"Pro-life" identity politics: GOP's sudden support of abortion shows it was never about policy | Salon.com
By: Amanda Marcotte (Salon)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Before Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the Supreme Court decision that ended abortion rights, it was a truism in the Beltway press that Americans were "bitterly divided" on abortion. Driven by polls that mostly asked people if they are "pro-life" or "pro-choice," journalists portrayed Republican voters as strongly opposed to abortion for moral and religious reasons. So it's quite the shocker to see recent polls show that a plurality — and in many cases, the majority — of Republicans plan to vote for abortion rights in various state ballot initiatives this November.
Polls show "GOP support for abortion rights measures outpacing states that had similar ballot measures in recent years," Aaron Blake of the Washington Post wrote Monday. Just a couple of years ago, state polls showed Republicans only backing abortion rights by 14-18%, he reports. Now "2024 ballot measures show Republican support between 28 and 54 percent" supporting abortion rights.
As these polling changes demonstrate, their actual policy preference has started to eclipse what used to move them: culture war nonsense.
It turns out that "pro-life" conviction was only an inch deep.
What's going on here isn't especially confusing. Prior to Dobbs, calling yourself "pro-life" was a low-cost way for Republican voters to tell a story where they are morally upright heroes while casting feminists, urban liberals, college kids, and racial minorities as oversexed heathens. When abortion is legal, it's easy to condemn other people's abortions as a matter of "convenience" or say they're "using it for birth control" or employ other euphemisms for promiscuity, while quietly believing the abortions you and your friends get are justified.
We saw this shell game in action during Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, when Donald Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, talked about a friend who had an abortion. "She felt like if she hadn't had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship," he said, falsely implying that he is fine with keeping these kinds of abortions legal. In reality, as the fact-checkers lamely noted, both current and proposed abortion bans, which Vance has backed wholeheartedly, do not make exceptions based on the reason a patient seeks an abortion.
It was an outrageous lie by insinuation, but why he lied is not mysterious. Vance understands that his voters want to hear a pretty story where people like themselves will get to have abortions, but those other people — imagined to be "sluts" and "welfare queens" — will not. The problem for him and Trump, as this polling shows, is that the cold, hard reality of abortion bans is hard to ignore, now that they're law and not just an abstraction. Post-Dobbs, "abortion" isn't just a way for MAGA voters to gloat about their self-defined moral superiority. Instead, they realize that the bans apply to MAGA and non-MAGA alike. It's shifted from cheap identity politics to real-world impacts. As these polling changes demonstrate, their actual policy preference has started to eclipse what used to move them, which was culture war nonsense.
Republican politicians win by keeping their base voters focused on phantasms and symbolic, ego-driven identity politics, rather than real world issues. It's why Trump and Vance are laser-focused on immigration. It's not just that it has no material impact on their base voters, but because it doesn't. For the average MAGA voter, stories about Haitian immigrants eating cats feel like a low-stakes way to wallow in a sense of racial superiority. Many of them don't even pause to consider how these ego-fluffing lies harm real people. To them, "Haitians" are a largely imaginary group — like the "sluts" of anti-abortion mythology — that they can feel safe hating, without considering the consequences. But suppose Trump is successful in deporting millions of people from the workforce, which economists believe would trigger an economic depression. It's safe to say these voters would not enjoy that outcome.
We can see this tension playing out in the battle over union endorsements. Regarding the brass tacks of policy, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is vast. President Joe Biden has been regarded by experts as the most pro-worker president since FDR. He's aggressively defended unions, made organizing much easier, and sent law enforcement after companies for union-busting and other shady tactics. Trump, on the other, can barely conceal his contempt for workers, and especially for unions. He praised Elon Musk for firing workers for going on strike, which is illegal. He bragged about cheating workers out of overtime pay, which is also illegal. This is why United Auto Workers endorsed the Democratic ticket, with the president Shawn Fain calling Trump a "scab."
But while UAW did the right thing, the same cannot be said of the Teamsters, who refused to endorse this election. The Teamsters are whiter and more male than other unions, and subsequently 60% of their members are voting for Trump instead of Vice President Kamala Harris. It's easy for white, male union workers to live in the world of fantasy politics, where they're more focused on protecting their ego against admitting a Black woman could be president, rather than the real world, where the white male candidate is coming for their job protections. They are, in the internet parlance, in the "effing around" period. But if Trump gets elected and unleashes Project 2025's plans to dismantle organized labor in the U.S., it will be a finding-out season. But, as Republican women learned after the Dobbs decision, by the time you get there, it's too late to stop it.
Democrats are often accused by the pundits of being the ones who practice "identity politics," usually when they note the real world impacts of sexism, racism, and homophobia on real people. But what Republicans do is pure identity politics, a politics about ego and identity that is disconnected from material implications. Their propaganda apparatus encourages white people to wallow in sick urban legends about cat-eating immigrants, which creates the temporary thrill of feeling superior without doing anything substantive to improve their lives. Or to complain about imaginary "loose" women who use abortions as "birth control." Or to get mad about "cancel culture" or make-believe slights from liberals.
As long as they aren't feeling palpable consequences for their votes, it is more fun and satisfying for some voters to live in the constant ego-reinforcement chamber of GOP propaganda. It's a cheap thrill, to be told you're morally, intellectually, and physically superior to various "others," simply by being part of the MAGA tribe. On abortion, reality has eclipsed fantasy, as the polls show. Unfortunately, Trump's neck-in-neck race with Harris shows that far too many Republican voters have not yet received their wake-up call.
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Good for me but not for thee.
fucking hypocrites. And the Teamsters are gonna fuck around and find out as are republican women
The whole MAGA base is nothing but. Have you seen the federal job recruiting videos for Project 2025?
Yup.
No I haven't seen those videos. Disturbing?
This daily show short highlights the hypocrisy.
That was awesome
zero self awareness, it's like they're unable to think anything they say thru to a logical conclusion ...
I drove a truck for awhile and I still hold a CDL. I can tell you that some truck drivers are the most ignorant people that I've ever met, and that truck stops are basically FOX news indoctrination centers for terminally gullible rwnj scum.
How many times is it necessary to point out that the Republican Party has changed? Today's Republican Party ain't the party of Newt Gingrich, George Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, John Boehner, or Paul Ryan. Democrats' talking points developed over the last 40 years don't apply any longer.
True enough, the current Republican Party is a party of racists, xenophobes, conspiracy theorists and lunatics.
And, yet, Melania Trump can never be President because she is not a birthright citizen. And J.D. Vance is in a mixed race marriage. How did that happen?
Maybe both of them are mail order brides?
Well, that's certainly not an uplifting portrayal of immigrant women.
never claimed it was
I know I'm a horrible person. How many people will admit that about themselves?
Its not really all that complicated. He proposed to his future wife, they got married!
As many times as necessary til we get the truth drilled into every body's thick skulls
drill baby drill, most of those skulls are solid bone ...
Can't teach a blue dog new tricks?
Democrats are even having difficulties accepting the millennial change. Is the Squad the future of the Democratic Party? Joe Biden had problems with the changes in his own party. And Pelosi dealt with the change by hand picking a replacement who is yet to be tested.
The VP debate the other night really did highlight the contrast between to new Republican Party and the old Democratic Party.
Is that why Kamala Harris is taking credit for record production of natural gas? Too bad Harris hasn't gotten around to explaining that record production is for the benefit of Europe rather than the United States. Our heating costs will still be sky high this winter even with a glut of natural gas production.
Do you have a link of Kamala Harris taking credit for that gas production?
Can't teach red dogs new tricks
(Harris somewhat exaggerated claims for energy production)
In this one she praises Biden's administration: Vice President Kamala Harris, stole a page from the Republican playbook and boasted about U.S. energy production during Joe Biden’s presidency. (Tampa Times)
From The Hill:
I am proud that as vice president, over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy, while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” she said.
Harris also boasted about record oil production when asked about fracking. (Note the pronoun "we")
Please show me in your yahoo link where she takes credit
I can't access the Washington Post link because I'm not a subsciber
They are, however, fast learners when it comes to chasing parked cars.
those rabid red dogs need to go play on the interstate...
Umm ... Vice President Kamala Harris is a key player in the Biden administration, isn't she? Harris praising the Biden administration really is taking credit for whatever deserves praise. Unless, of course, Kamala Harris was only there to serve some sort of inconsequential, ceremonial role.
Harris really is taking credit in the links I provided. Harris using the word 'we' only means she is sharing credit.
the topic is pro-life identity politics, I strongly recommend you return to it ...
What about the white dogs?
(If you include them, then we would have Red, White and Blue dogs. very pariotic spectrum of the woofers!)
Well, I've already said the Republican Party has changed. You know, Jerry Falwell died seventeen years ago. GenZ Republicans really don't have any life experience knowledge of Jerry Falwell. So that 'pro-life identity' espoused by the likes of Falwell just isn't as relevant today.
The narrative spun by the seeded article would have worked when Obama was President. But the facts are that Donald Trump has broken the Republican status quo. And that means Trump has also broken the Democrats' pro-choice playbook.
Dobbs v. Jackson did not criminalize abortion and did not end abortion rights. Dobbs v. Jackson did not do away with a woman's right to choose abortion. Abortions are still legal and available in the United States. And there are a number of states that will never impose any restrictions on abortion.
the abortion topic is what provoked the most lies from vance. trump's running a bit late in throwing thumpers under the bus for those unaffiliated votes this election cycle. he knows they'll still vote for him and he can fuck over the gullible independent rubes later on.
Touché.Ouch!So what is being stated is trumpists are self-righteous judgementalists.
A major flip flop but as soon as it registered in their simple brains the panic became obvious.
What this shift actually means is that the Republicans know they have a choke hold on the 'Christian' vote regardless of their position on abortion. The pro life crowd may be disappointed , but not disappointed enough to vote for a multicultural, diversity oriented candidate .
Conservatives are always publicly anti-choice, so long as they have access to the back door of the abortion facility to escort their wives, mistresses, and children through.
a collective mentality of the law only applying to the poor ...