Pocket notes are where I practice paying attention with you. In this note, I write about a few very bleak things. Then, I write about how we can keep hope even when everything is very bleak indeed. And finally, I share a little ephemera of hope.
Also, real quick!
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This is the bleak bit
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether lower courts can issue nation-wide injunctions. This is a long-standing question. Far-right judges in lower courts have issued anti-democratic nationwide injunctions in the past, for example. This seems like something worth considering! And the Supreme Court could have chosen any number of times to consider new guardrails around nation-wide injunctions!
But!
They've chosen to consider the question within the context of the nation-wide injunctions that blocked Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship. This would seem like an odd choice if the court weren't stacked with far-right bootlickers. As SCOTUS is stacked with far-right bootlickers, it makes total sense they've chosen to take this case.
Let's say SCOTUS decides to limit lower courts ability to issue nation-wide injunctions! Then there is nothing protecting people while Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship is challenged. What happens to all the people born during the years this issue winds its way through courts? What mechanism protects them? There is none! During the hearing, Kavanaugh suggested one protective mechanism could be a class action lawsuit?! Which is just too on the nose for this moment. Moving on.
And wait, isn't birthright citizenship guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution? And aren't Executive Orders just fancy memos that lack any power to create new laws? Well, then! What are we even doing here? It's almost like the Supreme Court knows birthright citizenship is a guaranteed right but they also kinda wanna give the Trump admin a few years to deny citizenship to lots to people, just because racism. Which seems to prove this SCOTUS is illegitimate? huh!
This case doesn't just have implications for birthright citizenship - although that would be enough! I am going to ask you to consider the precedent this case would set.
If Trump can just illegally OVERTURN the U.S. Constitution through illegal executive orders, and his illegal executive orders which are not law are enforced like law by even some courts, and there is no way to protect people nationally until his illegal executive order gets challenged all the way to SCOTUS, then your individual right to survive depends entirely on the whim and will of the President. Which is exactly what Project 2025 has been trying to accomplish.
Meg Conley
I bet the Project 2025 guys can't believe they've gotten this far, this quickly. Like truly, there's been no meaningful resistance from the legislative branch, at all! Which is still just shocking to me! Even though I am not at all surprised? If you get what I'm saying. Anyways.
Let me give just one chilling example of what this precedent could mean outside of birthright citizenship. Let's say SCOTUS severely limits the lower courts ability to issue nation-wide injunctions. That decision immediately endangers everyone who can get pregnant, which I'd like to remind everyone who can get pregnant is a group that includes children. Let me explain!
Meg Conley
Mifepristone is by far the safest way to treat unwanted pregnancies and miscarriages. Yesterday, RFK Jr. said that he asked the FDA director to do a complete review of mifepristone. He thinks access to the abortion pill should be restricted. Why? Because of a fake study full of fake data published by anti-abortion group.
These images debunking that fake study come the always vital Abortion, Everyday by Jessica Valenti. She says to share them far and wide!
RFK Jr said that while he'd have the FDA director do his little review, the president would be the one to decide what to do about access to mifepristone. Well, we know the president is getting marching orders from the people behind Project 2025. And we know that Project 2025 said that restricting access to mifepristone through telemedicine was the interim step in banning it altogether.
Meg Conley
That interim step would be bad enough. But why would Trump need an interim step in a world where lower court injunctions do not work against illegal executive orders? Trump could just ban the medicine outright! And it could be years before a suit about our right to safe abortion medicine is accepted by the Supreme Court. And hey, once the abortion pill is banned how long do you think we have until there's a nation-wide abortion ban? You know what abortion bans do? They kill women.
Margaret Coker
Meg Conley
This is all so bleak. And I honestly, I have a folder with a dozen other stories from today alone that are just as bad. And I do really think this is all going to get worse before it's made better. How do we keep acting with hope? It's a question a lot of us are asking right now.
Hope is a discipline
Mariame Kaba
I continue to recommend Let This Radicalize You from Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba.
A few days ago, someone on Bluesky said they didn't want to become a doomer, but it seemed inevitable. They were having a hard time finding any signs of hope in the US. At the end of their thread, they asked for help looking for hope. I'm not linking to the post, because it was a vulnerable question asked within the person's Bluesky context. But I thought I'd share my (character limited!) answer here:
Earnest answer: Hope is a wiggly word! Philosophers have been tussling over it 4ever. Some said hope is good because it does not need evidence to justify action.* Hopeful people work for a better world, despite evidence it’s not possible.
*This could obv also justify bad stuff!
Hope has always been hard to pin down. I love the wild and wooly way ancient philosophers argued whether it was good or bad that Hope stayed in Pandora’s jar!
My journey with hope has been helped thru reading Mariame Kaba. She says “hope is a discipline.” It is helpful to think of Hope as a branch of knowledge I am studying, as a system of rules that govern my conduct. Hope is not an object, it's a process. So Hope is not dependent on circumstance. It helps me meet circumstance.
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Ephemera of Hope
What bird is at your side? - A crow, the faithful prophet. When it cannot say, ‘All’s well’, it says, ‘All shall be well’.
I love this emblem from Alciato's Emblemata, first published in 1531. Emblems are allegorical illustrations. Alciato's Emblemata is the first known emblem book.
In simulachrum Spei. (A picture of Hope)
What goddess is this, looking up to the stars with face so glad? By whose brush was this image depicted? - The hands of Elpidius made me. I am called Good Hope, the one who brings ready aid to the wretched. - Why is your garment green? - Because everything will spring green when I lead the way. - Why do you hold Death’s blunt arrows in your hands? - The hopes that the living may have, I cut short for the buried. - Why do you sit idle on the cover of a jar? - I alone stayed behind at home when evils fluttered all around, as the revered muse of the old poet of Ascra has told you. - What bird is at your side? - A crow, the faithful prophet. When it cannot say, ‘All’s well’, it says, ‘All shall be well’. - Who are your companions? - Happy Ending and Eager Desire. - Who go before you? - They call them the idle dreams of those who are awake. - Who stands close beside you? - Rhamnusia, the avenger of crimes, to make sure that you hope for nothing but what is allowed.
Here's a little digital ephemera from me to you.
All shall be well,
Meg
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