Joseph Conrad always saw accurately into the heart of man, understood the real hidden danger was always in the well-meaning do-gooder, a person so myopic that they do not realize the dangers, the evils, they pose. And so it has proved, with well-meaning do-gooders (and some ringers) in Arizona, Missouri, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New York, Colorado, Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota.
In those states, there were urgent additions to the ballots putting forth state constitutional amendments to protect a woman’s right to choose. That seemed both moral and right. What was terribly wrong was that this gave people who would otherwise have had to vote for a just President (to protect women’s rights) a convenient escape for personal preference: they could try or pretend to try to protect women’s rights yet still vote for the very person responsible for this terrible law. In short, people went into the election booth, ticked the box pretending to protect women’s rights at the state level, while still voting for the very fascist who took them away and has vowed, crowed with pride, at having done so.
And the farce does not stop there. What they achieved in Arizona, Missouri, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New York, Colorado, and failed in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota is nothing. Not a damn thing.
Federal law has Constitutional priority over state law. Even if every state “protected” women’s rights, a federal ban — as promised in Project 2025, now re-labeled as Maga Playbook 180 (which clearly shows they mean to enforce Project 2025 measures in 180 days) — a federal abortion ban wipes out every state law, every single State Constitutional ballot measure. Poof, finito. And MAGA is already putting that before Congress.
So, in the end, these well-meaning women’s rights groups have played into Maga’s election hands. And with their do-gooderism, in this one election goes the future of our Constitution and, sadly, world peace.
Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico
