The 2022 pivot to the general was a particularly shameless spectacle to witness. In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections last November, we saw a handful of far-right, Trump-backed Republican candidates who managed to win their primary elections on 2020 grievances soften their policy positions.
Always disorienting when Trump is the voice of moderation.
Not so surprising, now that I think about it.
Losers lose. The GOP is without hope.
He is just a tiny little flag seeing which way the wind is blowing.
Abortion is not going to work as a cudgel against Organized Money forever. Forced-birthers will find a way to move the Overton window, and most people never actually exercised their right to get an abortion while they had it.
They have an unlimited amount of money, they own multiple 24/7 propaganda networks, and they’ve made practically the entire judiciary into their sugar baby.
There is no weapon that will work against them forever. If we can’t fix our democracy soon, their tyranny will survive our anger.
Trump elevator pitch: “I was the only one that could get abortion banned, but nobody has paid for more abortions than me!”
It’s true that he gave them their Justices, but a nuanced approach will not inspire evangelicals to go out and vote for him, let along campaign for him. Maybe he can’t always shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and keep his supporters.
It’s true that he gave them their Justices, but a nuanced approach will not inspire evangelicals to go out and vote for him, let along campaign for him.
They saw Trump as their means to an end. And now that he’s delivered, they have no further use for him.
Pretty ironic, given how Trump has no qualms about throwing people away when they become inconvenient for him.
Every time a woman is forced to create an unwanted child or dies because she cannot obtain a medically indicated abortion that anger will be reignited.
and it is not a fair issue for them to attack on.
" We did something selfish, stupid, and unpopular and now people are judging us."
Trump long ago figured out that if you have no firm principles, that gives you freedom to take just about any stand that you want to take and that your base will tolerate. It is also easier to “reconsider” your stand, since it was never firm to begin with.
When you believe in nothing beyond gaining power, that frees you somewhat from standing for something that is substantive. Just spend all of your campaign oxygen lying about your opposition.
except many people - even conservatives - seem to want health care for all without insurance companies - and yet it hasn’t happened yet
Trump is always the voice of getting over.
Who his nominees to the Supreme Court were says everything that needs to be said about the issue.
The anti-abortion minority prevailed in part because the adopted single issue voting.
I think that is untrue. I’ve read many times over the years that something like one third of all women have an abortion at some point and that number has barely changed over decades. And that doesn’t include the women experiencing miscarriages for whom an abortion is simply the standard of care that preserves their life, health, and fertility. That’s a lot of women. That means nearly all of us know someone who has had an abortion whether we are aware of it or not.
Dixon: […] you came to me and you said, you got to talk differently about abortion. And we could not pivot, we could not pivot in time.
You never pivoted, and never will. You’ve backed yourselves into a rhetorical corner from which your never-ending escalatory banter forbids you from leaving. You passed up every opportunity in the past 40 years to moderate your rhetoric as an appeal to realistic governance in place of ideological purity, but you can’t so you won’t. For your own sake, stop pretending that you possess any amount of political finesse in this department. Your party is stuck in the realm of complete abortion bans, and will never escape as long as people like you are calling the shots. The rest of the electorate will decide whether you and your ilk should continue to hold leadership positions. I predict your party will get thrown out with the bathwater if we so decide, so ponder that for a hot minute.
Pivot, my ass.
I think if you were right, ARs would be illegal right now.
The losing fight over gun violence is all the proof we could be cursed with that there is no amount of personal tragedy that can transform itself into the broad-based political will that is necessary to enact change here. Especially not when 49.99% of congress and 80% of all judges are owned by sociopathic wealth hoarders who use cruel social policy to keep workers from uniting.
Mark my words: the days when we can steamroll the GOP over abortion are numbered, and that has nothing to do with the merits of the issue or the harms caused by bad policy.
Donald J. Trump: The baby at every baptism. The bride at every wedding. The corpse at every funeral. The asshole at every sphincter.
