What Comes Next?

After the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare one might well ask, what next? My guess is, not much. It is wise to remember that we are living here in the land of apathy and ignorance. Half the voting population doesn’t vote and the other half votes for reasons mysterious and not usually very well informed. It is difficult to imagine anything much happening, but if this were another country it might be a toss-up between revolution and civil war.

Take, for example, the Republican Governors who are now announcing they will not implement the requirements of Obamacare, especially the invitation, at federal expense, to expand it. While they apparently have the right to not expand their own Medicaid, they do not have the right to refuse to create the exchanges required. In other words, they are refusing to enforce a federal law, symbolically standing in the schoolhouse door a la Governor Faubas, so to speak. Now you might think if several Governors refused to follow a federal law this might lead eventually to another Civil War. But not here, of course, because everyone knows this is just more Republican bullshittery and when the time comes they will all give in and do what is required. First of all, it will be too expensive for them not to comply, and second, they know full well they really do not have any choice. But anything to stall for time, continue to obstruct everything, and hope Obama will not be re-elected. As they wish to block Obamacare, and as they have no plan of their own to replace it, one can only conclude they just do not want Americans to have health care.

If all this posturing about another Civil War is just talk, any serious plan for a revolution is equally harmless. If, that is, what you have in mind an armed rebellion of some kind. The only people who have threatened the use of arms (relying on the second amendment), or shown up armed at public meetings threatening to use them “next time,” are a few genuine kooks from the ranks of the Tea Party. These types have either been ignored or jailed as far as I know.

There could, however, be a revolution of sorts, a voter revolt, and I think there may be a genuine possibility here. The Republican attack on women, and also on students, as well as Latinos, Seniors, Muslims, Blacks, and so on, may be serious enough that when the election occurs women, students, and these others may well revolt and vote Republicans not only out of office but perhaps even out of sight for the next few years. This kind of revolution does not require arms, not even pitchforks, and in my opinion Republicans have gone out of their way to ask for it. One can only hope.

On the other hand, if Republicans and their obscenely wealthy benefactors persist in their attempt to establish a Fascist state, refuse to pay their fair share, refuse to help the middle class and the working poor, do nothing to ease the pain of ordinary citizens who have seen their jobs disappear, their incomes drop, their pensions, homes, and health care disappear, there could conceivably at some point in the future, be a genuine revolution, pitchforks and all. While it is true the American people are pretty apathetic, uninterested in politics, and relatively ignorant, there may well be a tipping point where even they can take it no longer. I think some of the filthy rich understand this and suggest they could do more, but they so far are being ignored while their peers demand even greater tax breaks at the expense of the many. I doubt that “even in America” this situation can continue for much longer without seeing more and more people in the streets, more and more strikes, more and more civil disobedience, more and more suppression and oppression, until it all truly “boils over.” Perhaps I am wrong, the next election will quite likely see the beginnings of a solution. If not, all bets are off.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

John F. Kennedy