Charlie, I love the Bulwark, or at least I think I do, and it's why it pains me to see articles like the ones you've featured today, because it very much feels to me like either coping or outright delusion on basically everything.
To start with the easy bit, Schumer's bill is merely codifying what is currently already law thanks to Roe v Wade. If that's the 'maximalist' position, then we have a very different idea of what that is. Beyond that, politics is salesmanship, which is why Trump was so bad at it. You don't start with what you want. You put out the position you know you won't get and you let people haggle you down for it to where you actually want to be. That lets them think they got one over on you when you actually got what you want. Beyond that, the reason you need to bring it up for a vote is because you need to A. show the base that you actually do need more democrats in office because you don't have enough to do what they want and B. need to make it clear that the party position on this issue is not up for debate. Parties, at least until recently, stood for things. You couldn't be a communist in Reagan's GOP, and you can't be anti-abortion in today's Democratic party.
Moving beyond that, Mona is well out of her depth about what's coming. The positions are not going to get less maximalist, they're going to get more so, especially on the anti-choice side, which has already begun criminalizing not just abortion but things like Plan B and IVFs. What is coming, simply put, is another version of Dred Scott; we are going to have two Americas, where where you live determines what rights you have. Or we will, until there is a matter like Dred Scott where someone has an abortion in another state and there's a showdown over who has jurisdiction. And if you don't believe me, Louisiana just passed a law wherein it says, explicitly, that any judge that attempts to stop it in the state will be impeached, and any federal law that attempts to overrule it will be ignored. To put it bluntly, the issue of abortion is no less significant than that of slavery in our day and age, and rather than tone down the rhetoric, it's going to go to eleven.
Lastly, a shrinking GOP base means nothing, because they don't believe in elections or in voting. Any Democratic victory is a lie, any GOP failure is only due to evil by the other side. This is what animates the party. It doesn't matter if it's shrinking, because either later this year or in 2024, the party is simply going to seek, as JD Vance says, 'their American Caesar.' American institutions already don't reflect the popular will, and the Supreme Court has now taking to flouting it openly, so if you think it's going to do anything other than rubber stamp the GOP into power you're dreaming.
I hate to say it, but we as a nation are heading either towards a second civil war or dissolution. There is no other way to see the world, given the fact that neither side is going to give up on an issue or a set of beliefs that they consider literally life or death. The right already canonizes figures like Rittenhouse, and we're going to have a whole nation of them before long, I'm afraid.
I agree with everything you've said. My feeling is if a female is pregnant and she thinks that her embryo is a living person with a soul to be given life, I'm all for her having all the resources she needs to give birth to her baby. However if her sister becomes pregnant and absolutly does not want to be pregnant and give birth, why does anyone else care? It seems so personal to me. How can someone in a free country feel they have a right to force someone go through pregnancy and birth if she doesn't want to. It's her body.
Rule #1: Don't bring up for a vote something that YOU KNOW will lose.
Rule #2: If you DO violate Rule #1, only do so to force the other side into a unpopular position that they will then have to explain and defend (if you are explaining and defending, you are losing the argument). You do this by voting on "popular" things that your opponents vote against (cf. Repubs voting "against" support for Ukraine by voting against a larger bill)
So, yeah....Don't put up for a vote a bill that 90% of the population is against that you are going to lose: This puts YOU in the position of explaining and defending an unpopular vote.
Instead, put up for a vote something that has 75% popular support that your opponents will vote against, forcing them to explain and defend.
Rule #3: Your "base" is your BASE. You aren't going to lose them simply because you don't vote for every maximalist thing. (Do you really think pro-2A voters are going to vote for a Dem just because once their Repub rep voted for background checks? Sure...)
Rule #4: Successful, long-term politicians (and parties) are so because they GROW support from beyond their base.
In a 50-50 country (or any race), if you can peel 5% of the other side to you, you win. If all you do is focus on the 30% that is your "base" to the exclusion of the other side - you lose. (See rural America and Dem failure)
I do not buy the "If you are explaining and defending, you are losing the argument." A huge problem is the rejection of nuance and context. So we get stupid memes instead of well-reasoned arguments. Furthermore, an explanation is not prima facie a defense. Both sides have accused me of "defending" when I am merely explaining a position, whether I hold that position or not. Debate Team 101.
There's the world we live in and the world as we wish it were.
If you have to spend 10 minutes explaining that, "Yes, I voted for abortions right up to the moment the child is born because there's this one in one million time that it *might* be necessary..."
Your sentence is framing it all wrong. You are buying into limiting the definition of abortion to an elective procedure instead all abortions as opposed to miscarriages medically defined as spontaneous abortions. Doctors have been performing abortions for hundreds of years as an emergency medical procedure to save the life of the mother. However, we have learned that what seems obvious often needs to be specified by law to prevent bad actors taking advantage of loopholes. Also not one in a million. 1.3% of abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy in the US. That is 13 in a thousand.
Yes, I have read it. Please show me where it says not after the third trimester (or when "viable" and define viable).
If it doesn't say it can't be done in the 39th week...then it can be done.
You just proved my point...1.3% after the 21st week (hint: third trimester is after 24 weeks, which would be even less)....And my reference to "one in a million" was the ONE time an abortion would need to be done in the 39th week (which is ridiculous - it can borne by caesarian) out of ALL pregnancies in the 39th week.
So, again, sacrificing the 1% is not worth getting the 99%? It's whole loaf or nothing?
No, the majority do NOT support late term (third trimester) abortions, which this bill protects. The majority DO support first (and to a lesser degree), second trimester abortions.
Over 95% of abortions are in the first and second trimester. Why push for that last 5% when it's going to be bad politics?
The bill being voted on by the Senate is for abortion anytime, anywhere. That is NOT supported by the majority of the population.
We can guarantee that the GOP will be hanging that vote on every Dem who votes for it:
LOOK! The Dems want to KILL babies at the 39th week of pregnancy! We're against killing babies!!!! Vote Republican.
Versus:
The GOP was to prevent women from making responsible healthcare choices in the early stages of pregnancy. They want the victims of rape and incest to carry unborn babies to term. They want women that have ectopic pregnancies to suffer and quite possibly die because they want to ban ALL abortions.
See the difference?
How about take the first away from the GOP and run on the second?
That's called framing/triangulation...aka - politics
Because the last 5 percent of abortions are not just frivolous. A woman doesn't decide she wants to go on vacation instead of having a baby. It may not be because her life is in danger. Maybe the pregnancy will injure her and she won't be able to have more children. Maybe the baby has deformities that will, if it lives, cause it to live a short and painful life and the mother decides not to put it through that. An ectopic pregnancy, is when an embryo emplants in the fallopian tube. It not only cannot mature into a baby in the tube, it will cause the damage to the woman's reproductive organs and she won't be able to have any more children.
This bill is not for abortion anytime, anywhere. It is a codification of Roe. Nothing more.
Have you read the bill? Or are you relying on what you've heard other people say about the bill? Because what you are describing as the bill, is not the bill.
It doesn't MATTER what the bill actually says, Kevin, you KNOW that. What matters is that the GoP WILL represent it a certain way. There aren't a lot of people who will actually read the bill and even fewer who actually get nuance.
Most people do not even know what Roe v Wade or PP v Casey say... or what current abortion law where they live is.
Scott's post about politics above (with Rule 1 and 2) is essentially spot on.
That is why I proposed a codification of privacy rights the other day--it is an indirect support for the status quo and it puts the GoP into the position of being against personal privacy. They have to get bogged down into explanations and nuance about why they are voting that way.
Shawn, what an excellent, well argued reply to what I also found to be a disturbing column today by Charlie.
I too have really appreciated The Bulwark these past several years, but since the Roe news broke I have increasingly found myself in disagreement with the various writers. I think their conservative roots are showing....and those old beliefs they may have held for years are now coming up against their new found progressive growth. They are being forced to confront the abortion issse , and it feels like it's omething that clearly makes them uncomfortable is something they'd really rather not do.
тАЬThe shrinking GOP baseтАЭ means nothing to them, because they have the tools and the will to enforce minority rule. ThatтАЩs what has me in despair. The presumed Roe decision is just one slap in the face, with more to come.
Charlie, I love the Bulwark, or at least I think I do, and it's why it pains me to see articles like the ones you've featured today, because it very much feels to me like either coping or outright delusion on basically everything.
To start with the easy bit, Schumer's bill is merely codifying what is currently already law thanks to Roe v Wade. If that's the 'maximalist' position, then we have a very different idea of what that is. Beyond that, politics is salesmanship, which is why Trump was so bad at it. You don't start with what you want. You put out the position you know you won't get and you let people haggle you down for it to where you actually want to be. That lets them think they got one over on you when you actually got what you want. Beyond that, the reason you need to bring it up for a vote is because you need to A. show the base that you actually do need more democrats in office because you don't have enough to do what they want and B. need to make it clear that the party position on this issue is not up for debate. Parties, at least until recently, stood for things. You couldn't be a communist in Reagan's GOP, and you can't be anti-abortion in today's Democratic party.
Moving beyond that, Mona is well out of her depth about what's coming. The positions are not going to get less maximalist, they're going to get more so, especially on the anti-choice side, which has already begun criminalizing not just abortion but things like Plan B and IVFs. What is coming, simply put, is another version of Dred Scott; we are going to have two Americas, where where you live determines what rights you have. Or we will, until there is a matter like Dred Scott where someone has an abortion in another state and there's a showdown over who has jurisdiction. And if you don't believe me, Louisiana just passed a law wherein it says, explicitly, that any judge that attempts to stop it in the state will be impeached, and any federal law that attempts to overrule it will be ignored. To put it bluntly, the issue of abortion is no less significant than that of slavery in our day and age, and rather than tone down the rhetoric, it's going to go to eleven.
Lastly, a shrinking GOP base means nothing, because they don't believe in elections or in voting. Any Democratic victory is a lie, any GOP failure is only due to evil by the other side. This is what animates the party. It doesn't matter if it's shrinking, because either later this year or in 2024, the party is simply going to seek, as JD Vance says, 'their American Caesar.' American institutions already don't reflect the popular will, and the Supreme Court has now taking to flouting it openly, so if you think it's going to do anything other than rubber stamp the GOP into power you're dreaming.
I hate to say it, but we as a nation are heading either towards a second civil war or dissolution. There is no other way to see the world, given the fact that neither side is going to give up on an issue or a set of beliefs that they consider literally life or death. The right already canonizes figures like Rittenhouse, and we're going to have a whole nation of them before long, I'm afraid.
I agree with everything you've said. My feeling is if a female is pregnant and she thinks that her embryo is a living person with a soul to be given life, I'm all for her having all the resources she needs to give birth to her baby. However if her sister becomes pregnant and absolutly does not want to be pregnant and give birth, why does anyone else care? It seems so personal to me. How can someone in a free country feel they have a right to force someone go through pregnancy and birth if she doesn't want to. It's her body.
You don't get politics, eh?
Rule #1: Don't bring up for a vote something that YOU KNOW will lose.
Rule #2: If you DO violate Rule #1, only do so to force the other side into a unpopular position that they will then have to explain and defend (if you are explaining and defending, you are losing the argument). You do this by voting on "popular" things that your opponents vote against (cf. Repubs voting "against" support for Ukraine by voting against a larger bill)
So, yeah....Don't put up for a vote a bill that 90% of the population is against that you are going to lose: This puts YOU in the position of explaining and defending an unpopular vote.
Instead, put up for a vote something that has 75% popular support that your opponents will vote against, forcing them to explain and defend.
Rule #3: Your "base" is your BASE. You aren't going to lose them simply because you don't vote for every maximalist thing. (Do you really think pro-2A voters are going to vote for a Dem just because once their Repub rep voted for background checks? Sure...)
Rule #4: Successful, long-term politicians (and parties) are so because they GROW support from beyond their base.
In a 50-50 country (or any race), if you can peel 5% of the other side to you, you win. If all you do is focus on the 30% that is your "base" to the exclusion of the other side - you lose. (See rural America and Dem failure)
I do not buy the "If you are explaining and defending, you are losing the argument." A huge problem is the rejection of nuance and context. So we get stupid memes instead of well-reasoned arguments. Furthermore, an explanation is not prima facie a defense. Both sides have accused me of "defending" when I am merely explaining a position, whether I hold that position or not. Debate Team 101.
There's the world we live in and the world as we wish it were.
If you have to spend 10 minutes explaining that, "Yes, I voted for abortions right up to the moment the child is born because there's this one in one million time that it *might* be necessary..."
You loose.
Your sentence is framing it all wrong. You are buying into limiting the definition of abortion to an elective procedure instead all abortions as opposed to miscarriages medically defined as spontaneous abortions. Doctors have been performing abortions for hundreds of years as an emergency medical procedure to save the life of the mother. However, we have learned that what seems obvious often needs to be specified by law to prevent bad actors taking advantage of loopholes. Also not one in a million. 1.3% of abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy in the US. That is 13 in a thousand.
Yes, I have read it. Please show me where it says not after the third trimester (or when "viable" and define viable).
If it doesn't say it can't be done in the 39th week...then it can be done.
You just proved my point...1.3% after the 21st week (hint: third trimester is after 24 weeks, which would be even less)....And my reference to "one in a million" was the ONE time an abortion would need to be done in the 39th week (which is ridiculous - it can borne by caesarian) out of ALL pregnancies in the 39th week.
So, again, sacrificing the 1% is not worth getting the 99%? It's whole loaf or nothing?
Interesting calculation.
Yes, you have read what?
Caesareans are performed when feasible. Sometimes they are not. According to the data, medical abortions are required about 13 out of 1000 times. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/10/30/there-s-a-term-for-abortion-at-nine-months-cesarean-section/
"So, again, sacrificing the 1% is not worth getting the 99%? It's whole loaf or nothing?" What does that even mean?
The Democrats are putting up a bill that has majority support among the population. What bill are you talking about?
No, the majority do NOT support late term (third trimester) abortions, which this bill protects. The majority DO support first (and to a lesser degree), second trimester abortions.
Over 95% of abortions are in the first and second trimester. Why push for that last 5% when it's going to be bad politics?
The bill being voted on by the Senate is for abortion anytime, anywhere. That is NOT supported by the majority of the population.
We can guarantee that the GOP will be hanging that vote on every Dem who votes for it:
LOOK! The Dems want to KILL babies at the 39th week of pregnancy! We're against killing babies!!!! Vote Republican.
Versus:
The GOP was to prevent women from making responsible healthcare choices in the early stages of pregnancy. They want the victims of rape and incest to carry unborn babies to term. They want women that have ectopic pregnancies to suffer and quite possibly die because they want to ban ALL abortions.
See the difference?
How about take the first away from the GOP and run on the second?
That's called framing/triangulation...aka - politics
.
Because the last 5 percent of abortions are not just frivolous. A woman doesn't decide she wants to go on vacation instead of having a baby. It may not be because her life is in danger. Maybe the pregnancy will injure her and she won't be able to have more children. Maybe the baby has deformities that will, if it lives, cause it to live a short and painful life and the mother decides not to put it through that. An ectopic pregnancy, is when an embryo emplants in the fallopian tube. It not only cannot mature into a baby in the tube, it will cause the damage to the woman's reproductive organs and she won't be able to have any more children.
This bill is not for abortion anytime, anywhere. It is a codification of Roe. Nothing more.
Have you read the bill? Or are you relying on what you've heard other people say about the bill? Because what you are describing as the bill, is not the bill.
It doesn't MATTER what the bill actually says, Kevin, you KNOW that. What matters is that the GoP WILL represent it a certain way. There aren't a lot of people who will actually read the bill and even fewer who actually get nuance.
Most people do not even know what Roe v Wade or PP v Casey say... or what current abortion law where they live is.
Scott's post about politics above (with Rule 1 and 2) is essentially spot on.
That is why I proposed a codification of privacy rights the other day--it is an indirect support for the status quo and it puts the GoP into the position of being against personal privacy. They have to get bogged down into explanations and nuance about why they are voting that way.
I get what you're saying, but if it doesn't matter what that bill actually says then why would it matter what your privacy bill actually says?
The GOP will make up a lie to demagogue a privacy bill just as easily as they are doing now about the current Senate bill.
"No, the majority do NOT support late term (third trimester) abortions, which this bill protects."
They do when it's to protect life/health of the mother, which, like Roe, this bill is protecting.
Shawn, what an excellent, well argued reply to what I also found to be a disturbing column today by Charlie.
I too have really appreciated The Bulwark these past several years, but since the Roe news broke I have increasingly found myself in disagreement with the various writers. I think their conservative roots are showing....and those old beliefs they may have held for years are now coming up against their new found progressive growth. They are being forced to confront the abortion issse , and it feels like it's omething that clearly makes them uncomfortable is something they'd really rather not do.
тАЬThe shrinking GOP baseтАЭ means nothing to them, because they have the tools and the will to enforce minority rule. ThatтАЩs what has me in despair. The presumed Roe decision is just one slap in the face, with more to come.