Your point about progressive candidates having to become pro life to win elections is a interesting one. From I can see abortion hasn’t until recently been an issue that’s brought liberal voters out to the polls. Really since trump came along. As me and you both know first hand, abortion has been a core political issue for the right for decades. I think the likelihood of a pro choice republican getting elected is basically zero, while a pro life democrat would have a shot.
Regardless of the politics dave I emphasize with your struggle to find a voice in the abortion discussion. I feel/felt the same. We are shown that we need to support a woman’s right to choose, and I do wholeheartedly. It only became real to me when. We had our struggles with pregnancy. I didn’t want anyone besides my wife, myself and our doctor making decisions. I can imagine having to make similar decisions as a single woman without a support structure of a loving family. And that’s the point. Support everyone regardless of their situation. Support means allowing them to make the call on their body. Seems straightforward.
I don’t know where we go next, but it’s time to beat the republicans at their own game and play for keeps. Stop the games, and go for it.
Idealism got us litmus tests and several generations of national political regression through a revitalized right.
Realism starts with acknowledging that in most of the states where pro-choicers are so terrified that women will suffer because of abortion bans, the political choice isn't between "some restrictions and no restrictions", it's between "a ban with exceptions and a ban without".
Take Missouri. You and I both know that it'll take years, if not decades, to change the fundamental public opinion on abortion in the state, if ever. It's funny, I was just listening to Cori Bush talk about how many women have come to her in tears to thank her for sharing her own abortion story. That's great for *them*, and maybe it helps change hearts and minds over the course of some years, but in THIS election cycle, there is simply no earthly amount of "shouting your abortion" that is going to move the needle in Jefferson County. But you know what *might* change the statewide political calculus? A progressive Democrat running for JeffCo's state house and senate districts who is allowed to say, "I don't like abortion, and neither do you, but we need some common-sense exceptions to our state's trigger law. That's above and beyond any discussion of Roe or Dobbs. And by the way, if we finally do that Medicaid expansion, we'll get a lot fewer abortions than Mike Parson ever will. And if we fight to get real jobs in JeffCo, which those lying Republicans have never been able to deliver, then fewer of your daughters and sons will be driving across the Mississippi to get abortions in that hellhole, Illinois."
And having Democrats like that run for every rural seat in the state, while Cori Bush sits back in STL or DC and says, "Look, I don't completely see eye-to-eye with these Democrats, but you know what? We filled our entire slate for every race in Missouri up and down the ballot for the first time in DECADES, and these Democrats are going to help us fight to claw back abortion rights for Missouri women one compromise at a time. I can't help every woman who's going to get hurt in the meantime, but we didn't get in this predicament overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. If we carry out this fight well, and take our allies where we can get them, then in 10 or God forbid 20 years, Missouri women will have abortion access again."
What's definitely NOT going to help is abortion activists picketing Parson's house, or screeching at Greitens on the campaign trail. Or Cori Bush calling those Democrats traitors to women to score cheap points from her Twitter choir and get a few high-profile appearances on PSA or MSNBC. If 100,000 women marched with their pink pussy hats through downtown STL and KC every single day between now and November, we wouldn't win a single new vote, and we might actually even finally convince the sticks that they need to finally burn our two cities straight to the ground, because they can never be trusted not to betray "Real Missourians".
So that's where I stand. Less knee-jerk reaction, more thoughtful and strategic progressivism.
I ask you sir, what’s the way forward?
Your point about progressive candidates having to become pro life to win elections is a interesting one. From I can see abortion hasn’t until recently been an issue that’s brought liberal voters out to the polls. Really since trump came along. As me and you both know first hand, abortion has been a core political issue for the right for decades. I think the likelihood of a pro choice republican getting elected is basically zero, while a pro life democrat would have a shot.
Regardless of the politics dave I emphasize with your struggle to find a voice in the abortion discussion. I feel/felt the same. We are shown that we need to support a woman’s right to choose, and I do wholeheartedly. It only became real to me when. We had our struggles with pregnancy. I didn’t want anyone besides my wife, myself and our doctor making decisions. I can imagine having to make similar decisions as a single woman without a support structure of a loving family. And that’s the point. Support everyone regardless of their situation. Support means allowing them to make the call on their body. Seems straightforward.
I don’t know where we go next, but it’s time to beat the republicans at their own game and play for keeps. Stop the games, and go for it.
I think the way forward starts with realism.
Idealism got us litmus tests and several generations of national political regression through a revitalized right.
Realism starts with acknowledging that in most of the states where pro-choicers are so terrified that women will suffer because of abortion bans, the political choice isn't between "some restrictions and no restrictions", it's between "a ban with exceptions and a ban without".
Take Missouri. You and I both know that it'll take years, if not decades, to change the fundamental public opinion on abortion in the state, if ever. It's funny, I was just listening to Cori Bush talk about how many women have come to her in tears to thank her for sharing her own abortion story. That's great for *them*, and maybe it helps change hearts and minds over the course of some years, but in THIS election cycle, there is simply no earthly amount of "shouting your abortion" that is going to move the needle in Jefferson County. But you know what *might* change the statewide political calculus? A progressive Democrat running for JeffCo's state house and senate districts who is allowed to say, "I don't like abortion, and neither do you, but we need some common-sense exceptions to our state's trigger law. That's above and beyond any discussion of Roe or Dobbs. And by the way, if we finally do that Medicaid expansion, we'll get a lot fewer abortions than Mike Parson ever will. And if we fight to get real jobs in JeffCo, which those lying Republicans have never been able to deliver, then fewer of your daughters and sons will be driving across the Mississippi to get abortions in that hellhole, Illinois."
And having Democrats like that run for every rural seat in the state, while Cori Bush sits back in STL or DC and says, "Look, I don't completely see eye-to-eye with these Democrats, but you know what? We filled our entire slate for every race in Missouri up and down the ballot for the first time in DECADES, and these Democrats are going to help us fight to claw back abortion rights for Missouri women one compromise at a time. I can't help every woman who's going to get hurt in the meantime, but we didn't get in this predicament overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. If we carry out this fight well, and take our allies where we can get them, then in 10 or God forbid 20 years, Missouri women will have abortion access again."
What's definitely NOT going to help is abortion activists picketing Parson's house, or screeching at Greitens on the campaign trail. Or Cori Bush calling those Democrats traitors to women to score cheap points from her Twitter choir and get a few high-profile appearances on PSA or MSNBC. If 100,000 women marched with their pink pussy hats through downtown STL and KC every single day between now and November, we wouldn't win a single new vote, and we might actually even finally convince the sticks that they need to finally burn our two cities straight to the ground, because they can never be trusted not to betray "Real Missourians".
So that's where I stand. Less knee-jerk reaction, more thoughtful and strategic progressivism.