Apotheosis of the Nixon Thesis

Reference.Com defines apotheosis, in part, as "the ideal example; epitome; quintessence."

(The illustration is from the top of the Capitol Dome, the apotheosis of George Washington rising to heaven. That’s George at the bottom of the picture.)

These days are the apotheosis of the Nixon Thesis.

It’s all downhill from here.

The actions which define an era often take place at its end, even past its end, when a reaction against them is well underway.

Such is the case involving social issues, which drove the Nixon Thesis, especially guns and abortion.

One key driving Netroots attacks on Democratic leaders has been their tendency to cave on these issues. In doing this, they are bowing to the Thesis, which holds that, while giving everyone a gun or  enslaving women to sperm may be minority views, more will vote based solely on those issues than will vote against, and thus they’re losers.

Interest groups, too, are eventually cowed on these issues. And for the same reason. It is in large part in response to this passivity that the Netroots came to be.

Thus, the apotheosis. The Supreme Court takes the first steps toward overturning Roe vs. Wade and most Democratic politicians are silent. Kid shoots 33 people with handguns he got legally, and even the Netroots are divided.

(Picture from WFMU.)

As you may have guessed by now I have pretty strong views on both
issues. Guns make murder bang-bang easy, and civilized societies
restrict them. Outlawing abortion makes women lifelong slaves to any
sperm inside them, slaves to the men who put them there, and God says
slavery is far more evil than any miscarriage. Which is what abortion
is, an induced miscarriage.

These are minority views in the United States today.  Most people are
more nuanced, on both issues. But extremists on the issues of guns and
slavery are powerful, they are feared, and politicians have learned to
be far more wary of them than they are of, say, me.

The original Nixon Thesis said nothing about either guns or abortion. Both became prominent within the Thesis only after it was established.
Roe vs. Wade was decided in 1973, the decision written by a Justice
appointed by Nixon himself.

The current crisis has nothing to do with these issues, which is why
Democratic politicians don’t want to bring them up right now. But
people will die and women will be forced, at the point of the gun, at
the demand of the government, to bear bastards they don’t want, until
the new Thesis decides what it wants to do on these subjects.

I pray it will decide to do the right thing.