mostly cis men the rest of us were overreacting in 2016. Trump himself proclaimed during the 2016 debates his intent on supporting anti-abortion organizations in their fight to overturn this important healthcare right.
What does the abortion debate working its way through the court system have to do with Mike Huckabee and Trump’s “jokes” that he’ll just keep running for president every four years as if term limits don’t exist?
Imagine being so brazen against the institutions of our checks and balances, you would coordinate a trial with the very person the trial is for.
The analogy is that the very same people who claimed abortion was safe and Roe vs. Wade would never be overturned are now telling us Mike Huckabee, Trump, and others are pulling a prank on us and there is no way our institutions would allow anyone to hold more than two terms in office as president. However, the Republicans in Congress and Trump are literally subverting our democracy every day. “Moscow Mitch” McConnell had just stated he will coordinate the Senate Trial portion of Trump’s impeachment with the White House. Imagine being so brazen against the institutions of our checks and balances, you would coordinate a trial with the very person the trial is for. It is beyond preposterous the Senate Majority Leader would declare allegiance against a truly fair trial before any report from the House of Representatives is even put together and released after they have gathered and put together the evidence they have collected to support their Articles of Impeachment. It’s further maddening Trump would claim the Democratic Party has become the “Party of Hate” while we have concentration camps where children are being denied free flu vaccinations from volunteer doctors.
The point is, Republicans and their leader Trump, are working to erode our institutions of checks and balances and our democracy daily. Not only that, but they are grooming his base to support an actual dictatorship. According to the Pew Research Center, a growing number of Republicans think he’d be more effective if Congress and the Courts didn’t stand in his way.
Just like with the abortion protections being eroded away to the point Roe vs. Wade could actually be overturned, Trump and the Republicans are grooming their base to support the erosion of our checks and balances, making way for further subversion of our democracy. And total subversion of our democracy can’t take place without completely ignoring the document our country is governed by: the Constitution. It grows weaker daily as long as McConnell and Trump are in charge.
Many of us are tired of being told by moderates and cis white men we are overreacting (a common gaslighting tactic). The evidence suggests otherwise. It is an outright privilege to suggest what moderates and cis white men do — that things aren’t as bad as they seem. These issues will not affect them. Their healthcare is not in danger. Their lives will not experience much change, regardless of who is president. For them, the things that don’t affect them are not a big deal. But for the rest of us, these things are not just a big deal, but they can be the difference between life and death.
I live in a state that passed an abortion ban based on that “fetal heart beat” currently temporarily blocked by a federal judge. Next, this state wants to force doctors to perform a procedure that does not exist — moving the embryo of an ectopic pregnancy from the fallopian tubes to the uterus. This bill if passed and signed, will put doctors in jail and endanger the lives of people with a uterus. This isn’t hyperbole. This is based on bills actually introduced by a state legislature.
Trump and his sycophants are notpushing hyperbole either — they are truly testing the waters to see how much the idea of him serving as President for the rest of his life (or perhaps passing the office down to his children), would fly among his base and how much the rest of us will ignore it or simply pass it off as just a prank. It is extremely dangerous to dismiss anything he and his sycophants say as simply a “joke” or a “prank”. Just like many of us were not overreacting about the right to abortion being in danger, we are not overreacting to Trump’s desire to subvert the two term limit. Huckabee is not having a light hearted joke to make Democrats plunge themselves into an unnecessary anxiety attack. They are every bit as serious now as they are about the rest of their white nationalist plans, including a federal abortion ban.
