After I saw Joe Biden’s campaign confirm that the candidate still maintains his traditional support for the Hyde Amendment, I was struggling to find a good analogy to describe why this is going to present a rather substantial problem for him. Fortunately, I found it while reading Paul Waldman’s Washington Post article on the subject.
If I told you I “personally opposed” white and black people marrying each other but supported Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision that struck down laws banning interracial marriage, you probably wouldn’t consider me a reliable advocate of civil rights.
The reason this comparison works so well is that Biden has always taken the position that he is personally opposed to abortion, which is consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. However, he supported abortion rights despite his moral qualms, with the caveat that he does not want to pay for it with his tax dollars.
This is essentially the Hyde Amendment position. In practice, it means that you can get an abortion if you can pay for it, but the federal government isn’t going to chip in. They won’t cover the procedure for Medicaid patients, for example. As Waldman explains very well, a right that cannot be exercised is not much of a right:
Because if you believe women should have a right to an abortion, that right ought to have practical meaning for everyone. We believe that the Constitution’s right of due process requires that you have legal representation if you’re accused of a crime, but we don’t say that if you can’t afford it, tough luck. We provide public defenders, because the right would be hollow if it were available only to those who could afford it.
Pro-choice supporters of the Hyde Amendment are guilty of violating this “practical meaning” aspect to reproductive freedom. It used to be a fairly common way for Democrats to search out a middle position, but it has always suffered from this flaw. In 2016, with a woman as the party’s presidential nominee, the Democrats made the abolition of the Hyde Amendment official policy by including it in the platform. According to Waldman’s research, Biden is the only one of the 24 declared candidates who is on the record maintaining support for the amendment. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and Andrew Yang have made no public statements either way. Everyone else has come out in one way or another against Hyde.
By standing alone and in opposition to the party platform, Biden has created a major weakness for his candidacy. No one questions his basic commitment to abortion rights, but his reliability has been cast into question. Waldman is right. If a candidate said that he personally was revolted by the sight of interracial couples but didn’t think the government should prevent consenting adults from getting married, then we would quite justifiably consider them a poor choice on racial matters and civil rights. That would not be an acceptable “middle position.” As a practical matter, it might be hard to articulate how it would matter, but that wouldn’t change how people felt about it. They would not trust that person or consider them their ally.
Politicians from Poppy Bush to Al Gore have reversed themselves on abortion when it suited them, but I don’t automatically think that Biden has taken this position with an eye for the general election. It’s possible that he’s maintaining consistency because he follows the Church’s teachings and thinks the government should respect the sensitivity of the subject for millions of Americans. But, as Ed Kilgore notes, if he is taking his nomination for granted and maintaining the popular position for the showdown with Trump, he may be in for a surprise:
Assuming there was a political calculation behind Biden’s positioning on Hyde, it’s probably based on polling showing that the amendment is popular among the general electorate and commands significant support from a minority of Democrats, too. But like every question involving abortion policy, measures of public opinion vary according to the framing, and the idea of denying abortion services to women who happen to be poor isn’t popular at all.
I think he’d also be more than a little presumptuous if he’s betting that he can weather the storm this creates for him in the primaries and caucuses and come out the other side in a stronger position for the general election. In this #MeToo generation with abortion rights under unprecedented assault and a conservative Supreme Court queuing up cases where they’ll have the opportunity to repeal or curtail Roe v. Wade, anything less than a full commitment to reproductive freedom is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of Democratic voters.
Biden will have to face down a field of competitors that includes several accomplished, well-funded and popular women. The men are certainly not going to let him off the hook, as they battle to prove their trustworthiness on the issue.
I’d call this a major mistake for Biden if I knew it was some kind of miscalculation, but I think it could be a sincerely held position that represents less of a blunder than a demonstration that he’s a poor fit for this party at this time.
He may “clarify” or adjust his messaging going forward, but the damage has already been done. He just made winning the nomination a much heavier lift.
It’s either a blunder or a poor fit for 2020. Politically sub-optimal in either case.
The endless special accommodations to the anti-abort snowflakes. It’s “immoral” for (a millionth of a cent of) “their” taxes to go for covering Medicaid abortions, while fully HALF of a pacifist’s (or simply an anti-militarist’s) taxes go to bloated and globe-sprawling “Defense” spending. Or to subsidies for BigOil’s ongoing destruction of the planet/climate.
Only lib’ruls should have to pay for everything they deeply disagree with. Seems reasonable!
“Wounded” might be an understatement in this case. First, for a male Democratic Presidential candidate, especially in a field crowded with women and a Party that is majority female, to come out with such a weak and specious position in 2019 is more than just a wound. I don’t know how he backpedals or mitigates this. Does he not understand what people, especially women, hear when he stakes a position such as this? I don’t believe that Democratic women, especially young women, are willing to look the other way like GOP women did, and continue to do, with Trump when he was bragging about grabbing pussies and proudly trying to screw married women. To use a Booman metaphor, Biden is “walking into the threshing blades” here. I think I can be pretty confident in saying that we will not have a Democratic President who does not proudly proclaim their full throated support of a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body. That ship has sailed, and I’m afraid Mr. Biden did not get the memo, or he is choosing to ignore it. I am not a great believer in applying litmus tests to my Party’s candidates, but this is a big fucking deal for me. My local Party exists and thrives, in large part, because of the activism and energy of the women. Whether it be showing up at candidate fundraisers, knocking on doors during election seasons, manning phone banks, organizing public service activities in the community, or administering the local Party functions; women are the fuel which powers the machine. There is no way in hell you are going to get them to expend their energy and effort to support a candidate who makes takes this sort of position as a Presidential candidate.
Time to flip your calendar, Joe. It isn’t 1992. In a climate where virtually every civil right is now under assault by the Republican Party, except, of course, the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, you have now positioned yourself for a massive failure.
Just saw on MSMBC that every candidate that is now against the Hyde
amendment voted for it at one time or another
Of course they did. They’re not going to shut down the government over it.
Proves time changes people’s minds, except apparently Joe. What else is floating around in his head he thinks is a wonderful idea?
Ole Joe day me went and now has changed his mind. Isn’t that just great.
I don’t think it will matter. Older voters are more “pro-life” than younger, more receptive to compromising what they believe for electoral power, and if anything see this as a benefit because hey they’ve been taught by harsh political realities that you gotta throw women under the bus (or others if necessary because look at McGovern). I hope it hurts and pierces his little bubble though. His campaign is just laziness and I cannot stand it.
On another note, do you plan to write about the Danish elections? The far right collapsed, the “center left” Social Dems tried adopting far right immigration plans (plans that would make Stephen Miller blush) and it didn’t work (they lost more voters than they gained). But the left bloc has won. Best to shoot down the “we should get more racist to win” narratives.
5
Despite early polling (which is mostly about name recognition plus some good vibes from his association with Obama), I see Biden very likely to either take himself down by dumb stuff he says or does, or be taken down once the *WtUCM quit giving him a pass and start some serious scrutiny, bringing up his many problematic statements/actions/positions from the past. And since the *WtUCM seem largely in his corner for now, and might not launch such scrutiny until he had the nomination nailed down, it looks like a good thing for this (and many more such items of baggage) to come out early, making it less likely he ends up the nominee.
*Worse-than-Useless Corporate Media
Solid analysis. As for how this plays out in the Democratic primaries, longtime Massachusetts political journalist David Bernstein has already drawn the analogy to the 2009-10 campaign to fill out Ted Kennedy’s senate term. Martha Coakley beat Mike Capuano in the primary largely because of Capuano’s clumsy handling of an ACA procedural vote in favor of the Stupak amendment.
(Granted, Massachusetts Dems are more liberal than Dems nationally…on the other hand Dems nationally are more liberal than they were a decade ago.)
3.5
I think this is Biden making what he correctly sees as the ultimate centrist move, publicly going against his own party so he can stand before center right and right wing voters and go, see, I went against my own party to get your support – love me! In the centrist mindset, the ultimate achievement is to get right of center support, all the more sweeter when it’s done by Souljah-ing your own. What the centrists have yet to figure out, amazingly, is that you can have Mike Huckabee as your running mate, but as long as you have a “D” next to your name, especially in this day and age, the republican-leaning voters you crave will distrust you, and the prized wingnuts will still hate you with the aggregate heat of a thousand suns.
I’m done with giving Biden a pass. Every woman I know dreaded him getting in the race, and this proves them right. We have so many very good candidates this year, and I’m not risking 2020 on Joe Biden.
That backtrack didn’t take long.
Ok, he made the right decision. His reasoning for the change of position didn’t come off as *total* b.s. and he didn’t apologize for his past position. This is all to the good. Still waiting for a big stumble or a foot in mouth, I’m pleasantly surprised so so far.
4.5