Ezra Klein Committed To The Bit That Abortion Rights Are Unpopular
So why do they keep winning, even in red states?
For the last several years, every time abortion rights have come to a vote in any state, a majority of residents have voted in favor of them — including red states like Nebraska and Missouri. Ballot initiatives have succeeded in every state but Florida, but only because the state requires that they receive a 60 percent supermajority of the vote to pass, instead of 50 percent.
Also, for the last several years (and before then, obviously), we have heard lecture after lecture about how Democrats would have a better chance of winning in certain areas if they run candidates that oppose abortion rights.
Ezra Klein — who has been on a real Tour De Foot In Mouth as of late — has been on this trip for a minute. He first brought it up in conversation with Ross Douthat earlier this month and has since doubled down on this ever-so-brilliant theory in an interview with David Remnick of the New Yorker. It appears to be part of his plan to figure out why the Democratic Party seems to be losing so badly and why Charlie Kirk, before he died, was “winning.”
I said recently, in a podcast with my colleague Ross Douthat, that I feel that there’s been a lot of fatalism among Democrats. They’ve just accepted that there are places where they cannot compete. And I said that I want to see real decisions being made to try to compete in Kansas and Missouri and Ohio and then in red states —meaning, redder than that. I’d like to see us running pro-life Democrats again. When Obamacare passed, about forty House Democrats were pro-life. People got very upset about that. I get why, but I think it’s worth thinking about this.
No, it’s not. It absolutely is not — and not just because it’s grotesque to throw us under the bus like that, but because preserving abortion rights is the thing that is actually getting people to the polls to vote against Republicans. Or to vote for both Republicans and abortion rights, as was the case in Missouri.
I could write an essay all about how deeply messed up it is that our bodily autonomy seems to always be the most expendable thing — and it is — but it has also occurred to me that the reason abortion rights keep coming up in this context is because it is truly the only issue for which the Democratic Party really does have a litmus test. Other than that and maybe same sex marriage in the years since it’s been legal, there just are not really any other specific positions that Democrats running for office are expected to hold. There are pro-death-penalty Democrats and anti-raising the minimum wage Democrats, pro-corporate/big business Democrats, pro-gun Democrats, pro-war Democrats, anti-trans-rights Democrats, and so on.
Klein suggested that Republicans have been more open to bringing those with different views into their party, which is absolutely laughable:
Has it been bad for the Republican Party that Susan Collins, who is nominally pro-choice, wins in Maine?
No, because no matter how “concerned” Collins gets, she still reliably votes for the GOP’s agenda, even when that involves appointing anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court, which allowed them to ultimately overturn Roe v. Wade. This has not, historically, been the case with anti-abortion-rights Democrats like Joe Manchin and Henry Cuellar.
Has it been bad for the Republican Party that Donald Trump welcomed R.F.K., Jr., and all of his voters—from Joe Rogan all the way down—into their coalition? No, it has expanded their power.
It probably helped that pretty much all of the anti-vaxxers are now Republicans and that RFK Jr. has fully abandoned any more liberal inclinations he may have had at one point.
Trump built coalitions when he thought it would serve him. He is, among many other things, a ruthlessly political animal. I think there are things to take seriously in that, which we have begun to demean.
No, Trump has threatened people into going along with him. There is a difference.
If you ask me, part of the reason why abortion rights draw people to the polls — aside from the fact that people want them and are (usually) aware of which party is likely to support them — it is because there’s actual, sincere passion behind the advocacy. Because there is a sense of urgency. Because politicians running for office are willing to explain why those rights are necessary and try to persuade voters to understand.
The Democratic Party’s struggles with voters have practically nothing to do with political positions. If you look at opinion polls, there is majority support for raising the minimum wage, tuition-free public colleges, subsidized or free school meals, parental leave, sick leave, subsidized child care, stricter gun control laws, raising taxes on high earners, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, immigration being good for the country, a pathway to citizenship for most undocumented immigrants, investing in clean energy, replacing at-will employment with just-cause protections, criminal justice reform and reducing the number of people in prison, increasing funding for Social Security, universal health care, and, yes, abortion rights.
I could go on, but then we would be here all day.
There is a strain of wisdom that holds that the key to the Democratic Party winning elections is by being more or less a blank slate onto which anyone can imprint their own ideas and values — sort of like the Bible. It seems pretty clear, however, that we are a nation that likes and appreciates fighters and ultimately rewards boldness over pragmatism and confidence over insecurity.
Ironically, I think that probably the most ineffective way to reel in voters is to publicly discuss abandoning core values in order to appeal to them. It comes across as calculating and insincere — and the immediate reaction anyone with half a brain will have will be “So if they’re willing to throw abortion rights out the window to appeal to me, how do I know they won’t do the exact same thing with things that matter to me in order to appeal to other voters?”
If there are legions of voters out there who would vote for Democrats, save for abortion rights, I sure as hell haven’t seen them or heard from them. This is not to say that Dems should give up on places where they don’t usually win, or shouldn’t try to look out for candidates who will appeal to those voters and persuade them to vote for them. They absolutely should. I just think that abandoning our principles in order to do that pretty much defeats the whole point of such a venture.
If Ezra Klein doesn't want an abortion, he shouldn't have one.
Otherwise, shut the fuck up, asshat.
If you don't believe in human rights, just acknowledge it. If you believe that some people have more rights than others, own that too. If it's really okay, why not say these things out loud?