… and Stacey Newman is pointing and shouting:
Top Missouri GOP strategist Gregg Keller tweeted last month that he and former Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones “will not stop until Missouri is literally the Handmaids Tale.” Yes, that was a positive reference to the fictional series where women are enslaved, ceremonially raped and treated as breeding vessels. In real life, the GOP is attempting to reduce women to faceless handmaids without bodily autonomy.
[Missouri state health director Randall] Williams and the entire GOP entourage seem to have gone mad. [Kansas City Star]
And, as Newman points out, this is in the wake of …
In short order, Williams mandated that abortion patients have two medically unnecessary vaginal exams. A national public outcry, led by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, erupted. Abortion providers stopped performing the invasive exams, citing their oath to do no harm. Then Williams walked back his order to insist on one single vaginal exam, still cruel and invasive.
So a bunch of gibbering right wing freaks[1] have climbed to the top of the Missouri GOP pyramid and are indulging in some mad fantasies. Welcome to the error of team politics, but fortunately that is a stricture which the GOP member may, as they mature from cultist to responsible member of the electorate, cast off at a time of their choosing.
That’s what Newman’s calling for, for the women of her party to quit following along in the steps of whoever’s on top, to evaluate, shake their heads, and say NO! Will this bit of bizarre ugliness awaken them? I hope so. Newman is doing the necessary work of revealing the freaks for what they are, and it’s up to the voters of Missouri to recognize that the madness must end at some point.
1 I hasten to add that there are certain left-wingers engendering a similar response on my part, but it’s the GOP which has control of most of the State legislatures, and also seems to have the lead in spewing misogynistic, well, gibberish.
