Blogger's Opinion: The Post-Roe America! What was supposed to be a Republican paradise, has become instead a Republican nightmare!
The Post-Roe era was supposed to be a Republican paradise, what happened?
Be careful what you ask for!
Be careful what you ask for! Republicans may be starting to take that lesson to heart by now!
An America where there is no national right to abortion has been a Republican dream that has now come true, but sometimes dreams coming true is the last thing you want to happen, and Republicans are probably starting to learn that lesson pretty damn well. Since Dobbs, Republicans won special elections for Congress by weirdly weaker margins in traditionally Republican districts, failed to flip a Democrat-held district in New York, and suffered a blow as the Democrats flipped the sole congressional district of the traditionally Republican state of Alaska, signs that the supposedly Republican-friendly 2022 midterm elections may actually go poorly for Republicans.
The midterm elections in 2022 under a Democratic President who is by the way, at the time this blog post was posted, was unpopular by double digits, and traditionally in America, midterm elections are friendly turf for one of the two major parties that do not hold the White House. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, it quickly turned the tide of the 2022 midterm elections from Republican to Democrat, potentially making President Joe Biden one of those U.S. Presidents (George W. Bush in '02, Carter in '78, LBJ in '66, Kennedy in '62, Truman in '50, FDR in actually all of his midterm elections, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson in 1914, and among others), who successfully kept his party in unified control of Congress, which would be a historic and landmark presidential accomplishment for Biden that Trump, Obama, Clinton, Truman in 1946, Hoover, and many others before Biden were so very unsuccessful at accomplishing. Losing a midterm election to a very unpopular and seemingly useless President like Joe Biden would be quite the disgraceful humiliation for the Republican Party or any other party that hates Biden and you know what? That's the humiliation the Republican Party rightfully earned and they would have no one else to blame besides themselves.
Every day, Republicans are learning new lessons about a post-Roe era, these lessons tell alot but a more welcoming environment for Republicans than they thought.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022, by the same Supreme Court that decreed its 50-year regime, of course, it was celebrated by Republicans as a hard-fought decades-long victory to tout to their base, however, Republicans quickly learned that it is not something you wish to tout to the average general election voter outside the Republican electorate which does not makeup 50% of the overall American electorate.
Abortion stands on good grounds with the American general public, poll over poll showed Americans are more pro-choice than not and even Americans who mostly or occasionally vote Republican does not welcome an America where abortion can be criminalized depending on which state one lives.
Roe was overturned in the midst of the campaign phase of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections right before Americans head to the polls on November 8th to elect their Member of Congress, Senator, Governor, and State Legislator. The 2022 midterm elections will be held during Democratic president Joe Biden's tenure as President of the United States, which would make one think that that would be bad news for the Democratic Party because midterm elections are not friendly turf for the President's party, and it doesn't help Democrats all that much that Biden's approval ratings are as low as 40% and he accomplished very little given that his party had slender control of Congress.
But there are signs that Americans may still express outrage against a post-Roe era against Republicans in spite of Biden, making matters worse for Republicans, August 2022 proved to be Biden's month, as he finally won key legislative battles on healthcare and the environment with the stalled Build Back Better agenda being moved to the Inflation Reduction Act which easily passed Congress and was signed into law by the President, and Biden's approval ratings have been showing a good movement in his direction ever since.
Voters of Kansas, a very Republican state, decisively struck down a referendum to allow the Republicans in the Kansas state legislature to block abortion services in a landslide margin of 41-58%, effectively casting doubt on Republican prospects in the midterms, as well as a gut-punching loss of a congressional special election to elect a successor for the Democrat who resigned to become New York's lieutenant Governor, and Republicans scored unusually inadequate victories in strongly Republican congressional districts, making observers becoming more questioning of the Republicans' chances in this midterm elections.
A referendum on Biden? Not anymore it's not. It's now a referendum on Republican lunacy. The anti-abortion laws passed by Republican states are INSANE! No exceptions for abortion unless the woman's life is in danger? Really Republicans? You're gonna ban a woman, let alone a little girl, from having an abortion if she was raped ...by her own father. Really? Republicans do not have a logical defense for such an abortion ban, and guess what, THEY KNOW TO BE TRUE! But they're doubling down because it wins them approval from really insane voters when these Republicans run in primaries.
Swing District/State Republicans are distancing themselves from their own abortion stances
It is starting to make sense for Republicans in critical swing districts and states that being against abortion is so not a popular move in the United States, in fact, it's a fatally bad idea for a politician to be against abortion if they run in a swing area. Like, why else the Conservative Party of Canada doesn't like to talk about abortion so often in Canadian elections? Apparently, the Conservative Party of Canada is more smarter and wiser than the Republican Party when it comes to the issue of abortion as well as other cultural issues in part of North America.
Those Republicans have removed abortion or amended their abortion stances on their campaign websites to try to walk a fine line between talking about abortion or retaining the party's stance on abortion without pissing general election voters off in the process. Democrats are doing a really good job holding the Republicans accountable on abortion and that has apparently seems to be doing well for Democrats.
In New Mexico, the Republicans' gubernatorial nominee there, Mark Ronchetti, tried to link the state's incumbent Democrat governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, to third-trimester abortion, or late-term abortion, to throw cold water on Governor Grisham's abortion message against the Republicans, but nobody expects the Democrats to lose the governor's race there.
It turns out Republicans are divided on how to ban abortion
Republicans had a common enemy in Roe, but once Roe is gone for good, the Republicans' ability to unite against abortion begins to fall apart. This could threaten the marriage between the Republican Party and the pro-life movement, or put it in question.
Republicans begin to struggle to pass abortion bans, notably in South Carolina, where Democrats there take advantage of Republican divisions to filibuster Republican abortion bans, crumbling these efforts. There is also a gender divide within the Republican Party, Republican women have suddenly endorsed abortion ban exceptions while Republican men are uninterested, and whole Democratic caucuses across the country, male and female, are united in favor of abortion rights.
Republican struggles to pass abortion bans in a post-Roe America is a little embarrassing for an anti-abortion party. The bans that were able to be passed are extreme on so many levels.
Democrats now control the Culture Wars
Before Roe's demise, Republicans were good at culture wars, but now it has shifted in Democrats' favor.
Now it's the Democrats who are the party of culture wars.
Democrats can now say that Republicans are extreme on abortion, banning abortion outright that there are no exceptions can be called reckless and extremist moves. Republicans had used stories of unpleasant abortion experiences of women against Democrats, but now in post-Roe, Democrats now use unpleasant pregnancy experiences of women against Republicans, which are more powerful stories.
A 10-year-old Ohio girl who was molested and due to an abortion ban that took effect in Ohio following the fall of Roe, her parents had to take her across state lines to Indiana to have an abortion to avoid carrying her rapist's child. At first, Republicans were dismissive and the Ohio attorney general called the story fake, but the state's indictment logs showed an opposite story, the rapist does exist and that 10-year-old girl is real, causing Republicans to change their stances on the girl.
In Louisiana, a woman was denied an abortion due to a similar abortion ban there that also took effect following Roe's fall, though that woman was pregnant with a child that had no skull, another story that caused bitter controversy and again threw scrutiny and cold water on abortion bans and the Republican Party's abortion policy.
These are not abortion stories Republicans want in the headlines, but they want stories where women had disastrous abortions in the headlines to hurt Democrats. You can call that culture war karma.
The legacy of Dobbs
If the Republican Party loses the 2022 midterm elections, then the Dobbs decision to end Roe will go down in U.S. history was the ultimate opposition party blunder and, what NOT to do on issues such as abortion when the public doesn't support your stance. The Dobbs decision will also teach both parties the limits of opposition party status, since the presidential party always gets backlash for overreach, but never since the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 has an opposition party overstepped its boundaries.
This will also change how Republicans talk about and handle abortion, this could force the Republican Party to drop the issue entirely, or limit the role of the issue in Republican Party politics. Republicans may still double down and hope that abortion fades in the sunset and regain their strength to use abortion against Democrats in the future, or Republicans come up with new strategies to use abortion against Democrats without pissing voters off in the process.
The Dobbs decision has certainly derailed the Republican Party's 2022 midterm campaign against President Biden and the ruling Democrats. It remains uncertain how the Dobbs disaster will effect American politics into the future.
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