Republicans Once Again Discovering That People Like Abortions
And they will vote to keep them legal.
Conservatives love to talk about the silent majority: a storied group of unspecified Americans who agree with the Right but are too dignified to participate in the public discourse. It made sense when Nixon first started talking about it, because he was at least specifically talking about Americans who were not participating in protests against the Vietnam War and did, in fact, constitute a majority of the public at that time (a wrong majority, but a majority nonetheless).
These days, the Right is not a silent majority. They are, in fact, very, very loud. Despite this, they always work from the assumption that for every batshit thing they come up with, crowds upon crowds of people are standing behind them giving them the thumbs up — that the vast majority of Americans agree with them, even if they won't say so. It's an extremely effective tactic, because it allows them to ignore opinion polls and allows them to operate from a place of strength no matter how unpopular their policies actually are. It's why they think people who protest against them must be paid shills. It's the reason so many really thought and think the 2020 election had to have been stolen from Trump. After all, even George Soros doesn't have enough money to pay that many people off.
But we're seeing a very different kind of silent majority these days — an abortion rights silent majority. Republicans are finding that each time abortion goes on the ballot, people vote to keep it legal. Why? Because as much as people like saying they are against abortion, and as much as they may be against abortion for other people, specifically the imaginary people that are "using abortion as (the world's most expensive) birth control," they're not totally sure they want to lose the option for themselves and people they care about.
This week, another victory for abortion rights came in Wisconsin with the election of liberal, pro-abortion rights Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the state's supreme court, which means that Democrats will control the state's supreme court for the first time in 15 years. That is a pretty big deal, because not only does it mean that the state's abortion ban is not long for this world, it also means that all the gerrymandering Republicans did to ensure their hold on state government would get tossed as well.
GOOD! Janet Protasiewicz Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Tilts Balance To 'Good'
Protasiewicz's victory has spurred many anti-choice Republicans to plead with others to "abort" the anti-choice mission, for fear they will lose elections.
"Abortion policy should not be the primary goal of republicans until voter integrity is cleaned up." tweeted someone calling themselves Yoshi The Patriot . "Until we have a fair fight in elections we are going to lose on this issue every single time due to radical left pro-choice extremists and election fraud."
"Republicans need to figure out the abortion issue ASAP. We are getting killed by indie voters who think we support full bans with no exceptions. Time for everyone to suck it up and unify behind @LindseyGrahamSC’s 15-wk bill w/ exceptions," tweeted a guy named Jon Schweppe, who pays for Twitter and does not seem very Schweppevescent. "That’s the play. The alternative is suiciding the pro-life movement. We are months away from that happening."
Does he think we're letting the aborted fetuses vote?
The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board, while criticizing the Midwest for getting too liberal, also suggested that the Right may want to cool it with the total abortion bans.
Republicans had better get their abortion position straight, and more in line with where voters are or they will face another disappointment in 2024. A total ban is a loser in swing states. Republicans who insist on that position could soon find that electoral defeats will lead to even more liberal state abortion laws than under Roe . That’s where Michigan is now after last year’s rout.
Even Ann Coulter, a woman known for her off-putting ideological extremism, encouraged her fellow Republicans to chill with the bans.
"The demand for anti-abortion legislation just cost Republicans another crucial race," Coulter wrote on Twitter. "Pro-lifers: WE WON. Abortion is not a 'constitutional right' anymore! Please stop pushing strict limits on abortion, or there will be no Republicans left."
“The demand for anti-abortion legislation just cost Republicans another crucial race. Pro-lifers: WE WON. Abortion is not a "constitutional right" anymore! Please stop pushing strict limits on abortion, or there will be no Republicans left. https://t.co/HK2pxV0geY”
— Ann Coulter (@Ann Coulter) 1680667031
On her Substack, Coulter wrote, "The evidence is in: Anti-abortion legislation is HATED by voters (no matter what they tell pollsters)." And, for once in her sad, miserable life, she's not wrong. I don't know what else she said because it was paywalled, but she's not wrong on that point.
I was, however, able to see part of her video, in which she made a relatively salient point, by Ann Coulter — the people that say in polls, when things are abstract, that they don't believe in abortion may get to the polls and think, "Well, I don't know that I want it to actually be illegal ." Because we know what happens when it's illegal and we know that there are instances when the anti-choice choose.
So look who's the silent majority now?
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reality is what you believe.but philosophers argue over it.
NPR Science Fridays Always presenting new possibilities.I am talking about Human governance.
How we govern ourselves.How our monkey brains cause us to fear a king.and cause a king to instill fear in his subjects.
Like monkeys. When you know the king will gouge your eye out,it seems pretty real.
Monkeys do that to each other, you know.They don't like someone, they bite hes face off.
The abortion issue is not about morality or even religion. It is found nowhere in the Bible.
Until now, the abortion issue has simply been about money, period. In fact, the abortion issue never really existed until the 1970s, when the GOP realized it was a colossal campaign cash machine.
Furthermore, it was never about children either. The anti-abortion crowd doesn't give a damn about kids or even fetuses. (If they really cared about kids, they’d stop blocking Democrats on Climate Crisis legislation.) Being against abortion simply allows Republicans to feel morally superior and self-righteous.
What the abortion issue is really about today, however, is far more serious than even women's health or women's rights – as serious as those issues are.
The abortion issue is in fact the legal epicenter in the fight to save U.S. democracy.These far-right religious zealots are using the right-wing Roberts Supreme Court to hand down a decision on abortion that codifies into law their religious belief that 'a human soul is created at conception' – again, a religious belief that has absolutely no factual basis in medical science whatever.
What this all boils down to is that such a decision will give their religious beliefs legal precedence over medical science.
This will lead to a Constitutional catastrophe, since such a legal precedent will amount to an end-run around the Constitution. allowing these religious zealots to then use this legal precedent to give their religious beliefs legal authority over not just medical science – but over science in general.
Once such a legal precedent is set, it can then be argued as a legal basis to affect or alter other laws. Such an argument would no doubt be favorably viewed by the current right-wing Roberts Supreme Court.
What’s more, this outcome can be achieved thereafter in other cases by a simple SCOTUS edict, bypassing legislation, referendum, or the consent of – or even the knowledge of – the American Public.
The establishment of a legal precedent has been used many times to reach far beyond its original intent or purpose. And such power in the hands of these religious fanatics would not hesitate to be used.
If this sounds far-fetched, it isn’t. All the madness we see today was inconceivable only a few years ago. And the it-can't-happen-here mentality is making it all but inevitable.
As author and intelligence expert Malcolm Nance puts it, if these fanatics are not stopped, the THE HANDMAID'S TALE will be no longer just a novel – but a documentary.