I am woman hear me roar, in numbers too big too ignore Helen Reddy I am woman
How many times? I ask you my dear friends and readers, how many times in the past have I railed about the evils of unintended consequences? When you undertake to create a plan or scheme with nothing more than a short term goal, how many times does your lack of planning and forward thought come back to bite you in the ass in ways you never imagined possible?
Well, once again the GOP has set itself up for disaster. They are already drooling over at the very least retaking the House, if not the Senate in 2022. But the two idiot cousins, Mississippi and Texas, are busy setting up a perfect storm that will crash down on their dingy right in the middle of the 2022 general election. And it may well end up sending them to Davey Jones locker instead of the seats of power.
In politics, timing is everything. After all, there’s a reason why it’s called an October Surprise. It is timed to land right before people head to the polls, causing them to change their minds at the last minute, changing minds just as they head to the polls. With the advent of early voting, and mail in voting, I have the feeling that it will morph into the September Surprise. But you get my drift.
I was heartened and overjoyed to see the turnout nationwide on Saturday for the Women’s march for reproductive rights. Especially the heavy turnouts in Austin , Texas, and Washington Dc, the epicenters of the struggle. And those two locations are ground zero for the most pernicious attacks on Roe v Wade in decades. And once again the GOP is going something that the Democrats can’t seem to do for themselves, unifying and motivating voters.
On December 1st, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the restrictive Mississippi 16 week abortion ban. But the
Supreme Court being the Supreme Court, the actual decision on the case in not expected until late May or early June. Right in the middle of the 2022 midterm campaign and only a month or so until the August recess. Either way, talk about dropping a neutron bomb into the middle of the campaign.
Last week, the DOJ argued in federal court for a stay on the ridiculously unconstitutional Abortion vigilante lawsuit law. The judge’s ruling could come at any time. But regardless of the ruling, the losing side is going to appeal to the federal appellate court. And the sturm und drang will go on. And even if the DOJ wins, and the law is blocked, it is unlikely that local abortion providers will ramp back up again until they at least get an appellate court ruling. Which set up a spring showdown in the Supreme Court, with a September ruling date.
There is no good outcome for the GOP in this scenario. For one simple reason. The suburbs are the golden key to the 2022 midterms. And the golden key to the suburbs are white suburban women. If SCOTUS upholds either the Mississippi law or the Texas law, not just white suburban women, but women of all stripes will boil to the polls to express their disapproval. Remember, reasonable abortion access has a 64% popularity in national polling, even conservatives agree.
But let’s just play the wild card here, shall we? Let’s just say that the three Trump conservative justices hold true to honor their testimony in their Senate confirmation hearings, and instead uphold Roe v Wade as settled constitutional law? The results would be catastrophic for the GOP. After all, the far right Evangelicals have spent more than 30 years electing Republicans in order to get a super majority on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade. If SCOTUS actually upholds Roe v Wade, the far right Evangelicals will revolt. After more than 30 years, and finally obtaining a super majority on the Supreme Court, the GOP turned out to be all hat and no cattle. The Evangelicals will abandon them in a heartbeat.
See what I mean? When you spend all of your time for decades pissing up a rope, just to appease a small minority of your voters, you run the risk of alienating the actual majority of your voters. Or, if it all comes a cropper for you, pissing off that critical minority instead. Wheels within wheels.
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Don’t think that the DNC under Jaime Harrison hasn’t noticed, Murf. As a texter on the DNC’s new Scale Back Better permanent campaigning initiative, nobody is wasting any time on getting organized. We’re already working on the off-year races, including the Virginia governor’s race, rounding up voters and phone bank volunteers. But yeah, the now-leaderless GOP is making this MUCH easier.
I agree with all of your analysis here. And I feel that this issue could completely upend the political balance of power we’ve had for years and years. It could cause a collapse of the iteration of the current party system (sixth) and carry us into the next.
On the other hand, so many huge things have happened that I thought would start that process and haven’t, one being the election of a nationalist fascist incompetent moron to the presidency. I wonder how great the impact will be. I feel like it’s a magnitude 9.5 to our politics, but maybe I’m wrong.
Ironic, isn’t it? The Mississippi law has been touted by its supporters as “following the science”–especially the improvements in technology that allow for better monitoring and discerning fetal development. And yet, these same people continue to denigrate the science behind COVID and the vaccine.