Destabilized Saturday Edition #16

"Deeply rooted" social hierarchies, unprecedented nuclear risks in Ukraine, Lake Powell emergency measures, and DJ Pauly D weighs in on inflation

As I wrote earlier this week, the discontinuities we’re living through are connected in deep ways. A corollary of that insight is that instability in one arena often leads to further instability in adjacent arenas. Thursday’s post, Russia and Roe v. Wade, included two examples of this pattern:

1. Social and political division in the U.S. helped create the conditions for Putin to invade Ukraine, starting a brutal and destructive land war in Europe that has upended countless economic and geopolitical equilibria. It has also led to what is arguably the single most dangerous period of the nuclear age.

2. Political polarization in the U.S. resulted in a hard-right majority on the Supreme Court, which is on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade. If they do, it will throw American women in most red and purple states¹ into a state of permanent precarity, and have more serious consequences for millions.

With such high stakes, when the final opinion is released there will undoubtedly be protests, the first significant ones since January 6th. Could that contribute to adjacent instability? Some worry it will and it’s not an unreasonable concern.

David Neiwert @DavidNeiwert

Prediction: When people turn out in the streets to protest the end of Roe v. Wade, they will encounter Proud Boys, militiamen, and other "Patriot" insurgents who will label them "Communists" and oppose them violently. This is the role brownshirt factions have always played.

The Supreme Court itself is taking no chances. After the Roe reversal opinion leaked this weak, police erected a fence around the building. In one sense it’s just a reasonable security precaution in a post-January 6th world, in another it’s a monument to the risk of cascading instability.

Following the leak of the draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, security fencing was installed around the Supreme Court.

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My Work

Russia and Roe v. Wade (link)

One of the core beliefs here at Destabilized is that the big discontinuities we’re living through – climate change, the internet, and democratic division and political instability – are interconnected in important ways. They can’t be properly understood without seeing how they interact and influence one another, and their total impact is far greater than the even the immense sum of the parts.

Is it just a coincidence, then, that reproductive freedom in the U.S. and peace in Europe are both being ended within a several-month period? No, it isn’t, not entirely anyway.

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Interesting Reads

The Sore Winners (link)

[T]he sore-winners tactic is also an example of the sheer relentlessness of the far-right’s culture warring. Political wins are celebrated internally, but externally each victory is treated as an opportunity to double down on a victimization narrative and politics of grievance.

I watched this tactic play out frequently during my reporting on the pro-Trump media after Donald Trump’s election. From the very first moments of his presidency, the Trump administration positioned itself as under constant threat.

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Thread detailing the ominous implications for gay equality of the draft Supreme Court opinion reversing Roe v. Wade:

Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DC

Alito's draft opinion explicitly criticizes Lawrence v. Texas (legalizing sodomy) and Obergefell v. Hodges (legalizing same-sex marriage). He says that, like abortion, these decisions protect phony rights that are not "deeply rooted in history." politico.com/f/?id=00000180…

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Clear-eyed thread about the unprecedented nuclear risks in Ukraine:

Ian Kearns @IanKearns_

The only thing wrong with this otherwise great piece by @EdwardGLuce is that it underestimates the danger. This is now the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age bar none. To navigate it successfully we need to do three things. A🧵

Edward Luce @EdwardGLuce

“Without most people yet being aware of it, we are entering the most dangerous period since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.” My column: https://t.co/qcKiGgscm5

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Tweets of the Week

Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli

Must be nice to have always had your rights “deeply rooted in history,” never knowing what it’s like to live as a woman, POC, LGBT, disabled, or otherwise marginalized person, fearing that, with the stroke of a pen, your rights could be taken away from you.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DC

Alito's draft opinion explicitly criticizes Lawrence v. Texas (legalizing sodomy) and Obergefell v. Hodges (legalizing same-sex marriage). He says that, like abortion, these decisions protect phony rights that are not "deeply rooted in history." https://t.co/4690k0KG1F https://t.co/urF7A02INU

Keith Humphreys @KeithNHumphreys

Just when I started to trust the Tyrannosaurus Rex with whom I play blackjack, I found out he's a small arms dealer.

Meltem Demirors @Melt_Dem

what part of the cycle is this?

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Extreme Weather Watch

Eric Holthaus @EricHolthaus

India’s heat wave has lasted for weeks. It’s still getting worse. The extreme duration has made this not really a heat wave, but more of a heat season — a preview of truly dangerous climate change in one of the most heat-vulnerable places on Earth.

currentlyhq.comThe South Asia heat wave is the “emergency” phase of climate changeA weeks-long “infinite” heat wave is “near uninhabitable levels” in India and Pakistan — and it’s still getting worse.

Scott Duncan @ScottDuncanWX

Brutal & record breaking heat is testing power and health infrastructure to the limit in some of the most densely populated places on the planet. The heat in Southern & Western Asia for March & April really stands out for both longevity and intensity.

Moms #climateaction Now! @CleanAirMoms

#RT @FredKrupp: RT @Rene_MarshCNN: Lake Powell officials take emergency steps to preserve hydropower from Glen Canyon Dam - CNN w/ ⁦@rachjuramirez⁩

cnn.comLake Powell officials take unprecedented, emergency steps to delay water releases as level plummets | CNNThe federal government announced Tuesday it is taking unprecedented, emergency steps to help boost water levels at Lake Powell.

Creeping Authoritarianism Watch

Right Wing Watch @RightWingWatch

John Bennett, chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party and a current GOP congressional candidate, declares that "we should try Anthony Fauci and put him in front of a firing squad."

1. If Roe is reversed, abortion will be illegal in most red and purple states – at first. The evangelical right has been working these many decades not for a patchwork of state abortion bans in some of the country, but for a federal level ban that covers the entire country. With a friendly Supreme Court, there’s little doubt they will persist.