This won't end well

This is the artwork that ran with the Nov. 11, 2016 edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, after the election of Donald Trump as president.

Everyone of sound morals, sound judgment and sound mind knew that America would be left in tatters by the time he was done. And yet, we still underestimated the "American carnage."

But the thing about Trump, and his MAGA movement, is that he -- and it -- is the "gift" that keeps on taking. It corrupts everything it touches -- our institutions, our society, our democracy and even the church. Especially the church.

Now Roe v. Wade has been overturned, thanks to the lackeys Trump and the MAGAfied Senate GOP installed on the Supreme Court. And the United States, already roiled and disunited by the culture wars and partisan strife, surely will finish the job of self-immolation.

WE ALL have lost much over the last six or seven years, thanks to the twin plagues of COVID and Trumpism. I have lost my relationship with an increasingly Trumpified Catholic Church in the United States. I can live in this country, or I can be Catholic. The roiling ball of mortification and visceral disgust in my gut tells me I cannot do both.

Now, I am no enthusiast of abortion. I suspect not that many people are. In fact, I consider myself pro-life.

But I have come to the conclusion over the years that outlawing abortion will not end it. It may not even make a dent. It will just criminalize it -- and make criminals of desperate women.

It will work just about as well as Prohibition did, and probably worse. The carnage resulting from the war of the self-righteous against the hard-pressed likely will be worse than that of trying to make teetotalers of an entire nation, and that whole deal gave us Al Capone and a raft of lesser mobster lights . . . and the resulting wave of death, violence and public corruption.

Today, few babies will be saved, and more women will die. Even more will be hounded after suffering miscarriages, because the Unsatisfied Righteous will see illegal abortions around every corner. Especially where there are none.

We will see no increase in maternal health care, and it won't be more affordable. We will see no outbreak of affordable child care. We will see no expansion of paid parental leave. There will be no child tax credits, increased food aid or accessible mental-health care.

Babies will be precious -- and protected -- right up to the moment they exit the birth canal. Then it will be time to suck it up, Buttercup. Just like today, only worse.

Bullshit from the "pro-life movement"

ANY CELEBRATING "pro-lifer" who tells you differently almost assuredly is blowing smoke up your ass. I've already lost track of the times I've heard big, vague promises in the last 16 hours or so. When asked by television journalists for details on all this coming aid for mothers and children, the unfailing answer is "We're sorting that out."

And I'm the goddamn queen of France. They only had 49 years to figure this shit out . . . and now it's going to get done on the fly?

What we have now, people, is flat-out minority rule heading fast for full-bore tyranny. My 61 years of life experience, my observational skills as a one-time journalist and my increasingly accurate, increasingly fright-making gut instinct tells me that some form of civil war might be an optimistic outlook.

You thought things were bad before? Just wait, now that the "pro-life" dog has caught the speeding dump truck of history. And fate.

Ugly doesn't even begin to cover it. Forget fetuses, we're gonna kill one another now. We've been waiting for the spark to set off the powder keg. And here it is.

The possibility exists that we could get some leadership -- and pragmatic common sense -- from somewhere. On the other hand, our institutions have been corrupted or enfeebled, and our politicians are either malign or feckless.

I mean, do you trust them to fix anything today? Do you really think the average American is even capable of democracy anymore? Come on, man. Double-digit percentages of us think the Italians beamed shit from satellites to make voting machines gaga for Joe Biden and screw Trump out of re-election.

Confidence has not been inspired.

That said, there will be no 3 Chords & the Truth this week. And I even had everything ready to go.

But it isn't distraction -- or a salve -- that we need now. We need a little silence . . . and space. It may be the last we get for a long, long time.

Goodnight, America. You had a too-brief run.