When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s

by John Ganz

“Prophecy is reserved for those who are given that special gift, which I do not possess. But I say to all of America tonight, there will be other places and other times where there will be other challenges by other David Dukes. They too will be peddling bigotry and division as their elixir of false hope, they too will be riding piggyback on the frustration of citizens disaffected by government … We must address the causes of public disenchantment with government at every level … Tonight Louisiana defeated the darkness of hate, bigotry, and division, but where will the next challenge come from? Will it be in another campaign in Louisiana? Or in a campaign for governor in some other state? Or a campaign for president of the United States?”

Pat Buchanan uttered the words that launched a thousand op-eds: “There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East—the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.”

At the station house, those arrested were forced to whistle the theme of The Andy Griffith Show while being beaten with metal flashlights.

The Supreme Court was hearing a challenge to Roe v. Wade—Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The defendant was Bob Casey, the pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania who was defending his state’s Abortion Control Act of 1982. The law required a twenty-four-hour waiting period before an abortion, minors to get consent from their parents, and married women to inform their husband of their intent to get an abortion. This looked like the big one: William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall had been replaced by Bush’s picks, David Souter and Clarence Thomas. Eight of the justices were Republican selections, and five had been chosen by Reagan or Bush. Officially, the Bush administration said it wanted the court to strike down Roe: the solicitor general, Ken Starr, filed an amicus brief to that effect. But behind closed doors, the White House fretted over the potential bombshell of reversing Roe in an election year.

Sandra Day O’Connor, writing the majority opinion, expressed a degree of exasperation with the Republican administration’s continued efforts to attack Roe: “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned. Joining the respondents as amicus curiae, the United States, as it has done in five other cases in the last decade, again asks us to overrule Roe.”

The dialectic was turning: history, if not ending, was oddly twisting inside out. The main enemy was at home now.

Eerie reading this considering Trump’s rhetoric at the end of this presidential campaign.