By Noah Rothman
Tuesday, May 03,
2022
Not long after the prospect of electoral
disaster in November became apparent to every Democrat willing to believe the
evidence of his own eyes, partisan liberals began talking themselves into the
notion that a Supreme Court decision would save them. If the Court struck
down Roe v. Wade, Democratic thinking went, it would enliven their
base voters in ways their records in office have not. This was and remains
wishful thinking, but the left and its cat’s paws in the press will do their
utmost to transform the 2022 midterm cycle into a referendum on abortion
rights. Republicans would be foolish to let them get away with it.
To read the commentary around the
political fallout that would result from a decision that favors Mississippi’s
ban on abortions after the first trimester is to risk an uncomfortably close
encounter with Democratic salivary glands. Such a decision would “be a
cataclysmic political event,” one
that affects all women but particularly the constituencies Democrats need to
turn out in November. Imagine that. “Democrats see an opening on the
issue,” CNN reported, noting that abortion rights could be “the sleeping giant of the 2022
elections.” And now that a decision overturning Roe appears imminent,
media outlets rushed to publish speculative analyses about the ways in which
this decision could “jolt,” “rewire,” and “upend” a political dynamic in America that presently favors the GOP.
Here, the wish has fathered the thought.
The issue set that dominates the
minds of most American
voters is no mystery. Voters are
prohibitively focused on the economy, which is experiencing stagnant growth and
soaring inflation for the first time since the early 1980s. Reducing rates of
violent crime and improving the quality of education (which languished in the
two years typified by widespread pandemic-mitigation policies) are a source of
widespread concern. And though they’re less of a priority, crisis-inspired
issues like the war in Europe and semi-regular surges of migrants at the
U.S.-Mexico border also show up in polling. Niche obsessions and luxury
beliefs—from climate change to election integrity, race relations, and
transgenderism—barely register.
In post-Roe America, that will
change. By how much, however, is a function of how Republicans respond to this
long-sought conservative legal victory.
Democrats and their allies in media will
try to make abortion rights the central issue of 2022. Republican candidates
will be asked and asked again about their personal views on the practice and
how it should be handled as a matter of state and federal law. They will be
pressed to elaborate on what protections they believe should be preserved in
the cases of rape and incest. They will be interrogated about their religious
convictions and whether they or the women in their lives have experience with
this procedure. And if Republican candidates are disciplined enough to avoid
talking about abortion over and above the issues that most concern voters, they
will be accused of hiding their extremism only to spring it on voters after
they are elected.
Democratic strategist Lis Smith provides
an honest glimpse of Democrats’ fondest hopes for how the GOP will respond to
their good fortune. She took notice of a segment on Fox
News Channel in which former Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee was asked if the Court’s decision would allow states like his to
criminalize abortions without “any exemptions at all.” “We passed a
constitutional amendment in 1986 that made life from conception as part of our
constitution,” he said, “so that’s exactly what it would be.” Huckabee’s
remarks were reminiscent, in Smith’s view, of comments made by failed
Republican candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Murdock, both of whom
ill-advisedly shared their innermost thoughts about the virtues of rape-induced
pregnancy, and both of whom went down to defeat. “Every single GOP candidate in
the country must now be on the record on this issue,” she said. The press will almost certainly oblige.
While it may prove difficult, Republican
candidates for federal office should avoid the temptation to expound on a
matter that conservative legal doctrine maintains is the exclusive province of
the states. Congress, the right’s most
compelling rationale maintains, has no jurisdiction over
abortion rights. Conservatives of principle can and should promote the values
that produced this momentous event, but they should not play into national
Democrats’ efforts to make this an issue for the federal legislature. If the
Supreme Court does remand the matter back to the states, Republican candidates
should respect and defer to that decision.
Republicans are the beneficiaries of a
conservative legal victory almost a half-century in the making, and they should
act like victors. They will find themselves on firm ground in their efforts to
explain the legal rationale behind this decision and note that jurisprudential
scholars on both sides of
the debate over abortion rights recognize Roe as an
irredeemable hash. Americans are of many minds on abortion
rights—a deeply personal and unsettling issue that only the most radical
partisans are eager to discuss. Democrats run afoul of public sentiment on the
issue when they talk about human life as though it’s nothing more than a “cluster of
cells” or say that abortion is tantamount to
euthanasia (e.g., Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ruminating on how “the infant would be kept comfortable” before being liquidated). Progressive activists have led the
Democratic Party well away from the
national center when it comes to abortion, and their
candidates are liable to overreach in their attempts to retake lost legal and
cultural ground.
But forcing Democrats to go on reckless
offense demands that Republicans recognize that they are the victors in a long
and hard-fought struggle. They are not victims. They are not beset by
omnipotent cultural forces implacably arrayed against their interests, and they
are not powerless to resist. The right’s potential victory over Roe is
a function of its resolve to stick to the plan and avoid trivia. As long as
they don’t let Democrats knock them off course, the GOP will keep the winning
streak alive in November.
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