"Is the pro-life [Republican] party, actually pro-life anymore?"
These sorts of one-liners that get thrown into Bulwark pieces, implying that the MAGA movement has somehow radically transformed a Republican Party that was earnestly pro-life prior to Trump, drive me insane.
I would LOVE for someone to point me to a time when the Republican …
"Is the pro-life [Republican] party, actually pro-life anymore?"
These sorts of one-liners that get thrown into Bulwark pieces, implying that the MAGA movement has somehow radically transformed a Republican Party that was earnestly pro-life prior to Trump, drive me insane.
I would LOVE for someone to point me to a time when the Republican Party actually valued the sanctity of human life. Good luck with that.
1) Republicans have always supported the death penalty at much higher rates than Democrats.
2) The highest numbers of executions have always occurred in states that are Republican strongholds.
3) In 2014, two years before Trump was even elected, Scalia (Republican SCOTUS posterchild), literally wrote a dissent saying that the Constitution does NOT protect factually innocent people from being executed for a crime they did not commit, as long as they received a fair trial.
4) Next, let's then get into the ways that the Republican Party brazenly supported murderous fascist governments in the Americas and elsewhere. What is remarkable if you're paying attention is that from Nixon forward, every single Republican administration, without exception, supported murderous dictators.
We've got Nixon, supporting Pinochet in a coup against a democratically elected socialist. Pinochet ended up "disappearing" or openly executing more than 3000 people.
The next Republican administration, the Ford administration, then similarly supported the military coup in Argentina, again subverting a democratic election. The military dictatorship even got a visit from Kissinger. Number of people murdered by the Argentinian military dictatorship? Somewhere between 9,000 and 30,000 murders.
Then we have Reagan (together with Christian conservatives) supporting Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt who committed a campaign of genocide that killed up to 70,000 civilians. Oh let's not forget that Reagan also failed to address the AIDS crisis because he didn't care about the lives of those being primarily affected at the time, namely gay men and IV drug users.
Then we get to George H. W. Bush. He had his ambassador to Iraq communicate that the U.S. didn't care if Iraq invaded Kuwait (1000 civilians killed). He then changed his mind and invaded Iraq, in the process encouraging Shiites in the south, and Kurds in north to rebel. But after the invasion was complete, Bush ditched the Kurds and Shiites, and refused to provide any military protection. As a result thousands of Kurds and Shiites were slaughtered by Hussain.
5) Next Republican administration was then George W. Bush. Well, we don't need to need to say much here. He knowingly invaded Iraq on false pretenses because he was having a tantrum about reports that Hussain tried to assassinate his father. Civilian deaths based on violence since the invasion? Somewhere between 280K and 315k. Never mind all of the torture of detainees that occurred under his watch which resulted in a number of deaths, and that can hardly be called "pro-life" behaviour.
6) The only thing that could possibly qualify as a "pro-life" stance is the consistent Republican opposition to abortion. But the way they express their opposition and the way they deal with collateral policy issues that would be helpful to their supposed cause, transparently reveals that they don't care at all about "life" in any meaningful sense.
First, Republicans reject every form of sex education aside from abstinence-based instruction, knowing full well that the stats clearly show that abstinence-focused sex education is completely ineffective, which why red states have ASTRONOMICALLY higher abortion rates than blue states. So they clearly aren't trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the resulting abortions.
Second, Republicans insist on trying to prevent all abortions, but they also vote against any social programs that would provide things like pre-natal care for poor vulnerable mothers.
Third, once the kid has popped out of the womb, the Republican party aggressively opposes any social programs that could provide food, shelter, and even a decent education for the kids that the Republican party supposedly wants to support.
For the love of God, can Bulwark contributors just STOP with these ridiculous throw-away lines that are grossly counterfactual?!
"Is the pro-life [Republican] party, actually pro-life anymore?"
These sorts of one-liners that get thrown into Bulwark pieces, implying that the MAGA movement has somehow radically transformed a Republican Party that was earnestly pro-life prior to Trump, drive me insane.
I would LOVE for someone to point me to a time when the Republican Party actually valued the sanctity of human life. Good luck with that.
1) Republicans have always supported the death penalty at much higher rates than Democrats.
2) The highest numbers of executions have always occurred in states that are Republican strongholds.
3) In 2014, two years before Trump was even elected, Scalia (Republican SCOTUS posterchild), literally wrote a dissent saying that the Constitution does NOT protect factually innocent people from being executed for a crime they did not commit, as long as they received a fair trial.
4) Next, let's then get into the ways that the Republican Party brazenly supported murderous fascist governments in the Americas and elsewhere. What is remarkable if you're paying attention is that from Nixon forward, every single Republican administration, without exception, supported murderous dictators.
We've got Nixon, supporting Pinochet in a coup against a democratically elected socialist. Pinochet ended up "disappearing" or openly executing more than 3000 people.
The next Republican administration, the Ford administration, then similarly supported the military coup in Argentina, again subverting a democratic election. The military dictatorship even got a visit from Kissinger. Number of people murdered by the Argentinian military dictatorship? Somewhere between 9,000 and 30,000 murders.
Then we have Reagan (together with Christian conservatives) supporting Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt who committed a campaign of genocide that killed up to 70,000 civilians. Oh let's not forget that Reagan also failed to address the AIDS crisis because he didn't care about the lives of those being primarily affected at the time, namely gay men and IV drug users.
Then we get to George H. W. Bush. He had his ambassador to Iraq communicate that the U.S. didn't care if Iraq invaded Kuwait (1000 civilians killed). He then changed his mind and invaded Iraq, in the process encouraging Shiites in the south, and Kurds in north to rebel. But after the invasion was complete, Bush ditched the Kurds and Shiites, and refused to provide any military protection. As a result thousands of Kurds and Shiites were slaughtered by Hussain.
5) Next Republican administration was then George W. Bush. Well, we don't need to need to say much here. He knowingly invaded Iraq on false pretenses because he was having a tantrum about reports that Hussain tried to assassinate his father. Civilian deaths based on violence since the invasion? Somewhere between 280K and 315k. Never mind all of the torture of detainees that occurred under his watch which resulted in a number of deaths, and that can hardly be called "pro-life" behaviour.
6) The only thing that could possibly qualify as a "pro-life" stance is the consistent Republican opposition to abortion. But the way they express their opposition and the way they deal with collateral policy issues that would be helpful to their supposed cause, transparently reveals that they don't care at all about "life" in any meaningful sense.
First, Republicans reject every form of sex education aside from abstinence-based instruction, knowing full well that the stats clearly show that abstinence-focused sex education is completely ineffective, which why red states have ASTRONOMICALLY higher abortion rates than blue states. So they clearly aren't trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the resulting abortions.
Second, Republicans insist on trying to prevent all abortions, but they also vote against any social programs that would provide things like pre-natal care for poor vulnerable mothers.
Third, once the kid has popped out of the womb, the Republican party aggressively opposes any social programs that could provide food, shelter, and even a decent education for the kids that the Republican party supposedly wants to support.
For the love of God, can Bulwark contributors just STOP with these ridiculous throw-away lines that are grossly counterfactual?!