Ever since he embarked upon his third presidential campaign last year, Donald Trump — the man who killed Roe v. Wade — has been trying to present himself as a moderate on abortion. Why? Well, largely because it’s become abundantly clear, post-Roe, that anti-abortion laws are actually extremely unpopular with voters and are killing Republicans in elections.
He’s been ramping this up in recent weeks, even going so far as to post on Truth Social that his administration will be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” In an interview, even Trump’s rabidly anti-abortion-rights running mate JD Vance said that Trump would veto any abortion ban that came across his desk.
Does this mean Trump is not a threat to reproductive rights? Of course not. There are a bajillion things he can do besides just signing or not signing a nationwide abortion ban, and we all know because we lived through four years of it. He can appoint judges who oppose abortion and will strike down attempts to undo anti-abortion legislation — which we’ve seen so much of in the last year or so. He can reinstate the Mexico City Policy and the Title X gag rule that prevented Planned Parenthood from getting federal funding for things having nothing to do with abortion. He can in fact, as Jessica Valenti points out, sign a nationwide abortion ban, because they keep playing word games that say “a ban” isn’t a “ban” if it includes so much as an exception for the mother’s life. He can also — we know, it’s a stretch — be just entirely full of shit.
But that’s not enough for Lila Rose.
Anti-abortion activist and longtime ridiculous person Lila Rose has been very upset lately over her feeling that Trump has abandoned her and the anti-abortion movement in general in order to get votes — and she’s starting to threaten him with the loss of votes if he doesn’t get back in line.
Earlier this week, she put out a video statement encouraging him to go back to promising to sign all pieces of “pro-life” legislation that pass his desk and also to accusing Democrats of supporting “post-birth” abortion and infanticide, which is of course not a thing.
“I urge all pro-lifers to come out right now and say ‘President Trump, stand for life. President Trump, if you want the pro-life vote, fight for life,’” she said. “That's not called voter suppression, my friends. That's called voter encouragement. That's called encouraging voters to do what their job is to demand what they need and they want from their candidate from candidates.
“You know the pro-life vote is not owned,” she continued. “Nobody owns the pro-life vote. The pro-life vote is earned and you don't earn the pro-life vote by throwing it under the bus by listening to whatever pollsters are lying to you, whatever media narratives are lying and throwing the babies under the bus.”
Weirdly enough, I actually do agree with her, in a way — just from the other end of things. I find the idea that we’re all supposed to be quiet little submissive church mice who never push politicians on our own side to act on issues that are important to us —because “Oh no! If you criticize them you’re suppressing turnout!” — to be absolutely ridiculous and entirely unhelpful. Like, why is it fine for, say, a pharmaceutical industry lobbying group to push the politicians that we vote for, who are supposed to work for us and represent us, to support things that the majority of us do not like or want, but not okay for regular people to publicly say what they want and expect from their leaders? Is that not just a tad fucked?
But I digress!
Now, under normal circumstances, I think the Right would just shrug off Rose’s criticisms and reassure her that Trump will still be a dystopian nightmare for reproductive rights, regardless of what he says right now. But they’re currently in full-on panic mode, so not only is that not happening, but Miss Lila Rose is getting her ass thrown right under the bus … with all of the babies.
Rose is being now being called a grifter by her former comrades and supporters, who also now suggest that she’s always been a secret liberal who just happens to oppose abortion rights — digging up tweets featuring mild support for some gun regulations, another tweet about George Floyd’s Christian faith, and even a post in which she said she disagreed with the idea that women should be denied the right to vote because Eve eating the apple is all the science proof you need about our judgment — that, according to one critic, makes her a full-on feminist.
It’s completely bananas.
“I think the only ‘foolish’ one is anybody dumb enough to continue donating to Lila Rose’s $14 million a year scam organization that uses donations for her quarter million dollar a year salary, self-serving galas and Lila’s own podcast appearances,” tweeted Ashley St. Clair, who was notably kicked out of Turning Point USA for being too cozy with Nick Fuentes and other white supremacists and has been on an anti-Lila Rose tear for the last week.
“Lila Rose gets paid nearly 280k a year to post content like this and pretend she represents the conservative base. It's time to defund Pro-Life Inc,” wrote Scott Greer, author of No Campus For White Men. Don’t threaten us with a good time!
“Two things can be true at the same time,” wrote someone calling themselves Classical Theist. “Trump sold out on abortion and the Lila Rose/Live Action pro-life movement is a feminist grifting operation that should be called out and discredited.”
Ah yes, so feminist!
You know, people always used to say that Republicans would never actually want Roe overturned because they needed it to run on — presuming that once anti-abortion-rights creeps got everything they wanted, they wouldn’t be as driven to get out and vote Republican. That hasn’t happened, but what has is Republicans now having to deal with the fact that non-hypothetical anti-abortion policies are a real vote-killer and can’t run on them now anyway. I’m not mad at that.
I’m also not mad at the rift this is causing in the Republican Party right now, at an incredibly opportune time for us, or the fact that Trump very likely will lose the votes of a lot of anti-abortion zealots. So let’s hope they all keep it up!
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Donald Trump believes that abortion should be illegal except in rare cases when it could save the life of his presidential campaign.
Seen and posted a couple o' days ago:
𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡'𝗧 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗙 𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗔 𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘 - 𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗬 𝗩𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗠.