I’m not “pro-choice” — I’m pro-abortion. As far as I’m concerned, subsidized Plan C should be handed out on street corners, and any hospital that prohibits their staff from performing abortion (or sterilization) should not be eligible for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement1. Late-term abortions are sometimes medically necessary, and it’s a god damned horror and shame that women have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to get that life-saving procedure.
As Josh Marshall, AOC and others have pointed out, being pro-abortion is popular and can win elections, if Democrats clearly state what they need to re-instate Roe protections.
Politically, there is no point in soft-pedaling reproductive freedom because there are no abortion swing voters. No member of the uterine gestapo will vote for a pro-choice Democrat because that Democrat wrings their hands over the tough decision of having an abortion, or wants some sort of limits on abortions over-and-above what Roe provided. Being weakly pro-choice is seen, rightly, as weakness by potential voters, and Democrats’ inability to codify Roe is something we need to overcome in order to energize pro-choice voters2.
On the personal level, I know that abortion is a tough choice for a lot of women, and that many are carrying shame about their abortions. But there are also women who feel fine about their choice, and tepid, hand-wringing pro-choice rhetoric that implies that abortions are perhaps necessary, but certainly evil, isn’t fair to them. One of the most revelatory conversations about abortion that I’ve ever had was also the shortest: the mother of one of my daughter’s friends just matter-of-factly stated that she had had an abortion in college. This was in the context of talking about our kids, and she had no shame about her decision. Are tepid pro-choicers being sensitive to women like her when their rhetoric consistently implies that abortions are a horrible choice? I don’t think so.
Finally, whenever some stupid centrist or concern troll complains about the loud protests that have been and will be happening around abortion rights, let’s remind them of the fucking assholes who have plagued every Planned Parenthood in the nation, hassling women with pictures of dead fetuses and chants of “baby killer.” Let’s also remind them that there’s a reason that Planned Parenthood clinics look like fucking bunkers — it’s because some self-appointed lords of the cervix threw bombs and shot doctors.
In short, being loud and proud about pro-choice is a winning strategy, and the Democrats who don’t see that need some polite but firm phone calls and letters from their constituents reminding them of that fact. More importantly, every god damned Republican who is trying to run away from the death and destruction that their court has wrought needs to have it thrown back at them every day by their Democratic opponents. Nice time is over.
1Catholic hospitals don’t allow physicians to tie tubes during a C-section, requiring another procedure at another hospital, nor right after delivery (when it’s an easier, safer procedure), again requiring a more difficult procedure at another hospital.
2I know the reason that we haven’t codified Roe — we didn’t have pro-choice majorities and we still can’t overcome the filibuster. (Here’s AOC explaining that succinctly on her Instagram stories in case you think she’s unreasonable.) I’m afraid a dry recitation of political reality doesn’t erase the overarching fact that the party that has been “fighting” for reproductive freedom for 50 years didn’t close the deal. We need to convince skeptical non-voters that we can do it this time.
O. Felix Culpa
Examples of centrists complaining about loud protests?
Bull-fucking-shit. You are not helping.
Doug R
I know AOC was complaining loudly about the primary in California-what do we do about that candidate?
mistermix
@O. Felix Culpa: Vague “I will fight” rhetoric isn’t going to cut it, because we’ve been “fighting” for Roe for 50 years and we just lost. Coming up with a new strategy after losing isn’t bullshit, it’s smart politics. Unless Democrats can never fail, just be failed, which is apparently your position.
@Doug R: I think you mean Henry Cuellar in Texas, the anti-choice Democrat that was endorsed by Pelosi and others? I think that complaint was more than justified on her part.
WhatsMyNym
Oh god, this nonsense again
Ohio Mom
About woman who feel ashamed of their abortions: I’ve long wondered if some of the regret woman who have had abortions but later became staunch pro-lifers/forced birthers wasn’t a result of the crazy rollover coaster of post-pregnancy hormone shifts.
The days after I gave birth were intense hormonally, and I was armed with knowing what was happening internally to me. I could see someone interpreting the resulting strong feelings in all sorts of inaccurate ways.
Yeah, I’m pro-abortion and pro any kind of surgery. I didn’t exactly enjoy my mastectomy but I’d do it again. I think facelifts are stupid but go ahead if you want one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Personally, I’m gonna be watching how Tim Ryan and Val Demmings handle this issue. I could see Ryan especially trotting out some variant on Clinton’s “safe, legal and rare”
O. Felix Culpa
@mistermix:
Calvinball. That’s not what I quoted or am calling out.
Mnemosyne
I, too, am wondering where these examples of “tepid pro-choice non-activism” are. Name names or we’re just going to assume that you’re getting preemptively angry at something that’s not actually happening.
As a reminder, the singing of “God Bless America” that people on Twitter were getting all het up about happened before the Roe v Wade announcement and was associated with the passing of the gun control bill, so everyone can chill out about that.
mistermix
@WhatsMyNym: That’s a typo – it should have said skeptical “non-voters”. I’ve corrected it.
Also, it’s true. It was god damned disheartening to be walking around a neighborhood festival in Tucson earlier this year, watching all the activists trying to get ballot petitions signed. You have to be registered to vote to sign those petitions. So many young people saying “no, I’m not registered to vote”.
Ohio Mom
And about Catholic hospitals that won’t tie tubes post-delivery, in my family we call the result of that policy Cousin Ellen. She’s in her early 60s so this has been in place a long time.
Baud
My suggestion is that people should stop advising other people and do the work themselves.
Lapassionara
Several decades ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court decided a case involving some frozen embryos in an IVF clinic. As I recall, a couple had divorced and the former husband wanted the embryos destroyed, and the former wife did not.
The decision began with an explanation of cell biology (or whatever the proper term is), and by the end of that explanation, a reader could grasp why the clump of cells that made up an embryo were not more important and to be given more weight than a live human being. The court ruled that the embryos could be destroyed.
After reading that opinion, I was much bolder in supporting abortion. Science and medicine are definitely on the side of choice.
Ohio Mom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know much about Demmings but I’ve been watching Ryan for obvious reasons and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to come up with some creative framing. That’s not his strength, being a decent person is.
And I dont care. Both of their jobs right now is get elected and however they manage that has my approval.
Kent
Honestly, the majority of Americans are “tepid” or apathetic about every single damn issue. Abortion isn’t the exception, it is the rule.
For example, try to find a majority of Americans who are strongly in favor of rigorous action on climate if it means abandoning their suburban, big house, car-centric, supply-chain dependent lifestyles.
That doesn’t mean we don’t weaponize abortion as a political issue to the extent possible. It just means nothing has fundamentally changed and winning meaningful blue majorities in the institutions where that will actually make a difference for any sort of progressive agenda (abortion or otherwise) is going to be a long hard slog. It was before this ruling and it will be after this ruling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ohio Mom:
A-men.
Cacti
There is a name for animals that don’t have control over their own fertility.
Livestock.
That’s what Republicans want American women to be. No need to beat around the bush about it.
sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Go ahead and cast doubt on one of the few people with a good chance of winning us another Senate seat. Thanks for the help there, guy.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
You know what issue a large majority of Americans feel very strongly about, with pretty consistent numbers in the 70s? Gun control. And the Supreme Court just spit in our faces about that, too.
H.E.Wolf
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s Val DEMINGS. Another entry for our list of easy-to-misspell names! :)
Dangerman
@Lapassionara: Seems to me IVF has a problem if potential life begins at fertilization.
This Court is on a roll. Just wait for the first Muslim to roll out a prayer rug on the 50 after a game.
Fuck them very, very much.
Kent
The problem is more that massive Catholic hospital chains have been buying up other independent and public hospitals around the country like crazy using tax-subsidized dollars. And eliminating the alternatives as fast as they can. They are using our tax dollars to eliminate our choices. That is the problem.
Old Man Shadow
I’m ready to run on a platform of strangling the last unelected SCOTUS judge with the entrails of the last hipster, skinny jeans wearing, mega-MAGA church pastor.
Omnes Omnibus
Who are these tepid Dems?
O. Felix Culpa
Are we talking about “tepid” Democratic responses like this?
Rep. Maxine Waters
Or like this? https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/this-is-a-health-care-crisis-vp-kamala-harris-responds-to-roe-v-wade-overturning-amid-illinois-trip/2865824/
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
Eh, it polls well, but it’s never been a strong vote mover.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sab:
I am absolutely baffled how you took that from what I said.
Baud
Tepid Dems is my new band name.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: Check out the last thread, we have been having a discussion about people criticizing the Ds on abortion
The Congresswoman has been amplifying a cult like communist group that works to defeat Ds.
MSNBC also platformed the same group. Rise4abortion.
She also wants to purge pro-life Ds.
IIRC she campaigned for a pro-life candidate herself in 2017 who was a contender for a seat in Kansas which Sharice Davids eventually won
Or click my blue name and it will take you to my Twitter timeline.
Kent
I disagree. Most Americans support gun control but they are tepid about it too. If they were passionate about gun control the GOP wouldn’t have majorities in so many states.
Mnemosyn
@Dangerman:
Some clinics in the states with abortion “trigger laws” have already suspended IVF treatments until they find out whether or not they’ve been made illegal.
mistermix
@Mnemosyne: Anyone who used the phrase “safe, legal and rare” is a tepid pro-choice activist. Here’s an article explaining why that formulation has been rejected by activists and, ultimately, the Democratic Party:
https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/04/05/dear-politicians-put-safe-legal-and-rare-in-the-dustbin/
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Demings is on the record, no need to imagine. Her response to the SCOTUS decision included a strong defense of her House vote for the Women’s Health Protection Act:
“I will always fight to protect American women and our right to choose. When I was a police officer, I put away rapists, stalkers and domestic abusers. It is critical that we oppose extremist politicians in Texas and Florida who are instead trying to empower those same criminals to sue victims if they get an abortion.
“This vote was about protecting our freedom to decide against their attempts to control. Every woman has the right – the freedom – to make this choice for herself, and to do so based on her own personal individual circumstances. No Florida woman needs to justify her health care decisions to anyone, and Congress must have her back.”
https://demings.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-demings-scotus-ruling
Mnemosyne
Argh. I threw myself into moderation by accidentally erasing one letter from my nym.
Baud
@mistermix:
I honestly haven’t heard that phrase since the 90s. Who has used it recently?
Kropacetic
The phrase “safe, legal, and rare” comes to mind. I never had a problem with the phrase, mind you, I actually agreed with it. But that’s the type of thing I understood mistermix to be referring to.
Also, I found his argument persuasive. Though, I don’t think of it as a call to denigrate Democrats but rather that Ds need to be less fearful of their own positions. This wouldn’t be the only example.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Our Revolution in 3 steps
Propose things that are either illegal , improbable or politically impossible.
If the Ds don’t deliver or fall short
criticize them on social media
Get thousands of likes and retweets.
Revolution achieved.
Baud
@Kropacetic:
I repeat my question at #32.
Omnes Omnibus
@mistermix: Anyone who ever used the “safe, legal, and rare” formulation?
lowtechcyclist
Oh bullshit, nobody’s generally pro-abortion, any more than anyone’s generally in favor of having firemen hose down their house with water. It’s what you do when something else goes wrong, but it’s not something you decide you want to do just for kicks. Nobody says, “I’d like to have an abortion. But I’m not pregnant, time to run down to the fertility clinic then.”
O. Felix Culpa
@mistermix:
Jesus, you’re fighting a war from last decade at best. That phrase belonged to Bill Clinton and the Dems moved away from it years ago.
Mnemosyne
@mistermix:
I haven’t seen anyone use that phrasing in at least 15 years so, again, please name names of the people who said it after the Supreme Court vacated Roe v Wade last week.
If we’re supposed to be getting pissed at Hillary for using that phrase in a speech 30 years ago, just admit that you’re bashing Hillary — again, and for no rational reason — so we can ignore you.
Greg Smith
I still don’t understand why anyone thinks codifying Roe would do anything useful. It seems starkly obvious that a SCOTUS that overturned Roe would throw out any federal law codifying Roe.
I worry that we’re going to nix the filibuster to codify Roe, have SCOTUS overturn it, and hand the Republicans a free pass to do whatever they want the next time they get power.
Saying that we’ve been fighting for 50 years and now we’ve lost is just another way of saying we’ve been winning for 50 years. We lost because we started taking winning this particular fight for granted and forgot that SCOTUS is far and away the most powerful entity in the country. The only way to reverse this is to vote, vote, vote. False solutions like codifying Roe are just an illusion.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hillary used the “safe, legal, and rare” formulation 30 years ago, so clearly that’s just more proof that she’s history’s greatest monster.
Baud
We’re told, with some justification, not to relitigate the 2016 election. I also don’t want to relitigate the pros and cons of 30.year old ghost phrases.
Kent
As I recall, it was Bill Clinton’s campaign mantra in 1992. But that was in the context of winning presidential elections in red states and not trying to implement Federal abortion protections in the context of overturning Roe.
Old School
@Baud:
According to the column linked, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang.
They count as prominent Democrats, right?
The Moar You Know
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: so fucking what? They are Dems. Vote for them. The time for being picky is over. You vote in every election for every Dem no matter what. That how you win in America.
O. Felix Culpa
So self-proclaimed progressive white dude bashes Dems for saying things they didn’t actually say and for not doing things they couldn’t do, overrides women’s voices, uses straw man arguments, and moves the goal posts.
News at 11.
ETA: And doesn’t propose anything concrete beyond “DeMz shOulD StrAtegiZe beTtEr.” Alrighty then. Thanks from the folks who’ve been in the trenches for years and who have just been relegated back to second citizen status.
Redshift
While being openly pro-abortion is good, I like the rhetoric i’ve been hearing from a lot of local Democrats in recent years, something like “every woman has the right to control her own body.” It doesn’t have the nod to abortion being shameful or tragic (which was always a doomed attempt at compromise), and it goes straight to the heart of what the authoritarians and theocrats are really after, controlling women.
Baud
@Old School:
The prominentest.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The hostile takeover of the Democratic party is ongoing it didn’t stop in 2016. Green tea party is still sore about its loss to Joe Biden.
Eljai
I’m done wringing my hands about what Pelosi does. Most normies aren’t paying attention to her. We have 435+ individual contests coming up and each of those contests will be won on the ground by adapting to what’s best for each district. Personally, I’ve seen a lot of great messaging coming from Democratic candidates. Also, I’m a little skeptical of “what Democrats must do” twitter threads. Most of those people don’t have the receipts and that includes AOC herself. Yes, she won her safe blue district, but her record for getting other Democrats elected is not that great.
New Deal democrat
I just want to add that another reason Roe wasn’t codified in 1993. (Only 2 years after Casey) or 2009 is that nobody believed it was under any serious threat at the time. Because, well, Court precedents are supposed to reassure people of what the law is.
This morning the Court overruled another 50 year old precedent that was a unanimous opinion and was accepted by pretty much everyone as to how religion and the State were supposed to intersect. Should Congress have codified that too? Does Congress need to codify *everything* because, apparently, Supreme Court precedents have all the dignity of toilet paper?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know: Jesus Christ. I am hoping that Tim Ryan finds a way to sell a pro-choice position in an increasingly red state. How the fuck do people see that as an attack?
schrodingers_cat
@Eljai: It was the kiss of death for Cisneros and Nina Turner.
Salty Sam
THIS! x 10
MisterForkbeard
@mistermix: They’re saying (and I agree with this) that this framing is bad and doesn’t help.
“Democrats failed to help you (and I guess totally didn’t actually mean it and don’t really care” is the message you push with this. It’s bad and it’s counterproductive. It’s the same reason Democratic politicians aren’t out yelling at voters about how staying home in 2016 is what caused this – it blames the wrong people and actively hurts when finding a new solution.
The ultimate cause is that Republicans have for 5 fucking decades been waiting to get a bunch of ideologues on the Supreme Court. That’s it. Any solution or messaging has to keep that in mind.
guachi
The next time the Republicans control the Presidency, House, and Senate they will use the liberal reasoning to expand the Supreme Court – 13 Circuit Courts so 13 justices – and quickly expand it. Then they’ll add four more extremist judges and the Court will be 10-3.
Baud
I mean, we know with 100% certainty where Dems stand on abortion. The House passed an abortion rights bill and the Senate voted on it.
R-Jud
@New Deal democrat: Public approval for abortion was also at a low in 2009. Only 47% of people at the time said they approved of it in all or most cases.
One thing I haven’t been able to work out was when a supermajority of the Democratic congressional delegation became staunchly pro-abortion. Probably also shockingly recently.
schrodingers_cat
Here is a fire breathing Democrat who is standing up for abortion and women’s rights without giving the opposition fodder or attacking other elected Ds.
Josie
@schrodingers_cat:
In my opinion as a former resident of that Texas district, you are correct. Cisneros would have been better off staying far away from the Justice Democrats. I don’t have an opinion about Nina Turner.
Betty Cracker
@mistermix: Saved me the trouble — thanks! Demings is unapologetically pro-choice, which makes me that much more excited about voting for her. I’d vote for her even if she were tepid — any Dem would be better than Rubio. But yeah, it matters to me that she’s strong on this issue. Of course it does.
Kropacetic
@Baud: Oh I don’t think I’ve heard the phrase used since the mid-aughts, that was just what came to mind as far as what mm was talking about. If I’ve heard a pro-choice politician since say something similarly mealy mouthed, it wasn’t nearly as pithy or memorable.
But the general sense that Dems need ought to be less hesitant about their positions? I think that’s often true.
Although the real thing I have a problem with is Dems attacking their own less media savvy activists. Like Biden’s line about defund the police in the SOTU. I agree the “defund” language isn’t helpful. But denouncing your own activists is even less helpful still.
There are plenty of constructive ways to discuss police reform, which is a project I’m pretty sure Biden agrees needs to be undertaken.
Redshift
@lowtechcyclist:
Bullshit right back at you — I’d be proudly pro-brain surgery or cancer treatment if anyone was trying to restrict them. No one would think that meant I was advocating everyone get them. The reason the activists on the two sides of this called themselves pro-choice and pro-life instead of pro- and anti-abortion is to better appeal to people who aren’t their camp, not because the terms wouldn’t make sense.
schrodingers_cat
@Josie: Most actual Ds don’t seem to like them much. That’s why Warren came 3rd in the Commonwealth and couldn’t win even in Amherst with its 5 colleges.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
MisterForkbeard
@O. Felix Culpa: I actually do agree that Biden needs to be more outraged about this. I get texts and statements like “Let me be clear: The Supreme Court has removed a right that we’ve held sacred for over 50 years and women will bear the brunt of this decision”.
Like, okay? But do more. Get out there. The administration and their surrogates should be on every news show with matching talking points: The is because of 6 unelected theocrats that Republicans pushed through, some of them lied during the confirmation hearings, and this will kill women. And it’s all on Republicans, and the only way to fix it is by voting Dem, and we’ll fix it by doing the following: (fixes)
schrodingers_cat
The populist left wants a leftie Trump and instead they got Biden.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat:
She sounds great.
@Josie:
I also doubt that Cisneros would win in the general in that district. Her primary challenge may have pushed Cuellar to the left a bit, which is a good thing. He now has a 100% rating from NARAL and has dropped to something like a 42% rating (from the NRA.
Brachiator
I am pro-choice and believe that women should have absolute control over their reproductive rights.
I have tried to listen to women talk about their lives and the complexity of the decisions they must often make.
By contrast, it is clear that the Supreme Clowns want to force women to give birth without regard to their own choices or the advice of their doctors. It is clear, but unstated, that the justices believe that women have an obligation to give birth when they get pregnant, and that the outcome should be left in God’s hands.
But it is also clear that this decision will put some women’s lives at risk. It is also clear that some women will be forced to carry to term babies who will have severe deformities, and babies that will only live a few days after birth. This may happen, for example, if a woman or her partner is taking certain medications and becomes pregnant.
The women and their doctors will know of bad outcomes from a pregnancy with medical and scientific certainty, but will be forced to believe in the possibility of miraculous intervention because religious zealots control the Supreme Court.
So it is not just about permitting abortion, but about not interfering in a woman’s right to make her own damn decisions about her own damn life.
Old School
@guachi:
Why would they do that? A 6-3 advantage with no tinkering as to size allowed would seem to be preferable to them.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: She is! I am canvassing for her. I voted for her at the Mass Dems convention. She was a great AG during the Orange Reign of Error.
Edmund Dantes
I know it’s beyond heretical to call out the Dem establishment here for a big subset of the commentary, but Dem establishment literally came up with “Safe, legal, and rare”. It was a horrible slogan for abortion rights and framed it in completely the wrong context.
Dems also horse traded away Hyde amendment for decades. It wasn’t just the gop doing that. It was never a bright line for Dem when it came to do or die time on bills.
Yes death of Roe is on the gop. But they had a lot of help.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
What Democrat has actually said “safe, legal, and rare” in the past 15 years, though? This feels like people being retroactively mad at Hillary for saying it in 1992 to try and deflect from their actions against her in 2016 that led directly to today’s result.
As I said when I came back, I have zero patience for the motherfuckers who ignored all of us who predicted this exact result if Trump got elected in 2016 and whined that we were trying to “blackmail them with the Supreme Court.” An accurate prediction of exact events ain’t “blackmail.”
Baud
@Redshift:
I don’t think that analogy works. There’s really no such thing as elective brain surgery. We, however, support therapeutic and non-therapeutic abortion rights.
Buckeye
@R-Jud:
IIRC a lot of the Blue Dog anti choice Dems got taken out by Tea Partiers.
Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hope to fucking hell not. It’s brutally bad.
abortion is healthcare it is body autonomy
it doesn’t need to be rare
Baud
@Edmund Dantes:
It’s not. The problem is that a lot of the criticism would mass muster under the GOP’s standards. We waste so much time and effort dealing with the lamest of attacks that we have grown frustrated with the process.
Kropacetic
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think anyone is using that phrase to attack HRC. The phrase comes up because it’s memorable and pertinent to the conversation.
Mnemosyne
@Edmund Dantes:
IT WAS THIRTY (30) FUCKING YEARS AGO.
Are we really supposed to ignore the events of six years ago to laser focus on a slogan from thirty years ago as the primary cause of Roe v Wade being overthrown?
Salty Sam
As much as I would’ve preferred Cisneros, I agree with your assessment of her chances in the general. For all the carping I’ve seen about Pelosi and Dem leadership throwing their support to Cuellar, their calculation was on getting a Dem elected to the seat, not making a statement of principles.
mistermix
@MisterForkbeard:
I’m going to re-state my position on the 50 years thing:
This is not Democrat-bashing, it is not complicated, and this is a political blog where it’s OK to talk politics and messaging.
schrodingers_cat
@Edmund Dantes: Bullshit where Ds have all the political power like in Massachusetts we have a woman’s right to choose enshrined in the state Constitution. Even our Republican governor has promised to protect abortion rights.
Lefties who vote for Nader, Jill Stein or sit out elections want the Ds at the national level to vote and act like Ds from deep blue states need to vote for them in the same numbers that blue staters do.
Ds at a national level are playing with an inherently weak hand.
Baud
@mistermix:
Oh no.
I think I’ll go take a nap now.
O. Felix Culpa
@MisterForkbeard:
Here are a few concrete actions taken immediately by the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-actions-in-light-of-todays-supreme-court-decision-on-dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-organization/
Serious questions: Do the political talk shows matter anymore? Has Twitter perhaps replaced those forums? I often hear that the Dems are failing in some way because they’re not on Chuck Todd enough, but would that really make a difference? And are the Dems in control of who the MSM brings on to their shows?
Another Scott
@Kent: +1
Jimmy Carter ran a pretty racist campaign for governor in 1970, but far less racist than the GQP guy.
Sometimes one has to campaign on slogans that one regrets in order to win office to do good things. Politics is messy.
Bringing up a slogan from the 1992 Clinton campaign – a successful one that limited a sitting president to a single term (something that is uncommon in American politics) – in the context of 2022 America seems a bit tone deaf to me.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: This tepid D will eat lunch now.
Butter Emails!
@Redshift: The right is actually anti-abortion. Their policies and actions support that in that there’s no other area in which they are pro life. They don’t give a shit about the fetus after it’s born, and don’t really give a shit while it’s in utero outside it being carried to term.
Is the left holding protests outside hospitals with maternity wards, obstetrician’s offices and women’s health clinics cursing at women for carrying to term? We’re pro abortion access not pro abortion.
Mnemosyne
@mistermix:
Her rights have been a fundraising point for Republicans for the last 40 years, but I guess she didn’t mind that?
Sorry, but I’m done with the pearl-clutching over the Democrats daring to try and rally their voters and fundraise around things like abortion rights and LGBTQI+ rights. I mean, how dare the people trying to craft the legislation to protect those rights also raise money to help them elect people to vote that legislation into law, right?
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: Good to see you back here.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Tepid D is my new rap name.
Technocrat
@mistermix:
This is a tough problem. Convincing young people to do “X” – for any deferred benefit “X” – has always been difficult. Any parent will attest to this.
My millennial daughter votes reliably because we raised her to vote reliably. Even she struggles to get her friends to vote, and she’s speaking directly on their level. It’s not something they consider baseline, it’s something they do when they have time, nothing else is pressing, they’re sufficiently motivated, etc. If they flossed like they voted they’d have terrible teeth.
I suppose the easy answer is to appeal to them directly and specifically, but they’re not the only voters you need to appeal to. Bernie’s youth vote was greater than Trump and Clinton combined, but he couldn’t make it up elsewhere.
Something I have not seen tried is an appeal to parents. “Take your kids voting with you” isn’t the worst long-term strategy, that’s what we did and my kid couldn’t wait to cast her first vote.
Short-term, I got nothing.
Kent
When all the blue dogs got replaced by Republicans. Or in other instances got beat by actual progressive Democrats. Yes, it was recent.
Edmund Dantes
@Mnemosyne: they were using it all the way up to 2012 before some started moving away from it. So fuck off with that.
It wasn’t a one fucking off.
Dangerman
@Greg Smith: Republicans will nuke the filibuster in 2024 if they take the WH, HOR, and 50 in the Senate. Call it the potential life exception. Guaranteed. That let the states decide thing lasted seconds after the decision came down.
O. Felix Culpa
@Another Scott:
Not if your goal is Dem-bashing and avoiding the hard work of organizing. The discussions on BJ moved reasonably quickly from understandable emoting (myself included) to concrete, positive action. This rank wank of a post yanks us backwards.
Baud
@Edmund Dantes:
Do.you have a cite? I asked above and didn’t receive a response.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: I can’t recall anyone using that specific phrase in ages either, but I agree with Kropacetic‘s point at #62 that we could — in general — be more in favor of our own positions and play to win instead of playing not to lose. I’m also pleased to see more elected Democrats doing just that. I don’t watch a ton of cable news anymore, but Amy Klobuchar is all over the place advocating on this issue, and good for her. Also, Biden’s statement on the day Roe was struck down was excellent, IMO. People who say all he’s done is ask people to vote more Democrats in are flat wrong.
Kent
As would be their right. Elections have consequences. You have to win them.
Alison Rose
@lowtechcyclist: For one thing, a lot of abortion rights activists specifically state that they ARE pro-abortion. Your definition of it here is wildly off-base and is honestly parroting right wing interpretations. Being pro-abortion does not mean “Get in losers, we’re going to get ourselves knocked up just so we can have an abortion party” – it means that you vehemently and staunchly support abortion without qualification or justification required. That you do not simply support “choice” but specifically support abortion itself as a necessary medical option. That does not mean we want every pregnancy to get aborted, FFS.
Edmund Dantes
@Baud: Democratic candidates have been listening to concerns like these, and in recent years, they’ve moved away from “safe, legal, and rare.” The word “rare” was removed from the Democratic party platform in 2012, Bracey Sherman said, and in 2016, Clinton no longer used it on the campaign trail.
“Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare”: a history of the idea – Vox
But hey 2012 was 30 fucking years AGO!!!!!!! (according to some here)
mistermix
@Mnemosyne:
It is not “pearl clutching” to give a concrete example of someone who has enough political motivation and personal courage to be out protesting, who isn’t responsive to a fundraising message.
But, of course it’s always easier to just blame them for not thinking like you instead of wondering, “Gee, this young motivated person is turned off by our fundraising appeal. Is there a better way to reach her?”
A couple of years ago, I hosted a talk for a woman who is a (genius) non-profit marketing consultant for a local symphony. She said that she *agonizes* over every unsubscribe of her marketing emails, trying to figure out why they didn’t hit, rather than blaming the person who unsubscribed. This is the attitude Democrats need to adopt when their marketing message is ignored, not a bunch of defensive hostility.
Mnemosyne
@Edmund Dantes:
You realize that 2012 was ten years ago, right? Not this week? That zero elected Democrats used that phrase in response to this week’s events?
So, yeah, you, too, can fuck off for whining about a phrase that hasn’t been used in a decade. Are you still really pissed about New Coke, too?
Mike in NC
Saw on the evening news the other day how the Supreme Court building was surrounded by a tall black chain link fence, guarded by a phalanx of police, with snipers positioned on the roof. So much for living in a free country anymore.
Edmund Dantes
It was 2012 when Dems finally took it out.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne:
Thank you. Goddamn, the only thing this post has achieved is turning allies against each other. Or was that the point?
livewyre
@mistermix: Messaging is important, but not a silver bullet with an ideal state that everyone of virtue should be able to uncontroversially get behind. Presumably even less so on as hard-fought an issue as this.
I’m sure we agree on some level that consensus is hard. To assert otherwise would suggest ill will towards the party in discussion – they could have done it anytime they wanted, so they’re not really committed; they have ulterior motives; they’re getting ready to betray us. I don’t see how it benefits us in the aggregate to take an outside-looking-in view towards what should (by principle) be a voluntary coalition rather than an autocratic regime.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Yes, because (play scarry music), The Clintons!
Welcome back, you were missed.
Edmund Dantes
@Mnemosyne: 10 years ago is how many presidential cycles?
Baud
@Edmund Dantes:
Thanks for the information.
ETA: I don’t believe that phrase had anything to do with where we are today, but I appreciate the data and agree that I’m glad we’re no longer using it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Edmund Dantes:
So a decade and multiple election cycles ago. Ancient history, in other words. Why bring it up now when there’s no citation of current usage among Dems?
Edmund Dantes
The pint is to make sure Dems don’t make the same mistakes again. The gop didn’t force the Dems to make those mistakes. They made them all by themselves.
so yes this shit matters.
Baud
@Edmund Dantes:
You have successfully forced the Dems not to make the same mistake again. Congratulations!
Let’s move on.
Mnemosyne
@mistermix:
It is when the person is quoted without context. Is she a Democratic voter? Has she donated to or volunteered to Democrats in the past?
Lots of young people don’t understand that political campaigns cost money. They have an unrealistically idealized view of how politics works. Are we better off pretending that Democrats don’t need money to win campaigns and that we’ll just win on the strength of our ideas without needing any of that nasty cash to pay campaign workers?
Omnes Omnibus
A big part of the reason this is getting as much pushback as it is is this is one of those issues for which “one simple trick” was the solution. A lot of us have been telling everyone about the “one simple trick” for years now and people who are complaining about Democratic fighting spirit and messaging have been saying no to the “one simple trick” for years.
What is the “one simple trick?” Vote for Democrats every election every time. It was that simple.
MisterDancer
A bit of good news from the AP, it’s just a one-liner as of this posting: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-ap-news-alert-louisiana-55bf766f31f63d258d4811ac7cb857fd
Since it’s the state, there’s no SCOTUS interference, I believe. We’ll see how it rolls, of course — yet every day counts for the people in LA who need Abortion Services.
O. Felix Culpa
@Edmund Dantes:
The phrase originated in a particular political context. It was dropped when that context changed. That’s how it should be. I don’t see the value of rehashing something that hasn’t been used in a fucking DECADE.
So, fellow kids, what are you doing to help women who need reproductive health care?
Gvg
@Omnes Omnibus: Hillary Clinton in the 90’s. Actually I have never heard anyone else use it. And it would be rare if birth control wasn’t made so difficult too. Which is what I understood her to mean.
abortion is not perfectly safe. Or it wasn’t when it was surgery, not sure about the pills now. It’s safer than childbirth and most women do want kids and are willing to risk it with good care. But birth control is safer than getting pregnant and having to abort. So if we had really easy birth control that bigots weren’t also trying to make more difficult and expensive we wouldn’t need abortion except in medical surprises, rape and incest. It would be healthier if we could acheive that. However I believe it’s no one’s business but each woman with her doctor being able to give her all the best information. I don’t hold with making my rules for someone else.
Mnemosyne
@ BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks! As you can see, what little patience I had for Democrat bashing did not increase during my absence.
The Thin Black Duke
Bashing Hillary never gets old.
Redshift
@Baud:
It’s hard to find a good analogy because there’s literally nothing else we talk about this way, which is the whole point. Marijuana legalization, for example — when legislators are discussing it, it’s pro-legalization, but anyone can say they’re pro-weed and no one thinks they’re saying everyone has to use it. Gender reassignment surgery – there’s a major battle going on between those trying to effectively outlaw it and those fighting to preserve access, and no one feels the need to say “but we’re actually trying to preserve the choice for those who want it,” because it’s just not necessary.
Pro-choice (as long as we can lose any suggestion there’s anything wrong with abortion) may still be useful as a way to gain the support of leaners who don’t want to think about abortion. But elections now are mostly about turnout, not persuading people to switch sides, and the situation we’ve had on many issues is that there are more people on our side, but people on their side are more intensely motivated to vote. So it seems to me that we should focus more on rhetoric that motivates partisans and less on rhetoric that avoids offending the less-motivated.
sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Having read your clarification at comment # 52, I now understand what you intended to say rather than what I thought you intended to say, so sorry for the outrage. Tim Ryan has been solidly pro-choice for many years now, so I tend to jump on doubters. He’s my congressman, so I have neen warching for almost 20 years.
Mnemosyne
@Edmund Dantes:
10 years ago is three presidential cycles. So, yes, clearly the phrase “safe, legal, and rare” is much more to blame for Roe v Wade being vacated than the election of Donald Trump.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the “safe, legal and rare” language — in the 2020 primary, all of the candidates explicitly rejected that phrase in a candidate questionnaire except Yang, Gabbard and Sestak. (cite: NYT) So, no major players were still using that framing, and Hillary Clinton had rejected it four years earlier.
But maybe it’s worth noting that the resounding rejection of that framing by all the top-tier Dem presidential candidates in 2020 was regarded as a sea-change on the issue. It inspired write-ups beyond the crack NYT Beltway crew. So, it’s not exactly ancient history either. I see it as something to be proud of, the progress the party has made on this issue.
Baud
@Redshift:
Whatever works. I’m not a big believer in changing branding. I think it leads to more confusion than it helps. But YMMV.
MisterForkbeard
@mistermix: Sure. And I’m telling you that starting your messaging by saying “Democrats have failed to protect you for fifty years!” is bad messaging.
Don’t say it. Democrats successfully protected abortion for 50 years. That’s the message. Republicans are the ones killing women now, forcing women to have a relationship with their rapists. That’s on them. Focus on that, and how we’re going to get back to helping women.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I am glad to know the history. I thought it had been fallen out of is well before. I agree completely with your take.
ETA: This notion that Dems should be punished when they do.things better than they had in the past is bizarre.
O. Felix Culpa
Ok, since the alleged point of this post was better Democratic strategy, what would that look like?
Paul in KY
@Baud: Sorta Indie Folk Rock? A thrashcore band would be pretty cool, with that name.
MisterForkbeard
@O. Felix Culpa: The MSM shows absolutely matter. If nothing else, they illustrate how the media at large is going to cover something.
There needs to be a full court press here. The Dems are absolutely making the right noises, but they need to be making it constantly across all venues.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gvg: I know who said it and when. What I wanted to know is if there was some recent rash of people using the phrase or if we were sending people to Coventry for trying to thread a needle in the past.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
NARAL lit up a fuckton of money misreading Roe as being just about a woman’s choice, and thought that by saying it louder and louder, it would be safe.
They completely missed the mark on why late term abortions occur, and missed having those stories be front and center about why they happen (remember the Partial Birth Abortion ban?). They completely missed the mark on how the definitions being foisted were absolutely an attempt to enshrine religious doctrine as law. They completely missed the mark on showing how absurd the concentration on “when the heart starts beating” really was.
It was all a loud shout about “it’s my choice” – a tautology without background. It was a lazy choice, and for nearly 50 years, people atop the organization profited handsomely from it.
Only now that the right am I seeing the more effective arguments being used. Had they been employed correctly, George Tiller would be alive, and the right would still exist.
Kropacetic
Certainly helps and I’m pretty sure everyone here is on that page. Recriminations across left and center aren’t helping bringing anyone into that, though. I don’t think it’s helpful on either side of that divide, but if you’re on the side where the bulk of the D voters fall, it looks like bullying.
People skeptical of whether they really have any true political home in our system are primed to be swayed by people telling them “you have no home here.” It’s hurting all of us.
livewyre
@Redshift: Good point, but then, how partisan is “I won’t vote unless you give me a good enough reason”? When I think of a base I think of dedication, not disillusionment. It seems like there are more numbers in those (maybe until just now) not interested enough to participate than those too disappointed.
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Don’t know if you’ve seen it, but Ryan has a TV ad where he brags about opposing Obama & siding with Trump.
Just win, Timmy.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Mnemosyne:
“Safe, legal and rare” is a sentiment that I find unhelpful.
Mnemosyne
@MisterForkbeard:
Seconded. It’s just another way to get people to say, “Well, since the Democrats and Republicans are just as bad, I may as well not bother to vote.” Which is how we ended up here in the first place.
O. Felix Culpa
@MisterForkbeard:
Do you have data to support that assertion? Again, serious question. I am frankly not convinced that there’s a link between Chuck Todd and anything of significance, but I’m willing to be shown otherwise.
Partly my skepticism comes from the fact that Biden et al. are professionals, and I think they would put major emphasis on these shows if they thought it was worthwhile. It just sounds a little too much like Green Lanternism to me, but I’ve been persuaded by data in the past and am open it in this situation too.
FelonyGovt
@Dangerman: Just wait until some infertile Republican woman learns that IVF is now illegal.
And if life begins at conception, so does the obligation to pay child support; entitlement to a tax exemption; and the right of a pregnant woman to drive in a 2+ car pool lane.
Mnemosyne
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Good thing the last time Democrats said it was 10 years ago, then.
Alison Rose
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
That’s a bold statement. Are you blaming pro-choice activists for Tiller’s murder, and other anti-choice terrorism?
Baud
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Literally everyone agrees as of a decade ago.
Kent
They also missed the fucking mark by supporting swine like Susan Collins. I don’t know about NARAL specifically, but she generated a lot of support from pro-choice groups looking for a token Republican to support.
How did that work out?
livewyre
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Then what’s the use of continuing to repeat it? Other than, well, as a stick.
livewyre
A lot of battles being fought in retrospect right now. Alt-history has a place in fiction but I’m not sure how much leverage it has in a political message, which is what I heard this post was about.
James E Powell
@Kent:
See also, Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont.
O. Felix Culpa
Great. Now we’re attacking not only fellow Dems, we’re also attacking pro-abortion NARAL for DOING IT RONG.
Maybe they missed the mark catastrophically, but perhaps the focus might be on the folks who actually overturned Roe? And what we’re going to do about it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I feel the same way about “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” Good thing no one is using those slogans anymore.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
That’s crazy talk.
Paul in KY
@Kropacetic: The ‘activists’ that came up with the ‘Defund the Police’ line might have been ratfucker Repubs. That’s how bad a slogan it is.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I need to remove that bumper sticker one of these days.
Omnes Omnibus
J6 hearing tomorrow! https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1541470448369688577?s=21&t=VO_jZdkFeGrFMnNnxw9TwQ
Kent
I understand the hand-wringing about messaging.
But “safe, legal, and rare” is probably pretty close to the actual sentiment of the majority of Americans. And messaging aside, it is a sentiment I agree with as does my wife who is a full-spectrum family practice doctor who is staunchly pro-choice and who has actually performed abortions.
She will tell you she would 100x rather put an IUD in a teenager today than give her an abortion tomorrow.
As for clawing back abortion rights at the Federal level? It’s likely going to have to be an incremental process as is the case with nearly EVERY type of legislation on every topic from the environment to healthcare to criminal justice to education. That is the reality of politics in a democracy.
Raoul Paste
@Baud: “Tepid D is my new rap name“
Boy, I didn’t see that coming. Well done
livewyre
@O. Felix Culpa: Mistakes can’t be forgiven, if we’re judging an entity based on their secret heart of hearts. They might betray us if they’ve really been the wrong sort of people the whole time. Results are secondary.
At least, according to a certain model of the world.
Mnemosyne
@O. Felix Culpa:
I thought you knew that Democrats are fully responsible for all of the Republicans’ bad actions of the past 50 years. If only Democrats had been better / more responsible / run better campaigns, we wouldn’t be in this mess, so clearly none of this is the Republicans’ fault.
Betty Cracker
Oooo, breaking news! The J6 committee “abruptly scheduled a session for tomorrow to hear ‘recently obtained evidence’ and witness testimony,” according to my NYT phone alert
ETA: Omnes got there first at #151. Also, how am I supposed to get any work done?!?
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
Excellent. I need something soothing after this wankery.
Jesse
@Baud: amen. I’m over here making calls. Just reminding people to get registered and vote (from abroad).
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oooh. Surprise hearing.
MattF
OT. J6 panel has scheduled a hearing tomorrow on ‘recently obtained evidence’.
ETA Omnes got there first. And others.
Will
How does fully legal without limit abortion poll? Is that a winning message? Is that what we are communicating?
These are the questions I’ve asked myself over the past 24 hours and I’m not sure what the answer is.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: [insert popcorn-eating gif]
Kropacetic
@Paul in KY: Point missed.
O. Felix Culpa
@livewyre: @Mnemosyne:
My mistake. I must have slept through that class.
Kent
They weren’t ratfucker Republicans. They were urban leftists campaigning against or fighting the Democratic establishment in progressive urban areas where Republicans don’t exist.
Like Kshama Sawant the socialist councilwoman from Seattle who basically ran on that term.
Cameron
@mistermix: I really like her. I hope she kicks Scooter’s ass. And there is a specific political type of tepid hand-wringer: Susan Collins Republican. I think (hope) Dem candidates at all levels come out swinging on this.
MisterDancer
Let us not underestimate the millions forced birth groups have had available to push propaganda. The acts of terrorism that pushed clinics out of many areas, silencing support along the way. The bribing of so many — including Jane Roe herself — to change the social narrative, in our culture.
As the Lost Cause showed, even utterly shitty, illogical arguments can work if you put enough money and time into them. And it’s rare that Progressive causes, of any variety, have either resource easy to hand. Progressive activism — including NARAL — is usually putting helping people first; creating great slogans has to come far behind that.
The Right gives no fucks about helping ordinary folx, and has plenty of money to make themselves sound amazing.
schrodingers_cat
The women interviewed by MSNBC and amplified by the NY Congresswoman belong to a group called Riseup4Abortionrightswhich is a part of cult-like organization called the Revolutionary Communist Party which btw wants to overthrow the government and campaigned for the Orange Error
From Matt McIrwin in the last thread
@Baud: Not just any communist, one of Bob Avakian’s clowns. Maoists who hang around college campuses telling people not to vote. They’ve been worse than useless since forever.
schrodingers_cat
deleted.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: Uh, hi there!
Southern Goth
@Paul in KY:
It probably got started when someone said something mildly critical of the police in front an old white person and watched them go full Nazi.
“So the problem with police brutality is that there isn’t enough of it? Fuck it. Defund the police.”
Alce_e_ardillo
@schrodingers_cat: Nina Turners personality was the kiss of death for Nina Turner.
But absolutely true about Cisneros, the Justice Dems are an anvil tied to anyone’s ankle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: FWIW I don’t care if women go to the abortionplex and get a new one everyday after breakfast. It’s none of my business.
geg6
OT, but the 1/6 Committee has announced a surprise Tuesday hearing to discuss new evidence they have collected:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jan-6-committee-announces-surprise-tuesday-hearing
Could be lit.
mistermix
@MisterForkbeard:
I am not advocating starting messaging by saying that. I’m saying that understanding that some people who are allies believe that should inform us to take a different tack in our 2022 post-Roe strategy and messaging. Understand what some people are thinking and develop strategy and messaging that will address it implicity, not defensively, but positively, is another way to put it. And I think Josh Marshall’s and AOC’s strategy is a good one, which I why I wrote the post.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Garland was in Ukraine recently it may be related to that.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
That would surprise me. DOJ doesn’t like to share.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Good point. May be its Ginni
artem1s
I would say that this was complacency that Roe was erroneously used to cover too many rights tied to health care and privacy. I don’t think codifying Roe will work anymore than having a pro-abortion SCOTUS worked. We need to pass the ERA Amendment.
The resolution, “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to equal rights for men and women”, reads, in part:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission by the Congress:
“ARTICLE —
“Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Yes, some of the language police will want to pick it over and many states will have to re-ratify, but wouldn’t this be a step towards ACTUAL shoring up of constitutional protection for everyone? No matter what your gender identity? If democrats had been able to be fully supportive of and discussed LGBTQ rights, abortion, military service back in the 1980’s the way we can now, we might very well been able to pass the ERA twenty/thirty years ago. It would throw blanket protections over so many SCOTUS rulings that the fundies have whittled away at one at a time. Even better we get to stand in solidarity with other marginalized voices even as we demand our right to privacy in health care decisions. It was no accident that the ERA was pushed aside and forgotten as unnecessary after Roe. You think the ReichWing is afraid of the Roe backlash? That’s nothing compared to passing the ERA amendment.
schrodingers_cat
@Alce_e_ardillo: Her outfits alone..
MisterDancer
Thank you for saying this. I don’t trust my voice on a lot of this right now, but esp., for hopefully obvious reasons, debates about Black Lives Matters and the history of activism to keep my blood from getting spilled in the streets.
Percysowner
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ryan is calling for an end to the filibuster and passage of the Reproductive Freedom Act passed by the House, so he’s on record.
Cameron
@Baud: In recent years we had a President who went by the moniker “P-Tape.”
Soprano2
@Kent: You know what people are passionate about? Things like gas prices and prices in the store, stuff politicians can’t do much or anything about. It sucks, but that’s the truth.
O. Felix Culpa
@artem1s:
Thank you! Actual strategy! I could get on board with reactivating the ERA as one very important plank in defending women’s rights.
mistermix
@Kent:
My dad is a 91 year-old retired family practice MD and he’s is incandescently angry about Roe. He wants to know how the justices would deal with a 14 year-old who is pregnant by molestation, something he dealt with in his practice. His favorite procedures were vasectomies and post-delivery tubal ligations. I don’t think he’s a “safe, legal and rare” supporter at the moment, however, but I’m frankly a little afraid to ask since it will launch another rant.
Alison Rose
@schrodingers_cat: I cackled.
FelonyGovt
I liken the abortion issue to the issue of same-sex marriage, where attitudes changed very quickly over a very short period of time. I agree that we need to find effective messaging going forward, but bottom line is THE REPUBLICANS DID THIS AND THEY NEED TO GO.
Cameron
@schrodingers_cat: And they cling like mold in a wet corner. I have no idea how I got on Avakian’s mailing list, but I’ve been getting shit for years and can’t get unsubscribed no matter how many times I request it.
Jackie
OT: CNN just announced another 1/6 Special Committee hearing is scheduled for tomorrow (Tue!) I wonder what’s come up?!?!!!
neldob
I don’t believe I am pro-abortion. I am anti-forced birth and pro-choice. This seems like freedom to me. Safe, legal and rare sounds good. Currently I am wondering when women will start dying more in red states because of this SC decision and also if crime will go up as unwanted babies become 15-25 year olds. Why is it that states with the worst maternity outcomes want forced birth? (rhetorical question).
O. Felix Culpa
@FelonyGovt:
I just wanted to see that again. :)
schrodingers_cat
@neldob: Well said and I concur.
Cameron
“Safe, legal, and rare?” How about “safe, legal, and available?”
schrodingers_cat
BTW guys scary times in India. A fact checker and another journalist who has held BJP’s feet to the fire have arrested in Delhi.
Mohammed Zubair and Teesta Setalvad have been arrested.
Jesse
@schrodingers_cat: wat
Jesse
@Cameron: doesn’t “legal” kind of imply “available”?
Soprano2
@Technocrat: I agree, my parents always voted and talked to us about the importance of voting. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to vote! Parental influence in this area can be powerful.
Ksmiami
@mistermix: Hi everyone- just got back from my women’s pre- meeting in Dallas and here are the concrete steps we are going to pressure the feds, Allies, media etc.
1) full stop, ongoing social media campaigns
2) pressure DC /Biden et Al to relocate military bases and assets from anti- choice states -ditto reallocate hhs funds to neighbors to support abortion infrastructure as demand will shortly outpace supply
3) begin a postcard voting campaign
4) pressure Reps to institute a Male Lifelong Responsibility Act whereby all men at age 18 must submit a sperm sample to be placed in a registry in case they father illegitimate kids – they r still responsible (I know this won’t happen- it’s for an extreme response to extremism.
5) pressure reps to tax all religious organizations that are active in business and or politics.
6) ignore this Supreme Court….
schrodingers_cat
@Jesse: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-visits-ukraine-reaffirms-us-commitment-help-identify
Jesse
Remember coverage of the war in Iraq? I think the Times had a page where you could see a daily updated number of confirmed dead American soldiers. We need the same for confirmed deaths due to current unavailability of abortion.
Cameron
@Jesse: Not if there’s nobody in your area who will perform one.
R-Jud
@Ksmiami: #4 on your list is very much in line with my mood right now.
sab
@James E Powell: That ad is about trade deals, a very sore subject in Ohio. Context would be helpful.
Last I heard, Tim Ryan is running against JD Vance, not Donald Trump. Donald Trump won Ohio.
All politics is local.
germy shoemangler
https://wnyt.com/politics/jan-6-panel-calls-surprise-hearing-for-tuesday/6511606/?cat=10114
Surprise Jan. 6 committee hearing tomorro
EDIT: documentary footage front and center. Should be entertaining (in a grim way)
JMG
For Congresspeople to do actual work during their beloved 4th of July recess is truly startling. It indicates the committee felt whatever it learned was too hot to hold until mid-July.
mistermix
@Ksmiami: All sound good, but 5 is sweet music to my ears. Good luck with your work!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: this seems like plausible speculation
Holder is the documentary maker who had so much access to trump and his family
Mnemosyne
If someone is looking for a good org that helps women locate and get abortion services, I send my dollars to the National Network of Abortion Funds:
https://donate.abortionfunds.org/give/323375/#!/donation/checkout
wonkie
I don’t know what concern about “loud” protests means. I am not concern trolling or moderate or any of those other sneery put-downs when I say this: any protest that involves blocking traffic or vandalism is stupid, irresponsible, and counter-productive. People who protest in ways that interfere with ordinary people trying to mind their own business are being arrogant and their arrogance obscures the message.
I know that others up thread have made this point, but I wanted to get it off my chest too.
Republicans are now in the position to dismantle decades of essential legislation. They are in the position to dismantle representative government. They are dismantling the notion that federal government has any role except military and foreign affairs and they are reverting to state’s rights on everything except, apparently, gun control.
They did not get to this point by blocking traffic or by having protests in the evening that spilled over into riots after dark. THey did not get to this point by burning flags, fighting cops, or indulging in any other behavior that looks bad on TV.
They got here by honing their message to one that appealed outside their base, by extensive grassroots engagement with voters, by building the political infrastructure, by running for office. That got them close enough that they could make it to the goal line through ruthless partisanship.
As for “the Democrats failed”. The only reason people say shit like that is because they know there is zero chance that the Rethuglicans will go anything good. SO they only look at the Democrats. THey have no expectations of anyone else.
The people who say that are like the only lookers at a fight who blame the person who stands up to the bully for not trouncing the bully. THe Dems stand up and fight and the onlookers bitch about them not winning.
It is not a coincidence that the people who want to do showy, grandstanding and ineffective protests are the same people who blame Dems for fighting back but not always winning.
Will
My biggest worry is the fact that we’ve dialed everything to 11 for even the smallest things since Trump.
I went to a cookout on Saturday, by my guess everyone there was Democrat. I had expected Roe to be the talk of the party. It got mentioned once, by a couple saying this had made them decide to volunteer for Shapiro. There was this feeling of exhaustion in the air. That seriously worries me.
Ksmiami
@R-Jud: spread the word, I’m getting in touch with all my reps… sometimes you have to go full Jonathan Swift in ridiculousness to make your point
Soprano2
I heard this idiocy on NPR this morning, from George Mason University law professor Helen Alvare:
She said it in two different places! Sure, the people you’ve been calling “murderers” for 40 years are now going to be eager to partner with you to support the pregnant women you’re forcing to give birth whether they want to or not. *rolleyes* I wish the interviewer had laughed in her face, because that’s what it deserved.
Matt McIrvin
I think what we’re seeing now is in part the long-delayed consequence of political rhetoric and attitudes from about 20 years ago, when liberals were on the back foot in the rhetorical/public-opinion war over abortion. You saw even a lot of mainstream Democrats acting really apologetic about this, using the “safe, legal and rare” formulation, emphasizing that their chosen policies would actually reduce abortions, etc. The implication was that abortion was an evil but that if you thought about it hard enough, a policy that loosened restrictions would be better on balance. It was too subtle and really did a disservice to anyone who actually needs or wants an abortion. Self-described centrists like William Saletan kept proposing “compromises” that completely ignored the already-compromised situation that existed at the time.
The nadir was probably around the time Kerry lost in 2004. I remember The Editors at The Poor Man posting an essay saying that the Democrats should go hard right on abortion, just give it up and support a total ban, because it was the only way we were ever going to win elections in the future–he was deep in the “bargaining” phase of grief and felt we had to give up something.
I don’t hear much of that from liberals any more. Support from abortion rights now sounds as forthright to me as it was in the 1970s, before the Reagan revolution. But at the same time, the other side never stopped bringing the hammer down and getting more and more deranged. And there are huge political lags in the system.
sab
@Mnemosyne: Thanks for the link. Can you repeat that in early July?
James E Powell
@sab:
That ad may be nominally about trade deals, but the real theme is “I’m not one of those Democrats you hear about on FOX!”
Every Democrat is running against Trump & Trumpism. JD Vance is just the local rep for the Grand Narrative. Nothing local about that.
Just win, Timmy!
Alison Rose
@Jesse: Not in the least. It’s been technically legal in every state until a few days ago, but it hasn’t been accessible or “available” in many of them for decades. One clinic in the whole state? Waiting periods? Exorbitant cost? And so on and so on.
Martin
So, I watch this video a lot.
R-Jud
@wonkie:
No, of course not, they just allowed affiliated terrorists to shoot, bomb, and hector people who attend or work at clinics, so that people were afraid to speak out in favor of abortion rights.
Paul in KY
@Kropacetic: I was just riffing off your Pres. Biden comment. When you don’t want to be joined at the hip with idiots who think ‘Defund the Police’ is a winning nationwide slogan, then you have to speak up & that’s what he did.
I personally am for abortions being completely legal without restrictions. However, I don’t think the current body politic is with me there.
Paul in KY
@Kent: Maybe the ratfuckers are the ones who worked to spread it…
It is still a stupid slogan. How about ‘Get the Police Out of Social Work!’?
mistermix
@wonkie: I’m not a big protester. The last protest I attended was March for Your Lives in DC in 2018.
I agree with your point that protesting alone doesn’t get us anywhere, but the goal is to give people who protest an on-ramp to being involved in Democratic politics. That on-ramp, as far as I’m concerned, is a concrete plan to address what they’re protesting. And that plan must be different from what we’ve been doing so far. That’s the whole point of the Josh Marshall / AOC and others plan. If keep the house and elect two more senators who agree to abolish the filibuster to pass reproductive rights, we will pass the bill and Biden will sign it. That’s concrete and something that protestors who might not be voters, and Democrats who are, can support
Also, someone mentioned that the Supremes will just invalidate this bill. Maybe, but that gives our majority in Congress, and our President, a reason to pack the court or pass court ethics reform or whatever else we do in response. We can’t pre-fail and not try.
Hoodie
@neldob: Irrespective of whether one likes to think of oneself as pro-abortion, it is probably ineffective or worse as a message, kind of like “defund the police.” Like the latter, “pro-abortion” might be intended to break the accepted narrative that there is something wrong with choosing to have an abortion, but it has negative associations that render it ineffective as a message. I agree that “safe, legal and rare” is mealy-mouthed and ineffective but, as many have noted, no one currently seems to be using that frame. Better messaging might be along the lines of something like “anti reproductive slavery,” and focusing on the more egregious occurrences of that. For example, the anti-abortion zealots have now consciously dropped exceptions for rape and incest, which creates an opening for attacking abortion restrictions as a whole based on them representing the state dragooning a woman’s body for child bearing totally without her consent. Remember that the anti-abortionists originally incrementally attacked abortion and focused on outlier cases like late term abortion. This lulled us into a bit of complacency as the pre-Roberts courts curtailed abortion rights in cases like Casey. That game might be turned around on them.
JMG
@Will: Please don’t interpret this as criticism, but have you considered the possibility that guests at a party didn’t talk about a topic that’d made everyone angry and upset in the interests of having a good time rather than political resignation?
satby
@mistermix: beg to differ, we haven’t been fighting for Roe for 50 years. Some have, but most assumed it was settled law and got complacent.
Most particularly an old goat from Vermont who told his followers not to worry about the Supreme Court. @O. Felix Culpa: apologies if you made the case further down, I started writing before I even finished comment #2.
Soprano2
Oh for fuck’s sake, quit using right-wing messaging. This is what the anti-abortion activists have said over and over for 40 years, that abortion is freely available to everyone up to the moment of birth. THIS HAS NEVER BEEN TRUE!!!! . Roe said states could impose limits in the 3rd trimester FROM THE BEGINNING!! Anti-abortion activists actually got laws passed in some states about abortions that turn into live births, something I’m guessing pretty much never happens.
Matt McIrvin
@wonkie: While I agree that protesters should consider optics and grand strategy, I think you are completely wrong about the right’s tactics–they’ve been far more violent and disruptive than the left has been, on average, and far more willing to use outright terrorism. Eric Rudolph was their guy. All the church shooters, clinic shooters, clinic bombers–their guys. It’s just that the media landscape is massively tilted in their favor, and their violent shock troops get portrayed as mentally disturbed lone wolves–or even as being on our side.
livewyre
@Will: It doesn’t worry me, in case that helps. Exhaustion is part of exertion. We take a break if we need to, then we keep pushing – that’s the only way anything happens at scale.
Soprano2
@MisterDancer: Here’s a little-known fact – the first shooting at any abortion clinic happened right here in Springfield, MO, in 1991. A man came into the clinic with a shotgun (we used to have 3 of them in this city!),
I think because he thought his daughter was there getting an abortionno, he was just a crazy activist of some kind. He didn’t kill anyone, but he wounded two people, one of whom became paralyzed. I think it didn’t get that much play in the national news because no one was actually killed.Holy shit, I just realized that I knew the woman who was paralyzed!! She was an activist in the NOW chapter we used to have here. How did I not know that until right now?
Paul in KY
@Southern Goth: Probably :-)
MisterDancer
From Vox:
Anyone who’s been to a typical forced birther-led protest at a clinic has seen multiple acts of violence, up close and personal. It’s steady, and regular, and persistent verbal assaults, even physical at times. It’s designed to cause real trauma in Abortion providers, and to dehumanize them to incite the acts quoted above.
That’s without forced birthers being early, pre-WWW, experts in doxxing.
These assholes have massive financial backing, and people putting pressure on media to ignore these acts of violence. That’s a large part of why you don’t hear about this business, don’t see it on TV on the regular, as it deserves.
And finally — as anyone who knows the history of the Reconstruction Era knows all too well, very similar acts of terrorism, from the KKK and like-minded, were a major cause for the North to “give up” on the South, and allow Jim Crow to be enacted.
Standing in a street is nothing compared to the hellscape of violence the forced birthers have been allowed to inflict, for decades.
Fuck being nice.
mistermix
@satby:
I agree with this – there’s a lot of complacency on abortion and that led to where we are today, and, really, to Clinton’s loss in 2016, since some people didn’t vote or voted for Trump assuming that it didn’t matter who appointed the next Supremes. (However, the rhetoric in fundraising emails, etc., is often about “fighting”. My point is that, alone, won’t work as well as a specific plan.)
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: There’s already a federal nationwide ban on intact dilation and extraction, a procedure misleadingly termed “partial-birth abortion”. That was passed during the Bush years.
Generally very late abortions happen because the fetus is dead or because medical complications are happening that threaten the mother. The right’s favorite nightmare situation, of someone deciding on a whim one week short of their due date to suddenly abort a normal pregnancy with a healthy viable fetus, just doesn’t happen–doctors won’t do it anyway. But the laws supposedly designed to prevent that are keeping people from getting help in medical emergencies.
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: It was electoral poison in 2020. Less popular than Ebola even in my dark blue town.
Kent
@mistermix: Whatever you think of “safe, legal, and rare” it is a pretty centrist milquetoast sentiment that probably reflects the majority political sentiment in this country.
“Defund the police” on the other hand, is an extremist position only supported by a tiny minority of urban activist types.
They might both be bad slogans, but for opposite reasons. The abortion equivalent to “defund the police” would be something like “provide free anonymous abortion services in all public middle schools and high schools in the country” or some such. Which some people might support, but isn’t going to win you elections in red states.
Will
@JMG: They’ve never had an issue talking up a storm at previous parties. During the Trump years they felt less like parties and more like help groups where we could all blow off steam.
That’s why I was expecting the party to turn into a bonfire of rage because that was the precedent. Instead, it just felt like exhaustion, all this fighting for our beliefs to get sucker punched. I don’t think this is a feeling that will stay, I think we are all down naturally at the moment. I think people will get motivated, but it did give me a pause to see so many people just seem to be mentally exhausted.
Paul in KY
@O. Felix Culpa: Now that’s a good slogan!!!
Kathleen
@mistermix: You know what takes courage? Flipping a red seat..Putting your name on the line with legislation you crafted and not just sponsored. Anyone can tweet stuff..
I,’m violating BJ Commandment 1 through 10. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy Squad in vain.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: This has nothing to do with Democratic attitudes. This is about white Christian nationalism, and nothing else.
Over those years, it wouldn’t have mattered what Democrats said or did, the decline of white christians as a voting and cultural majority was inevitable. The GOP consolidated their support around white Christian nationalism such that they are now a purely identity movement. They could have tried to recruit those crossing the southern border to the Republican Party – after all, they are predominantly practicing Catholics or Mormons, and in many ways are better aligned with GOP policy than Dem policy, but the GOP won’t even entertain that idea because they are brown. They state it as an assertion of fact that they will be Democrats, because they kind of have to be because the GOP won’t have them. That’s new.
Literally everything the GOP is focused on from guns to abortion to trans discrimination to immigration to Covid policy, is about policy support for white christian nationalism, or about who gets to set social policy like masking and vaccines (hint, only they get to set it, so it doesn’t matter what policy Dems favor, they need to oppose it to invalidate Dems authority to set it)
There is nothing else here but a growing proto fascism in service to preserving white christian nationalism. That’s why the decision on school prayer today. The coach has a first amendment right because he advances the white christian nationalist cause, but the kids, who have no agency do not. Flip the script and have the kids suing because a muslim coach led them in a muslim prayer, and this court would rule exactly opposite that the coach didn’t have a first amendment right.
Conservatives don’t give a shit about abortion. If they did, they wouldn’t be so eager to get them. They care about who gets to set that policy. It’s a measure of white Christian cultural authority and nothing more. That’s the only precedent that 6 members of this court care about.
sab
@James E Powell: Tim Ryan’s position on trade deals is the same Sherrod Brown’s, which is not the same as Obama’s. Ryan absolutely needs to make this point if he wants to win in Ohio.
germy shoemangler
They have all the resources they need. They’ve got all the guns and armored vehicles they can ever use.
Matt McIrvin
@Will: Speaking personally, I have difficulty talking about this in person because the feelings I have are so intense that I’d probably start saying things that would cause the police to take an interest in me. So I am carefully monitoring myself and trying to limit myself to utterances that are in some way helpful, but those are hard to produce at the moment.
Kropacetic
No, what he did was annoy many of his supporters who take police reform seriously, regardless of their thoughts on the slogan, to impress…who, exactly?
Will
@Soprano2: Not using their messaging. I am asking a legit question about what OUR message is going to be coming out of this.
It is a serious question that we are going to have to figure out and organize around. Otherwise we will step on our dick again over a phrase like “Defund the Police.” It didn’t matter how correct we were on issues of policing and mental health workers after that stupid phrase got out there.
We need to know what message is going to work and actually win. I’m not a pollster, it’s why I asked, because I’ve seen people say that once you start getting into specifics that support gets fuzzy. I want to win, not lose.
FelonyGovt
@Martin: EXACTLY
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Damn. A rare (white) pro athlete, especially from the NFL, who’s willing to take a non RW, public political stance. Joe Burrow explains his pro-choice position.
J R in WV
@mistermix:
I think any member of the Supreme Court who testified under oath that Roe V Wade was settled law, and then made the reversal of Roe the NEW law of the land should be indicted for perjury. They swore under oath that they wouldn’t do this, and now it is done!
Then let them attempt to be a “justice” from their jail cell, without a law license. Pretty sure a perjury conviction is one way to lose that license.
Matt McIrvin
@Will: Part of the problem is that we can’t actually control how our opinions are characterized–the other side does most of it. There’s no way to keep a Republican from calling you a radical Communist or a child-rapist, they’ll just do it because talking is free.
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
I don’t disagree with you or with Mnem; starting with a negative will negate anything that follows. The only time I’ve seen it work, surprisingly, is for an ad from Tim Ryan. He starts out slamming Obama’s trade deal with Mexico, then proudly says he voted with Trump on his trade deal.
I’m not sure how to take that, but it doesn’t seem to have done him poorly with the traditionally Republican white audience.
♀️
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Amen.
livewyre
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. A portion of messaging is empirical and a lot else of it is organic. Those of us on the ground try what seems like a good idea at the time, and the role of the professionals is to pick it up if it seems to catch on. There’s no point speculating about how it might play hypothetically to whatever predefined demographic. It has to come from the bottom up to actually mean anything in the first place – in a democratic model, at least.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia:
How’s your new hip doing? Hope you’re recovering per schedule or better.
Kent
Honestly folks. This whole political course of events has only really been tangentially about abortion.
The 40 year conservative project to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court used abortion as a tool to rile up the masses and gain an army of foot soldiers. But it was as much or more about deconstructing the regulatory state as any culture war issue. You think the Koch Brothers gave a flying fuck about abortion? Or Mitch McConnell? Or for that matter, Trump? I guarantee they did not. They cared about rolling back the EPA and other regulatory agencies to make the country safe for corporate exploitation. Or in the case of GOP politicians, serving their corporate masters.
Understand what is really going on and who we are fighting here. Abortion is only about 5% of why our current SCOTUS is horrible. And only one of many many reasons why conservatives were so energetic in getting it there.
Kent
No, they didn’t swear under oath anything to that effect. They all agreed that Roe was “settled law” which was a simple factual statement at that time. But none of them promised not to overturn said “settled law”.
It was a very clever parsing of words designed to give cover to the Susan Collins’ of the world. But it wasn’t a promise of anything or perjury either.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kent:
Umm, the upcoming dead women and girls won’t be able to have a word with you. Those with babies they didn’t want and couldn’t care for will be stuck for at least 18 years.
Yes, you’re probably right about R strategy and motivations. But, while it might be 5% of their goal, abortion rights and women’s autonomy matter a LOT to our side. We need to retain our advocacy for the vulnerable and battle the entirety of their evil plan.
zhena gogolia
@O. Felix Culpa: Thank you, things seem to be progressing well. This is much easier than the elbow replacement I had in December. I’m not happy being so dependent, but that comes with the territory. I hope to be more self-sufficient soon.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia:
That’s good news. I hope you’re able to do what makes you happy as soon as possible.
Paul in KY
@Martin: Excellent points, Martin.
taumaturgo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
1. Fundraising like hell. 2. Telling the base to vote harder.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Because they believe all women are horrible and morally inferior to men- malicious liars who can’t be trusted so require monitoring and supervision from conservatives.
It’s why they got rid of the rape exception. All women lie about rape. They were either “asking for it” or weren’t raped at all and just made up the story afterwards.
Paul in KY
@Kropacetic: He takes police reform seriously. Those who don’t take it seriously are the ones that come up with self defeating slogans like that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Paul in KY: also, the Defunders, especially in that room, were not his supporters.
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m a Cleveland Brown fan (Jeezus, what a shitshow we have going on now) who really, really likes this Joe Burrow kid.
Will be rooting for him for the foreseeable future!
Kropacetic
@Paul in KY: Sorry, but taking shots at activists is a very clear sign of not taking an issue seriously.
What he could have done instead was discuss the need for reform in a more accessible way to try to foster understanding. What he did fosters misunderstanding and hostility to the reform movement.
And Bill Maher should be on his back for stealing his shtick.
ETA: Just to be clear, giving unserious verbal political cues about an issue doesn’t equate to a lack of seriousness when actually devising policy. It’s still fucking annoying and unhelpful.
Paul in KY
@J R in WV: I’d be fine with the perjury charge. Lying fuckers!
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: And there’s the old squeeze play–instituting waiting periods and counseling and examination requirements that push the date when you can get an abortion later and later, so it gets into the stages of pregnancy where more people are uncomfortable with letting them happen at all.
Paul in KY
@Kent: Dammit!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Demings new (?) ad. Looks she’s going right at him. Good.
Kent
@O. Felix Culpa: Yes, elections have consequences. And the two elections most consequential in bringing us to this point were 2000 and 2016 when a whole lot of fickle Democrats voted for Nader or Jill Stein or didn’t bother to vote at all.
There are no easy solutions at this point. Changing the composition of the Supreme Court and implementing Federal abortion protections through Congress are going to be very long-term hard-fought battles that are likely to only happen incrementally. And might well take decades. That is the hard cold reality. What do you want me to say? Offer you a free pony?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Paul in KY
@Kropacetic: Activists who come up with terrible, self-defeating slogans like that are not the activists you want. You want savvy activists.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Joe Burrough is what J.D. Vance aspired to become.
Paul in KY
@Kent: 83,000 idiots in Florida voted for Nader (spit) back in 2000.
Ruckus
@O. Felix Culpa:
It’s likely that you know but Maxine Waters is not in any way, definition, description, design, concept a tepid dem, human or woman. And yes I applaud her wildly, she is one of my favorite humans on the planet. She squashed all her give a fucks a long time ago, and she isn’t shy about it. She reminds me a lot of a friend of mine who died in 2015 from sickle cell and an incompetent, likely racist doc. The concept of fire brand is very fitting for either of them.
Ohio Mom
@taumaturgo: For Tim Ryan, add moving his ear next to Sherrod Brown’s mouth, to hear the secrets of his success.
Calouste
I think we should start calling ourselves “pro-life”, and the other side “pro-death”. They want women to die for their religion after all.
livewyre
@Paul in KY: Activism has to be both met where it is and turned into a relatable campaign. It can’t either be canonized as immaculate gospel or dismissed as incoherent rabble. It’s hard work.
Kent
@Paul in KY: and shitloads more didn’t bother to vote because “tweedle dee, tweedle dum,” “tan suits,” “inventing the internet” and “lockboxes” and other inane bullshit that diminished the importance of that watershed moment. We can blame Maureen Doud and TFNYT and the right wing echo chamber. but voters have agency too.
The orcs are ALWAYS at the door.
And EVERY election is the most important one.
Tony G
@Kent: When I become emperor I will end tax-exempt status for all religious institutions. Those institutions can create subsidiaries that are purely charitable. Those will be allowed to be tax-exempt after the IRS has determined that they are purely charitable. I’m looking forward to becoming emperor too.
taumaturgo
@Edmund Dantes:
I think the con-servative tepidity began with democrats for Nixon block. Ever since, they have been trending so far to the right within their walled suburban security that not even a GPS could tell where they stand on abortion, education, freedom from religion, livable wage, decent housing and universal healthcare. Similar to Biden, supported for the Hyde amendment for most of his career until recently. Better late than never, I guess.
Ksmiami
@mistermix: thank you…
gvg
@J R in WV: They don’t have to be a lawyer to be a Justice. that is not a condition in the constitution and in the past it used to be more common. In fact some still argue that we should do it more so that the court would have a broader view.
Having a license or not makes no difference. I am not sue even being jailed does. They can only be removed if Congress impeaches them I think.
rikyrah
If you are protesting without having voter registration applications on you – you are clowning.
If you are protesting without giving money to those fighting for choice – you are clowning.
If you are protesting without forming a voting plan for November and how to get 5 others to go to vote – you are clowning.
Period.
Omnes Omnibus
@gvg: What justices were not lawyers?
Ksmiami
@mistermix: thank you…
@Calouste: and pro slavery because they are.
Kropacetic
@Paul in KY: Now what if, by the President or whoever making the argument with more universally acceptable language, the activists using the worse language were educated and adopted the better language?
But, no, let’s just attack the less savvy set instead of giving them.better tools or making them feel seen.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“The Squad” is un-savvy? I thought they were the brilliant future of the party who old crusty Boomers like me (not a Boomer, but whatever) and Joe Biden had better learn from!
AOC(!) needs help “feel[ing] seen”?
To the extent that I understand this word salad, I agree. “Activists” could learn something from the one prominent Democrat of the 2020 primary who didn’t learn all the wrong lessons from 2016.
thisismyonlinenym
What is “codify Roe”?
Seriously, what does “codify” even mean? Make it a federal law? Like how we once had voting rights via the Voting Rights Act? What happened to the “codified” voting rights from this same court?
So we spent great political effort, time, money and focus to “codify” Roe. And any number of rightwing legal groups instantly launch court challenges to this “code”. And these challenges to nullify codified Roe go before the USSC because that was the whole point, where their far right religious accomplices uphold the challenges and render a hard fought nicely codified Roe moot once again.
Someome tell me why my scenario is wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Straight fire from Ryan, too.
Omnes Omnibus
@thisismyonlinenym: Based on your scenario, there is no sense in passing any legislation since it will all be overturned.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Kind of a trick question.
All have had some kind of legal experience.
BTW. Earl Warren had been attorney general and governor of California, but I don’t think he had previously served as a judge. Went to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice.
Urban Suburbanite
Went to two of the rallies here in Seattle over the weekend. There’s a growing irritation with the Revcom folks, even among the people helping to organize events. The group has nothing beyond getting attention and money, and I suspect they’ll just drop this, cash out and rebrand later. I might show up to get in between the out of town fundamentalist dopes and marchers and to see that idiot Choe get chased off in his latest dumbass disguise, but that’s it. (The ninjas have shown up, but don’t mistake that for support of Chairman Bob)
Sawant had a big rally with a protest marching band, and announced she’s pushing the city to be declared a sanctuary for people fleeing abortion bans – providing free services to them and telling SPD to fuck off and go back to their long breakfasts (that’s a whole nother rant) if there’s an out of state warrant related to the bans. It goes a lot farther than Inslee’s stated policies. I’m not sure if it can go through – it would require our underwhelming councilmember turned mayor to focus on something other than press conferences (which have lately been dominated by that douchebag Choe sucking up real hard to the mayor) and kicking homeless people around. I’m not the biggest fan of Sawant, but she and her people can be effective.
mistermix
@rikyrah:
So only people with money can protest? I think you need to re-think that one.
glc
Personally, I’m pro-abortion, pro-chemotherapy, and pro-vaccine.
Which is not to say that I would object to a world in which none were ever needed. Though I don’t think that’s a point that needs to be made explicitly.
I’m even pro-dentist, with the same proviso.
My father, on the other hand, was an uncontrolled diabetic and a Christian Scientist (which was a co-morbidity). He followed his beliefs but didn’t try to deny medical care to anyone else.
Kropacetic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So I accept right up front that “defund the police” is a bad slogan. We agree on this. I assume we also agree that some type of reform is needed, since you never argued otherwise.
The only place we seem to be disagreeing is that I think it would be more constructive for politicians who support reform efforts to make a good argument for police reform rather than attacking reform advocates using sloppy language.
Any individual or faction may have a better communication strategy in any particular instance. Everyone should be looking to each other for best practices. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the Squad slagging potential D voters on live national television.
Sister Souljah was not the pinnacle of political discourse some appear to think it was.
UncleEbeneezer
@Mnemosyne: I’d like to see some actual hard evidence that strong pro-abortion language attracts more voters on net, than tepid language. That assumption seems like one that breaks down as soon as we step outside of our Sex+/Feminist online bubbles.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kropacetic:
True, they mostly slag other elected Democrats because they think their curated twitter feeds are the voice of the nation, but I do remember when Biden won the South Carolina primary and Bernie and AOC(!) made some rather fantastically stupid comments about the triumph of lobbyists and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. I always thought that was a very strange (by which I mean, really fucking dumb) way to describe an electorate that was reported to be mostly older African-Americans. Are lobbyists big employers in South Carolina? I’ve never heard that, but I suppose it’s possible. Is James Clyburn a corporate tool? I will say I don’t remember if those comments were carried live or taped.
Kropacetic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re right. That was wrong of them. In the exact same way.
BRyan
@Mnemosyne: let me add my voice to the chorus: so glad to see you back!
Kropacetic
@Kropacetic: Just wanted to add; this was more indifferent to the voters than directly attacking them. Smaller audience too. It was still wrong. And I’m fine admitting it despite somewhat preferring the leftier end of the party.
Really I think the best candidates merge the interests of both wings of the party. Experience and ambitious goals, competence and a willingness to resist the pull of money.
I don’t like seeing either side hardened against the other. I criticize people on here who are perpetually, pointlessly beating on the left. I shun Youtube channels that beat up on Dems as a whole for insufficient purity while failing to acknowledge the limitations they work under. I deal with both problems where they arise. I don’t need to come here to criticize random left wingers who don’t post here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: They all have been lawyers. Many did not go to law school.
thisismyonlinenym
@mistermix:
Any pro-choice activist is a good pro-choice activist.
You want real tepid, mealymouthed nonsense? Go with “Codify”. It sounds bureaucratic and meaningless. It obfuscates. Because it is and it does.
Safe, rare, legal. Everyone knows what that means. It is what it says. It’s right there. Codify? Magic mealymouthed meaninglessness.
The real problem isn’t lack of pizzaz.
What is it you really want to do? What rights are you really trying to protect? The religious right knows exactly what rights they want to remove, and why. You don’t seem to. You seem to have confused tactic for strategy, the strategy for the logistics, the skirmish for the battle and the battle for the war.
This isn’t about abortion. The far right doesn’t give a damn about a clump of cells or a fetus or actual living breathing children, and they don’t give a damn about abortion. You know it, I know it. They know it. But you have taken them up on their disingenuous framing that it’s about abortion. They love that, because you are fighting on their ground. You’ve agreed with them and now reinforce this is about abortion. It’s not! You know it, and you know they know it.
What are they really after? Oppose that and make that your slogan.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: I would like to see some actual hard evidence that some Democrats are in fact using “tepid language” on this issue. That straw herring won’t swim!
thisismyonlinenym
@Omnes Omnibus: If we want any legislation to stand as law we have got to do something about the USSC. If that problem isn’t solved then yes all legislation — or at least legislation that does not fit their religious or ideological agenda — is and will be made moot.
Sure, let’s codify Roe. But we better not lose focus on getting rid of an illegitimate court first.
wonkie
@rikyrah: Absolutely right. And I add: If you are protesting without joining in on one of the letter writing GOTV campaigns, you are clowning.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kent:
My point. It was missed.
It doesn’t matter to the dead women and girls, or to those saddled with children they didn’t want, whether it was 5% or 500% of the Republican agenda. Of course they want to dismantle the entire 20th century and then some. We know that. Of course we have to fight on many fronts. We know that too. And I never asked for a fucking pony. I’m allergic.
wonkie
@MisterDancer: The murders didn’t happen on TV and it was easy for the religious nuts to claim they had no responsibility.
On the other hand, when people state that they are protesting a certain issue and then do stupid, rude, selfish, counterproductive things like blocking traffic, they are smearing themselves and smearing the cause. Your “fuck being nice comment” makes no sense because there is nothing nice about badgering passing cars or trashing symbols like flags that people value or highjack a protest by turning it into a riot. None of these are nice actions .
WHen people plan protests–and they should be planned– the protest should be designed to communicate with the people who are not there to broaden support on the issue. Blocking traffic, breaking things, burning things, these are the actions of faux heroes who aren’t interested in anything beyond hearing themselves yell and hoping to get a minute or two on the news.
My attitude is fuck being nice to the jerks who derail us with their self-indulgent antics. My heroes are the people who do the work that brings about change.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ruckus:
LOL. No one ever accused Auntie Maxine of being tepid.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@glc: following you own beliefs is fine, some of my good friends when I lived in Long Beach were born again Christians and also vegans. My husband never met a steak or chop he didn’t love. My friends helped run a food pantry and build houses during their off hours. They walk the walk. I don’t hate religion. I just don’t want it taking over everything
lowtechcyclist
@Redshift:
And bullshit right back at you too.
We’ve recently had a great example of what the wording means. Being pro-vaccination didn’t mean pro-vaccination-access or pro-vaccination-choice, it meant fucking get people vaccinated. In fact, we wanted to apply a certain amount of coercion to it: to make either vaccination or frequent testing a job requirement in numerous jobs.
That was being pro-vaccination.
Or when the government of China had its one-child policy in effect, they were pro-abortion, often being downright insistent on it if a woman was pregnant with her second child.
So the hell if I’m going to be pro-abortion. It means a very different thing from pro-choice, or pro-abortion-access.
Just because you’d like language to work differently than it does, doesn’t mean it does.
lowtechcyclist
OK, mistermix, since you’re the one who’s saying merely being pro-choice or pro-abortion-access is too tepid, and it’s important to be loudly and proudly pro-abortion, show me where Josh or AOC said they were pro-abortion rather than merely pro-choice or pro-access or pro-abortion-rights, because I couldn’t find it at either of your links.
What they were both talking about, rather, was being clear about the conditions that, if met, would result in the Dems passing legislation reinstating abortion rights in the new Congress, IOW, how many more Senators we’d need in addition to holding onto the House.
That’s something totally different. Claiming the stuff of theirs that you linked to is supporting your point here is nonsense.
thisismyonlinenym
@Brachiator:
Yes.
It’s far bigger than a medical procedure or a pill.
It’s about full rights for women. Full human rights. Full stop.
And at its core it is about opposing the subjugation of women.
This illegitimate court will continue to attack the 14th amendment — the “anti-slavery amendment” — because destroying its protections means they can subjugate any group they don’t like. Women now, LGBTQ next, racial minorities after that.
If you take away a group’s reproductive rights, you have enslaved them. That group loses their control over their own bodies, family and future.
It’s the key to how one group can be subjugated by another.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Have I mentioned just how awesome it is to have you back here?
Ella in New Mexico
As a woman who had an abortion, shortly after I turned 18 which made it legal in DC, I am NOT pro abortion.
I am pro-choice. Which means women get to decide what happens in their lives, their bodies.
I am pro-helping women protect themselves from an unwanted pregancy. Every single fucking day. Abortion is NOT birth control, contrary to what the right to lifer shits insist it is.
I am pro-helping women who have a very bad medical diagnosis but are pregnant and need to abort to receive treatment obtain abortions.
I am pro-women who have a baby that literally has no hope for meaningful existence have abortions.
I am pro abortions for little girls who’s family members impregnated them to have abortions.
I could list a million scenarios for who should be able to choose an abortion but
I am PRO CHOICE.
Not “pro abortion” because as a person who had one, I will tell you: we, as women who had one, will always wish it wasn’t necessary. I
glc
@wonkie: Huh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvC4xq32AX8
Been a while since I’ve heard that.
Paul in KY
@Kent: You are very right! Maureen Dowd…grrr!!! Al didn’t run the greatest campaign (selecting that POS Lieberman), but he was sooooooo much better than Batshit McChimpy.
Paul in KY
@Tony G: Hail Emperor Tony I
Paul in KY
@Kropacetic: I came up with a much better slogan up there somewhere after giving it about 30 secs of thought. Sometimes I think these activists come up with slogans that they know are going to hurt the wider national Democratic Party. Else they are just idiots…
Paul in KY
@Ella in New Mexico: Well said.