Elections come and go and for the most part, I think they work though I often (like today) disagree with the outcome. But the ousting of the Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled that the ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional is more than disappointing to me, it is heartbreaking. The message sent is clear: watch out how you rule, justices, because doing your job is not about what’s constitutional anymore, it’s about appeasing the most ignorant factions among us. We, the ignorant, who have no legal training, will tell you how to rule. This is populism at its worst. And where there is populism, there can be fascism. If there is another message today, it’s that no gains toward civil rights are ever really won. The ruling on gay marriage in Iowa will likely be overturned. There will be no African Americans in our new Senate. This isn’t a Republican victory, it’s a populist victory, which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s this particular brand of populism that scares the shit out of me.