There's a reason everyone here jokes about their Rascal Scooters and calls them the "Gravy Seals", "Meal Team Six", and the "Delta Forks Brigade".

Those would both have been times where it would have been prudent to hang up one's gavel. Especially because RBG was by all accounts one of the giants of feminism. RBG knew, or ought to have known, that the far-right (which is now most of the right) does not act or legislate in good faith, and arguably has not since the days of Newt Gingrich, 30 years ago. She certainly knew the kind of candidates they had in mind to replace her.

I think everyone at DU has great respect for RBG. I certainly do, and mean no disrespect to her legacy (first Jewish woman on the Court, etc.). But a timely exit might have made it possible for Obama to fight for a replacement candidate that wasn't a "Neanderthal", to use the terminology Ted Kennedy used.

...is "Scripture and Tradition!". "OMG, the Magisterium!". The Magisterium being a relatvely ill-defined entity that mostly means whatever they themselves want it to mean, particularly when arguing an especially thorny topic which they want to appear oversimplified. This is a big part of what led to the defection of Luther, the Reformation, and the sola scriptura doctrine of most Protestant denominations.

As an aside, a lot of scholars think that modern capitalism and individualism would probably never have developed--or would look very different--if the Reformation had not occurred.

...whining about a group of Catholic laity, "Call To Action", which is a pretty wishy-washy liberal organization. This was in the late '90s or something. Her term of abuse for them was "Call To Apostasy".

EWTN has always been much closer to Bible Belt fundamentalism than to Catholicism. Which isn't so surprising, since EWTN is based in Alabama.

...to find the stereotypical Irish family with 12 children anymore. The only place you'll find that kind of fecundity is in schismatic radtrad churches like the SSPXers and the EWTN "stars" who performatively LARP for the camera with their gigantic families. And those "stars" are almost always being subsidized by Catholic fundamentalist billionaires like Tom Monaghan.

The Church hierarchy is another matter, of course, but their problem is that they aren't the "princes of the Church" anymore: the most educated, thoughtful, etc. who deign to tell the rabble laity how to live. Many of the rabble are now far more accomplished and educated than the hierarchy, and the hierarchy knows it. That's why you see all the ridiculous "lifestyle LARPing" on EWTN, (Ir)-Relevant Radio, etc. They think that if they do enough performative LARPing, they can bring back the '50s--the 1350s.

...to button his jacket. It sure looks like everyone else has theirs closed. And he preens in front of everyone like he's hot stuff; the reality is that he needs to cut way back on the Big Macs. Maybe that's a picayune thing to complain about, and it probably is, but absolutely everything is a "fuck you" gesture with Drumpf. He's been known for the "fuck you hair" for decades now, and of course there's the "fuck you tie" that is a foot too long and has to be taped in back, but it's quite clear that the "fuck you" gestures generalize to just about everything in Drumpf's sorry life.

...something like 95% of their budget. Funding OANN in the first place was just an exercise in cynicism, intended to get Fox to drop their outrageous carriage fees on AT&T's network. It worked, and then AT&T dropped OANN. The real question is why the morons at OANN allowed themselves to get painted into a corner like that.

(1) Catholic billionaire money. Mainly Tom Monaghan (Domino's Pizza founder), but others as well, have lavishly funded all kinds of conservative causes: failed radio networks (CatholicFamilyRadio), the EWTN cable channel, a basilica in Nicaragua (which was very unpopular with the locals), "think" tanks like the EPPC, etc. Monaghan uses all sorts of other businesses to essentially launder money for his political activities (cell phone networks, mutual funds, etc.). Sometimes the activism and business even overlap. Nowhere is that more clear than in his ridiculous utopian project, literally in the swamps of Florida, of a combined planned community and college: Ave Maria Town and Ave Maria "University". Monaghan even has his own "farm team" of sorts, Legatus, which serves to train upcoming generations of wealthy far-right Catholics. (There is a similar outfit in California, the Napa Institute, which is run by a billionaire in the wine business).

(2) The reactionary, regressive bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. All one has to do to see how much things have changed is to go back to the '80s and read some USCCB documents and compare them with those of today. In particular, pay attention to the USCCB statements in the '80s about US foreign policy (especially Central America) and the nuclear arms race. By the way, these reactionary bishops and other Catholic clergy don't stay in their lane; they go back and forth between their appointed tasks and making the rounds of appearances on EWTN, "think" tank functions (especially the Acton Institute), shows on (Ir)-Relevant Radio, etc.

Remember, Koch was originally a never-Trumper and he used his lavishly-funded "think" tanks to go after Trump. But there was an agreement at some point where Trump would rubber-stamp whatever reactionary judicial appointments Koch and the Federalist Society wanted, no questions asked, and the quid pro quo was that he was buying their silence. The story has been covered in the press, and I know it was also discussed on DU.

...calling him "Tiller the Baby Killer" or something similar? That name is really familiar. I remember that Media Matters discovered that O'Reilly said that phrase 28 times. And then Dr. Tiller is murdered. What a surprise.