Thanks to the 2022 midterms and Kansas’ primary election a few months earlier, there is now a very recent set of data points enforcing the reality that even in some deeply red states, majorities of voters support abortion access (or, at least, reject abortion restrictions).
Why would newly-elected or re-elected Republicans “moderate their stance”?? They’ve just been elected! They’ve got 2 (or 6) years free and clear before the next election! They can do anything they please, and the non -MAGA voters can pound sand!
Of course, if need be, changes in “stance” can take place a month or two before their next election. But that’s a long way off, and practically irrelevant now.
First! … no cat photos, unfortunately. He died Friday.
Thanks for all the sympathy for my poor deceased kitty! We had him for close to 19 years, and will miss him.
Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.
Sorry for your loss.
And they know that while Red voters may express concern about the lack of exceptions, they won’t vote based on the issue (I’m not a single issue voter" as one on these Very Concerned Republican Women said to me on Twitter). Much less in the states where women and doctors are terrified to do anything because of the likelihood of indictment by extremist D.A.'s notwithstanding what any “life of the mother” exception in the law says.
The key to becoming a Republican member of Congress is to win a Republican primary.
Sorry to hear about your cat.
Republicans for 40 years have been buying power on a credit card promising to outlaw abortion and now the bill has come due. The real problem for Republicans is the dislike of most Americans toward GOP economic policies causing Republicans to find votes among one issue extremists, "God, Guns, Gays, Race, Abortion, Religion, et al.
The question is will Republicans “moderating” their stance on abortion help or hurt them and I believe the answer is it hurt them. The key to answer this question is to remember that Republican Economic policy is in fact very unpopular.
That is you have many, particularly Catholics, who unlike Southern White Evangelicals who initially supported the Roe decision and only turned against as an excuse to oppose Jimmy Carter’s push for racial justice, really vote for Republicans on the abortion issue.
Now I suppose you could argue that merely not being opposed to abortion when the life of the mother is at stake or in cases of rape and incest “moderates” the GOP stance on abortion. For sure I remember when that was the definition of a moderate Republican, they did not oppose abortion in situations as stated above. But I doubt that would gain them very much if not lose more then it would gain.
So any meaningful “moderation” by Republicans on their current abortion stance would both split the Party even further then it is
So any significant moderation in the Republican abortion stance will lose more votes then it will gain unless Republicans also moderate their economic policies that so favor billionaires over everyone else.
Good, that should help the Democrats in 2024!
Here’s one for you. Sorry for your loss.
One way to push back on these stupid Republican anti-women laws is to start looking at maternal and infant deaths data. We need to set the baseline of what it was under Roe v. Wade per state. And hit them hard with the stats during the 2023 election season.
Most of them are from safe districts so the more extreme their position the more they gat re elected. Democrats should’ve been on this the day Dobbs was leaked.
The forced birth cadre skew the data by defining infant death as any fertilized egg that doesn’t go to term.
The GOP has learned no lessons from 3 bad elections in a row: 2018, 2020, and 2022. Their ongoing radicalism on a whole host of issues — and not just abortion — reveals how far down in crazytown the party has descended.
2024 is likely to be another bad election for these loons.
The only thing missing in the R’s proposals, all harsh, all demeaning, is the proposal to imprison women who attempt to have an abortion. This from a group of mostly men who date women who are not their wives and find a way for the girlfriend to obtain an abortion if she needs one.
From your lips. . .
I grow weary of the political calculation hypothesis why rightists are the way they are. Republicans actively WANT Generation X and Y women to have more oopsies. They WANT children of Millenials to have an aunt or uncle who’s younger than they. They WANT women’s educations and careers to be subject to derailment at any time, due to pregnancy.
One thing Republicans understand that Democrats don’t, is to always hit as hard as they can with all the power they have, whenever they have it.
Whatever one thinks of Joe Manchin, the power maximizing strategy would’ve been to kiss his arse, let him write the leftmost bill he would support, and move on to the next one immediately. Rather than seeking to jam him up into changing his mind for a year.
Anything that would get a democrat kicked out of office is excused by the republican base (see Hershel Walker).
In an already solid red district, yes, but in purple districts sometimes GOP primary voters will elect someone just too over-the-line to win against the Dem. For example, I believe Themis Klarides would’ve beaten Jahana Hayes in CT 5, but Klarides was too humane about abortion access.
Moderate, verb and noun.
Verb:
Even After Midterm Losses, House Republicans Show No Inclination To Moderate On Abortion
My god, even after midterm losses, House Republicans show no inclination to moderate on ___
Noun:
Kirsten Sinema is a moderate.
Such a useful word.