The rank horror of this is beyond description.

It is cynical in the extreme, how a president who promoted bonkers conspiracy theories of QAnon, and publicly called out armed militias to his campaign, could the same week, and while positive for Covid, days before his decisive loss to Biden, select a Supreme Court justice to overturn human rights in America. And then enact a coup to remain in office.

The same month -Sept 2020, in which Trump nominated Barrett, plans were already in place to declare victory in the event he lost the election. He had contemplated this since July, according to his campaign manager.

This was a president who, the September he nominated Barret- had left the hospital -against medical advice- after nearly dying in the ICU- forced his Secret Service detail to drive in circles to greet well-wishers after he exposed everyone to Covid. Nuts. Don’t let Covid scare you, he told supporters, after a million Americans had died.

My suspicion is Trump was propelled by side effects of steroids used in the life-saving treatment for his condition at Walter Reed. Ignoring doctors, he may have just assumed he had some new physical superpowers.

(Trump had Covid when he debated Joe Biden- 6 days before Trump was hospitalized- a national security lapse that wasn’t lost on the nation’s adversaries.)

Yes the man who ridiculed Biden for his age had just emerged from the hospital himself and was lucky to be alive.

Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in a week before the election- which Trump lost. Many of us had already cast votes.

And then Alito prepared a decision that was largely bigotry with hate speech permeating every line, and certainly framed to humiliate his opposition among the public.

That’s not really a “decision” weighing evidence and precedent- no it’s a a screed. A personal vendetta. An insult. A punishing blow.

Alito’s decision in Dobbs revived the Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty- which historically, on the eve of the Civil War, was promoted to allow states to decide for themselves whether or not to allow human bondage: slavery- overturning hard-fought compromises of Congress to maintain the Union. Lincoln argued against the doctrine, opposing the spread of slavery to the expanding new territories and states. Why? Because slavery is wrong, and all men are created equal- according to our founding declaration. It spurred his campaign to the presidency.

So the Civil War was fought over exactly this theory of Alito’s and nearly 1 million Americans died in a fight that evolved into an issue of basic fundamental human rights as Lincoln knew it would.

The Nation will either be one thing or another- but it will cease to be divided, Lincoln warned. A house divided cannot stand.

So judged against Lincoln, we have a pretty malevolent character in Samuel Alito.

One thing we can say: the anti-democracy fascists will never stop with the wrecking ball to all our pubic institutions. And they’re not listening. They do not care who lives or dies as this week’s atrocity, denying life-saving medical care in Texas, has proven.