I don’t know how the Texas abortion law will shake out. I want to be honest about that. Truthfully, it seems like an unnecessary diversion from the main act, which is the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, due next year, which can be reasonably predicted to eviscerate Roe and Casey.
So if the standard regimen we’ve been living under for decades is only months away from death-by-Alito, why is Texas acting all crazy now and creating abortion bounty hunters?
Scott Lemieux argues that the Republicans will pay a price for this effrontery but that it might not be a very consequential price. On the one hand, he says, “if abortion clinics close and people are getting bankrupted for giving their neighbors phone numbers [for abortion providers], people are going to notice.” On the other hand, due to gerrymandering and non-competitive states and districts, most Republicans are entirely free from political peril unless they deviate to the left. People can get as mad as they want about the country going off a right-wing cliff, but there’s not a damn thing that can be done about it.
I see this differently. I think the Republicans are upsetting the status quo on abortion in ways that are not popular. It’s true they get away with doing a lot of things that aren’t popular. Counterintuitively, they’re frequently rewarded. But this is different in the same way that enacting civil rights legislation in the 1960s was different. It will change how people vote. It will cause new people to pay more attention. And it will change the balance of energy on social issues, not just abortion.
Maybe “realignment” is too strong of a word, but it will definitely reorder the existing boundaries of political affiliations, and it will change the issues each party uses to gain an enthusiasm advantage.
One thing is certain. Women will not rest until they get the rights they’ve lost restored. Reproductive rights aren’t going to be one item among others, like tax rates and discriminating against gays.
Will it be difficult to get those rights back? Yeah, it will be absurdly difficult thanks to factors like gerrymandering and the extremely conservative Supreme Court. But while it will harder to reverse these changes than it should be, that doesn’t mean the GOP won’t be put on the defensive in a big way.
Conservative control of the GOP is stronger than ever and growing, so they’re not going to moderate. Instead, their anti-Democratic actions will become more central and urgent as they desperately try to prevent any consequences for their radicalism. Fear of demographic change started this trend, but pissing of the more populous gender is going to add rocket fuel.
Can women really be allowed to vote? Not if it means the GOP has to soften its positions.
So, this is more a symptom of a preexisting disease than the disease itself. This fight will be long and ugly precisely because the GOP is committed to not paying a consequential price. But they will eventually lose. Either that, or we become Gilead.
“Can we women really be allowed to vote?”
Interesting. Of course, Republicans can’t geographically target women the way they can geographically target and sequester minority voters into gerrymandered districts. Yes, more conservative districts are more conservative. I can’t imagine how Republicans can prevent pro-choice women from voting or from even doing much to gerrymander women out of power. But I don’t have the imagination of Republican operatives, so I’m open to hearing about what they may do.
They’ll start saying it because of course they will.
Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yes, some have been saying it more openly even now. But that’s an entirely impotent sentiment unless, as you say, things get really weird.
I would have thought there was simply no way the republicans could overturn Roe v Wade. But they may have done the trick. Also I noted they are now going to restrict pharmaceutical abortions as well. There goes the morning after solution to this nasty law. Daddy happy now? There is likely to be a huge backlash to this that may play to the democrats. Then again there is really no such thing as voting rights anymore. So when some local gangsters decide to redo the election to favor themselves, that trick is done as well . Alito wins again. Does this mean the only answer is at the barrel of an AR15 and another civil war? Joe Manchin, how about a strategic pause to help your reelection campaign in good ole’ red West by gawd hell.
There’s multiple ways that the US can avoid violence. Personally, I don’t think we will, but there are ways.
One way would be to openly embrace Federalism. I mean, really embrace it. I linked a blog post by Chris Ladd on multiple occasions, and I’ll do it again:
https://www.politicalorphans.com/democrats-should-weaponize-federalism/
In essence, liberals generally and the Democratic Party specifically have softened Republican policy over the past 50 years. It’s why you get hilariously inept statements by Republican base voters decrying socialism, while they’re collecting their military pension, Medicare and Social Security; As their children collect SNAP here and there throughout their lifetimes, and their grandchildren get free healthcare via HillaryCare.
It’s time to stop with this shit. We’re creating soft conservatives who think they’re hardcore because Democratic policy softens the dogshit they’ve been voting for their entire lives, giving them the fuel to continue pretending they’ve bootstrapped their way to the middle working class and their forever debt paying off the newest F150 they believe represents Freedom™.
Weaponize Federalism.
It would also allow Blue States to do what they do best: Progress their citizens health, education and wealth. Laboratories of Democracy…bring it on. If Red State voters get what they’ve actually voted for and love it, well then, great. Blue State voters can get what they want. Win-win. And don’t go on about how Blue voters in Red States are going to suffer, because THEY ALREADY DO. I’ve been living in Purple/Red States my entire life.
Of course, all of this is coming as the modern Petroleum-based society is about to start collapsing, but the better off you are when collapse starts happening, the better of you’ll be when you’re knee-deep in it, but I digress.
Oh yeah, and before I forget.
The Second Amendment isn’t just a right, it’s a responsibility.
After 40 years in this country, I have concluded USA is at heart, at the very bottom of its heart, a radical conservative country. Where I live in Ventura County, SoCal – moved here from LA County – I see it all around me… subtly or not so subtly… even lots of Hispanics are quite conservative… our handyman is refusing to take the vaccine, even though his wife has taken it…
My Indian American doctor friend says his conservative doctor colleagues have quite differing opinions – among the white doctors, there is some aspersions cast on African Americans… but among other immigrant doctors, there is resentment of Hispanics…
Maybe some time in the distant future, it will get back to FDR great society liberalism… but not in the short run… and by then climate change will have changed our country (and the world) so radically!
This male vs. female framing is simply wrong. Women are 52% of voters, if it were a simple as male vs. female this would have been settled long ago. It’s not the boys against the girls, it’s a religious divide not a gender divide. Evangelicals and conservative Catholics, vs. mainstream Protestants, liberal Catholics and none-of-the-aboves. The issue is one of religious beliefs imposed by means of government coercion. It’s not gender, it’s not race, it’s not class, the issue of abortion does not fit into any of the popular liberal/progressive frames. It’s one of the reasons we keep losing. We’re treating abortion as some sort of proxy war over the role of women but that is the wrong focus. That’s not what motivates the enemy.
The most zealous anti-abortion crusaders I’ve encountered have all been women. The majority of white women voted for Trump. Twice.