The Nelligan Review

Dominique Margolis, an essay: American Women’s Rights v. The End

Since June 24, 2022, women of reproductive age no longer have the federal constitutional right to get an abortion regardless of where in the United States of America they live. Only two years since Roe was overturned, a woman’s right to an abortion has been restricted or eliminated in about half of the states according to the Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Finder’s State-by-State Guide. In practice, it means that, in half of the country, we have fewer than two weeks from the moment when we realize that our period is late to decide on an abortion, find an abortion provider, gather the funds for possible interstate travel, secure an appointment, and undergo the procedure. Indeed, the legal countdown starts from the last day of our last period! Abortion is nevertheless still accessible in about half of the states, but that can change rapidly if Trump is reelected in November 2024, so I pray to God that a Democrat wins the 2024 presidency.
 

I pray to God that Kamala Harris wins. Oops! Did I write that I pray to God that the Democratic presidential candidate is elected on an abortion rights platform? I did, because I am a French non-native learner of American English who has been paying attention to how often Americans use the G word. They say God-this and God-that more often than they may be aware of. They sneeze, and it’s God bless you! They get annoyed and it’s oh my God! They think you’re on the wrong track, and it’s what in God’s name are you doing? They get stunned, and it’s for God’s sake. The Lord also has a seat at the language table, so be careful not to take the Lord’s Name in vain because God will strike you dead – although, so far, God’s spared all liars. And God’s got guns. Read the divine signs on baseball hats: God, Guns, and Trump. Sometimes you’ve got Liberty, Beer, and Barbeque added to the word salad. Jesus is kept more on the backburner. Jesus next to Guns would be a bit harder to swallow, perhaps. You’d be delving into the New Testament. Love thy neighbor as thyself. It’s just plain easier to keep it simple, and God takes up less space in all caps on a hat. Unless you’ve got more space to write, like on $19.99 T-Shirts from Amazon. Then, Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president. Oh, my Lord! Oh my God! Oh Jesus!
 

When I was studying English as a Foreign Language back in a provincial French lycée, Monsieur Regard, my teacher, warned the class that we could not understand Americans if we did not spend at least a little time reading the Bible and the history of the Puritans both in England and in the New World. We were teenagers, though, more interested in trying to decipher whatever rockers were singing about – or disco singers, in my case. Plus, I never thought, at sixteen, that I’d end up a foreign student in Southern California four years later. Plus, I’d read that there was separation of church and state, in the United States. Plus, I’d read that the United States was a democracy founded on the principles of natural rights, just like in France. People had natural rights that were there before God grew a beard and even before he was born. It was just a matter of defining and fighting for your rights, after that. Women’s rights, children’s rights, animal rights. Get up, Stand Up, just like in the Bob Marley song.
 

Once in the United States, though, cognitive dissonance set in. I was never quite sure what to do to settle the mental discord that resulted from the conflicts that emerged from the clashes between my observations and experiences, on the one hand, and on the other the confluence of the myth of the American Dream and the very personal idea that I had formed about the United States prior to my moving here. Indeed, I’d started thinking about leaving my native country when I was sixteen and trying to survive a difficult childhood. My maternal grandparents would have been shot or deported for their activities in the French Resistance without the intervention of the Americans and Allied Forces during the Second World War, so I figured that the Americans could save me too if I moved to America. In my sixteen-year-old mind, it was as simple as that.
 

I became a US citizen before the age of thirty, but I still couldn’t figure out what kind of liberation I was after, or from whom and what. In short, America hadn’t magically saved me the moment I’d first set foot on American soil upon deplaning from my intercontinental flight. I wished that America could have been so great that it could have magically solved all my problems – linguistic, economic, psychological, emotional, legal, and especially the ones I could not name, the ones that ran my life. Yes, I did wish that America could have been a magical la- la-land worthy of Disneyland, but for real. Some place where all your wishes come true.
 

In December 2000, however, a sense of serious foreboding set in. The Gore-Bush presidential election was too close to call. There was less than a 0.5% margin of victory in Florida, The Florida Supreme Court ordered a manual recount, but Bush's legal team asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had exceeded its authority and took the matter to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court – then as it did on July 1st, 2024 – ruled against a democratic electoral process.
 

December 2000 marked, for me, the time when life started to truly never be the same. My hope that America would lead the world into an era of sustainable energy crumbled. Worse, I felt a searing sense of betrayal, as if an adoptive family member for whom I would have given my life had maimed me for life. I was so profoundly disturbed that I considered dropping out of my first year of Ph.D. in English to go live off grid somewhere away from people. But how would I take care of my dogs? And how would I survive? My natural inclination to stay the course
prevailed, though I felt seasick, as if in an icebreaker ship in foreboding waters. But I was going to become more American than American-born Americans if it killed me.
 

I wish I’d understood, then, what Robert Kagan so brilliantly and succinctly explained in an April 2024 interview with Vanity Fair as he promoted his most recent book, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart – Again. Kagan argues that “there has always been a segment of the population hostile to liberal democracy – and no shortage of figureheads to lead a revolt against it.” He tracks this American anti-liberal streak “from the nation’s founding all the way to today’s MAGA movement, and issues a stark warning: Donald Trump, his allies, and his supporters have made the dissolution of American liberal democracy possible.” And “Whether they succeed or not,” Kagan writes, “will depend on the American people, Democrats and Republicans alike.”
 

Kagan’s opinions in the Washington Post come with bone-chilling titles such as, “This is how fascism comes to America,” “We have a radical democracy. Will Trump voters destroy it?” or yet again, “The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it.” What is going to be the title of his next opinion in the Washington Post now that the Supreme Court ruled on July 1, 2024, that “The President is now a king above the law,” as Justice Sotomayor expressed in her dissent?

According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, fascism rejects the practices of representative or liberal democratic government. Dictators don’t allow strong opposition parties. In the USA, we still have a two-party system, but what would happen if Trump got elected in 2024? Trump himself answered that question on July 29, 2024. As The Guardian reports, Trump urged his followers to “get out and vote, just this time”, adding that “you won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.” And since that scared even Fox News, he lied and said that he did not really mean what he said – that is until he wins.
 

Make no mistake about it: MAGA supporters want the God of the Old Testament to enthrone their King Trump, the Chosen One who will unleash the wrath of God on all his opponents. And that is true for Trump supporters who are American born as well as for immigrants who long for the authoritarian traditions of their native countries because they are familiar. A sucker is born every day, but they don’t think they’re those suckers. They do believe that their king will save them from a dictatorship of the principles put forth in the New Testament. They wouldn’t put it that way, of course. They’re good people, if they say so themselves. But, in the world they want their savior to bring forth, women were made from a man’s rib, nature is to be dominated, not protected, and all subjects need to submit to their vengeful overlord.
 

I implore you: vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for the sake of democracy in the USA!