Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00022625
US POLITICS
IMPACT OF SCOTUS ROE DECISION
'This is a losing issue': GOP campaign consultants panicked about upcoming midterms after Roe decision
IMPACT OF SCOTUS ROE DECISION
'This is a losing issue': GOP campaign consultants panicked about upcoming midterms after Roe decision
President Donald J. Trump arrives in the House chamber and is greeted by members of Congress prior to delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday, Feb. 4, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)
Original article: https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/gop-consultants-abortion/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I hope the Republican strategist is right in observing that SCOTUS overturning 'Roe' is a massive gift to Democrats in the upcoming 2022 mid-term elections.
I am unbelievably disappointed in the state of American politics ... and indeed British politics ... and perhaps politics everywhere. Winston Churchill once said, that 'democracy is an awful system, but it is better than anything else!' and I think he had it about right.
In the United States, the role of money in politics courtesy of SCOTUS's Citizens United decision has had important negative consequences. In this decision the Supreme Court asserted that corporations are people and removed reasonable campaign contribution limits, allowing a small group of wealthy donors and special interests to use dark money to influence elections.
In the United States, there is also the First Amendment that enables anyone to say almost anything with no consequences no matter how big a lie and how factless. The amount of political misinformation in modern America is staggering ... not to mention well funded corporate messaging where the company argues for both sides on an issue no matter how ridiculous the logic.
It bothers me that President Biden's poll numbers are weak ... deeply underwater. It defies reason, but is understandable when political misinformation and media incompetence (or worse) is factored in.
During the 19 months or so of Biden's presidency, the US economy has been pretty strong. There has been a quite good soft landing after the turmoil of 2020 and 2021 associated with the Covid pandemic disruption and the US election chaos. During the political transition in the United States, there was legislation to provide substantial fiscal support to a weak economy, and then further bipartican legislation in the early days of the Biden Administration to fund physical infrastructure investment and repair. This legislation has been described as the most significant infrastructure commitment since Eisenhower legislation in the 1950s and the development of the US Interstate Highway network.
The Biden Administration has proposed a lot more important legislation including the so-called Build Back Better bill, but with only a very small majority in Congress, Biden's party cannot move it forward. Bluntly put, a lot of legislators have lost their nerve and doing nothing is a safer political position than doing more legislation, no matter how much it would benefit the country and most of the population.
My undersanding of American politics is probably somewhat superficial ... but I would argue that 80% of the American population would benefit from the Progressive Democratic legislative agenda. This contrasts with the rather few Americans ... mainly the obnoxious rich ... that got benefit from the Trump Tax Reform legislation that was Trump's signature political achievement.
I am conservative and I am in favor of free enterprise capitalism and I am in favor of rule of law and strong, small, efficient government. As far as I can see, the modern Republican Party in the United States does not stand for any of my values. The modern Democratic Party should be natural political home, but I don't feel comfortable in that place for some reason. I think it is that their messaging is so awful ... confused, unclear and generally disjointed ... and aggravated by attack communication from the Republican party operatives at every level.
For most people in the United States ... something like 80% of the population, their socio-economic situation has been declining for around 40 years ... for around two generations! Many in this group are 'mad-as-hell' and are going to take it out on someone somehow. There was a time when this group would vote Democrat because of their identity and what the Democratic Party stood for ... but the Democratic Party lost this support over the years because of the double standards in many of the Unions and among politicans themselves. Now many in this group vote against Democrats even though the policies they are now voting for are the antithesis of what will imrpove their situations.
I am particularly bothered by the weaponizing of race relations by Republican political operatives. While race relations in the United States are better now than they were in the 1960s, they still have a long way to go to be acceptable. There is still a major problem with economic inequality associated with race. This is not going to get solved by arguing that it is race has been the cause of the decline in economic opportunity for almost everyone in the United States over since around 1980. The decline in economic opporunity for Americans has been caused masinly by business behavior and associated investment actions and financialization which has favored business profits over people ... and especially the people who used to be the backbone of working America.
Bottom line ... the Republican playbook is very clear about message while the Democrats are unclear about message. According to the Republicans, everything that is wrong about America is because of Democrats, and for 80% of the American population things are not so good and have been getting worse for a very long time. Sadly ... the messaging by Democrats is so weak and confusing that hardly anyone has any idea why they should be elected into power. The reality, however, is that the Democrats have a playbook that is full of good progressive policy and plans that can make a huge possitive difference for most everyone in the country.
Democrats ... please wake up and get your act together ASAP.
Peter Burgess
Tom Boggioni and Raw Story
June 25, 2022
According to a report from Politico, while Republicans are publically applauding a decision from the conservative Supreme Court to dismantle the 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision that allowed women to get an abortion, in private they are admitting it could not have come at a worse time.
In interviews with Politico's David Siders, Republican Party campaign consultants are throwing up their hands in frustration at a ruling that will make it harder for them to do their jobs in November -- particularly as they try to bring suburban women back into the fold after four years of Donald Trump.
As one GOP adviser put it: 'This is a losing issue for Republicans.'
According to Siders' report, '... according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican strategists and party officials, they just didn’t want it to come right now — not during a midterm election campaign in which nearly everything had been going right for the GOP,' adding, 'In Republican circles, a consensus has been forming for weeks that the court’s overturning of a significant — and highly popular — precedent on a deeply felt issue will be a liability for the party in the midterms and beyond, undercutting Republicans to at least some degree with moderates and suburban women.'
GOP strategist John Thomas explained, 'This is not a conversation we want to have. We want to have a conversation about the economy. We want to have a conversation about Joe Biden, about pretty much anything else besides Roe.'
A former GOP congressman agreed and stated, 'The only thing [Democrats] have got going for them is the Roe thing, which is what, 40 years of settled law that will be changed that will cause some societal consternation. And can they turn that into some turnout? I think the answer is probably ‘Yes.’”
Politico's Siders wrote, 'The problem for Republicans with the Roe decision is that it’s giving Democrats something to grasp onto in an otherwise bleak year — the kind of issue that may animate some lower-propensity voters, including young Democrats, to turn out in November, and blunt the GOP’s appeals to independent voters, a majority of whom also support Roe, according to Gallup.'
GOP straegist Dave Carney concurred, telling Politico, 'You go to any diner in America, and nobody’s talking about this.'
'Already, Republicans are wincing at the consequences,' the report states.
'In the swing state of Pennsylvania, Democrats have been pummeling the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Doug Mastriano, for a position opposing abortion rights that includes no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
In Georgia, another swing state, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, is facing similar criticism.
In a message that Democrats will likely repeat for months, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock issued a fundraising appeal on Friday afternoon with the subject line: 'Our opponent says he wants a total ban on abortion.''
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