“Mom; Dad – did you see the news?” My son, Daniel, texted us last night.

“Yes,” I texted back. “Awful – infuriating – sad, backwards, and cruel!”

Then I thought:

George W. Bush did this when he appointed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

No – Mitch McConnell did this when he twisted Senate procedure and autocratically didn’t allow a Democratic President (a year before his term was up) to nominate a candidate for a vacant seat on the Supreme Court.

No – 75,000 non-voters across three states in the 2016 presidential election did this and let Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College despite her having 3 million more popular votes.

No – Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who I Ioved and respected) did this because she didn’t resign at her advanced age and when she was ill with a life-threatening disease during the early years of the Obama Administration so he could appoint a liberal successor when Democrats controlled the Senate.

No – Trump did this by appointing 3 radical (not conservative) Supreme Court justices that reversed established law and the principle of precedent in order to eliminate a woman’s right to privacy and to choose.

No – Fox News and right-wing media did this by scaring the daylights out of too many Americans for too long to vote their fears and resentments.

No – too many Americans did this that could have made a difference but shrugged when election time arrived, threw up their hands out of disinterest, ignorance, or laziness, and didn’t vote in purple states that went red instead of blue.

No – misogynists did this that attacked mask mandates but had no problem telling women what they may and may not do with their bodies and lives.

No – it’s all the above – and it’s because extreme conservatives have shown themselves to be far more passionate and disciplined in the electoral process than us liberals – that’s our fault, so we did this!

So – what do we do now?

Simple: Vote and then get everyone you know to vote against insurrectionists in Congress and for the Democratic Party in the upcoming mid-terms in every state (especially swing states), and take back the state legislatures and governorships and congressional and senate seats, and pass laws everywhere affirming Roe and thereby restoring the right of women to choose and have access to quality health care everywhere in the country for abortion services, and affirm the overwhelming will of the American people on abortion rights.