Good News, Bad News

I woke up this morning encouraged by the news.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat the Clintonite machine politician Joe Crowley, which should not have been so amazing – she’s right on the issues and about a thousand times more charismatic – but  he did outspend her 10-1, he’d been in the office 20 years, and he had the full backing of all the usual  DNC hacks.  So, it was a pretty  big deal.
Also, and this garnered a lot less publicity, Ben Jealous won the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland.  He still has to get through the general election but I  think he can  do it, and a governorship is a pretty big deal.  There are only 50 of them.
So, I was jazzed.  Of course, this was only two victories and there were about 5 states had primaries, so we’re not exactly sweeping  them aside the way I would like.  The corruption is  deeply entrenched, they do  have all the money, all the party backing, most of the media attention and the inside track, but we’re chipping away, we’re making a difference, and the next congress will have more progressives than the current one.
Then, I hear that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is resigning.  This is  not good.  This is not good  at all.  This is,  in fact, really fucking bad.  Of course, Kennedy is, kind of, a conservative justice.  He was appointed  by Reagan and sided with Republicans often as not.  But, he was not  like Scalia, or Thomas, or Alito.  He was a judge, not a right wing nut case, and he occasionally sided  with Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsberg and Breyer, keeping  the country on an even  keel.
That’s going to end with whoever Trump nominates.  Sure, if it’s somebody too extreme or weird, congress  could refuse to confirm.  But, we’re talking about a congress which had no problem confirming Scott Pruitt for head  of  the EPA, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.
This is a congress which isn’t even  talking about impeachment,  despite Trump’s numerous crimes.  So, I’m pretty sure he’ll get his pick and I’m pretty sure  his pick  will  be a Fascist, and that will mean a Fascist majority Supreme Court.
I hope that doesn’t happen, but I don’t see what’s going to  stop it.