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Democrats and Republicans Agree: Better to Lose Than to Shut Up

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Ted Rall

 “When you surround an army,” Sun Tzu counseled in The Art of War, “leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” Partisans on both sides of America’s everything-looks-like-a-hammer politics have forgotten this basic tenet of strategy—and are likely to pay for it.

            Donald Trump announced that he expects to be arrested in New York and indicted in connection with charges that media reports say are about to be filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Democrats greeted the news with characteristic gloating.

            “[Trump] cannot hide from his violations of the law, disrespect for our elections and incitements to violence,” tweeted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The New York charges concern the allegation that he misappropriated campaign funds in order to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with the former president. They have nothing to do with denying the result of the 2000 election or the January 6th Capitol riot.

            Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann tweeted: “ARREST TRUMP TODAY! ARREST TRUMP TOMORROW! ARREST TRUMP FOREVER!”

            “I’ll throw a watch party when it happens,” Alyssa Farah Griffin said on ABC’s The View. “Lock him up! Lock him up!” Joy Behar responded, echoing the anti-Hillary chant at Trump’s rallies.

            Schadenfreude is wicked fun, but gleeful Trump-bashers might want to consider the consequences: Grievance-mongering is one of Trump’s main political schticks. Revel in the T-shirt of the presidential mugshot but remember, MAGA nation will use it to rile up the GOP base—and bring back some 2016 Trump voters who became Never Trumpers as well. In a Trump perp walk (I’d advise him to demand one), conservatives will see maddening injustice where liberals see just desserts.

            Indeed, even Trump’s primary challengers are coming to his defense. What doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger; an arrest coupled with liberal gloating thereabout plays into his narrative that he receives unfair and disproportionate opprobrium while swampy mainstream pols get away with murder, hardens his supporters’ resolve, and increases his chances of being restored to power. “If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory,” Elon Musk predicted.

            Meanwhile, Republicans are overplaying their hand on abortion.

            Pro-lifers have launched a novel legal challenge to FDA authorization of the abortion drug mifepristone in a federal court in Texas, a case that will probably be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Wyoming recently banned medication abortion. A South Carolina bill would define abortion as murder punishable by life in prison or capital punishment. Considering that 85% of voters favor legal abortion in all or some circumstances—a record high since 1976—they might ask themselves whether they’ve blown up a bridge too far.

            One-third of American women now live in a state where abortion is illegal due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Most abortion-ban states have exceptions for rape, incest and the life of mother on their books, but in practice very few exceptions are ever granted. A lawsuit filed by five women in Texas who nearly died because they were denied abortions to which state law said they were entitled highlights that reality.

            When widespread demand encounters legal prohibition, people generally resort to a workaround—legally if possible, underground if not. There are roughly a million abortions annually. Medication abortions using mifepristone to block hormones that support pregnancy and misoprostol to empty the uterus accounted for 53% of U.S. pregnancy terminations in 2020, a portion that has almost certainly increased with the spread of telemedicine during the pandemic and the Dobbs decision.

            The mifepristone option has served as a socio-political pressure-release valve since Dobbs. Red-state women get still obtain abortions without traveling hundreds of miles. Red-state politicians can pander to pro-life voters, pointing out that abortion is far more difficult to obtain without looking like full-fledged Handmaid’s-Tale despots. The loser has been the pro-choice movement, which lacks the galvanizing effect of a 100% abortion ban.

            If SCOTUS overrules the FDA and kills mifepristone, the pressure-release valve gets closed—and not just in the 28 states that currently ban abortion. Medication abortion, the easiest and therefore most common type of abortion, vanishes in all 50 states. In an election year, the mere effort to ban mifepristone may be sufficient to enrage liberal voters. If it succeeds, watch out. Abortion rights aren’t currently a top issue for left-leaning voters, but an actual ban could spur even disgruntled progressives to turn out for Democrats about whom they otherwise might not have felt enthused.

            What should the two parties have done instead?

In an ideal world, Democratic prosecutors and investigators would have coordinated their efforts, bypassing novel legal theories like AG Bragg’s that are politically flimsy and unlikely to lead to conviction in favor of rock-solid charges like business fraud and instigating a riot. Now that an indictment appears to be forthcoming, Democrats could have assumed a sober mien, pointing out the sad necessity of having to book a former president like a common criminal. They shouldn’t be jumping up and down like overstimulated infants.

            Republicans, on the other hand, should have taken a breather on their fight against abortion. Had they waited a few years to let the new bifurcated legal normal to take hold, the pro-choice movement would have lost momentum as dispirited partisans drifted away having accepted defeat. Eventually, with Americans accustomed to abortion as less legal and rarer, they could have moved forward to ban all forms of abortion nationwide. Slow and steady, the same way economic conservatism was built up from the grass roots over decades following Goldwater’s 1964 rout, might have won this race.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

DMZ America Podcast #91 (Now with Video!): Abortion Bans Kill Women, France’s Fight for Retirement, “Liberal” Media Companies Line Up Behind Fox News

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Ted Rall

American political cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) discuss the hottest issues of the week. Abortion is at the top of the news again in the week of a landmark lawsuit filed by five Texas women who almost lost their lives because Texas Republicans have banned abortion in the state. As the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, pro-choice sentiment hits a record high in the polls—what does this mean for Republicans? French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to increase the national retirement age from 62 to 64 has united the French people against him. Biden and the Democrats think they have a winning issue here with Social Security and Medicare, given Republicans’ previous messaging on the entitlement programs. Corporate media lawyers fret that defamation defendants could be vulnerable to accountability for their newsroom decisions should Dominion Voting Systems prevail in their $1.6 billion libel claim against Fox News. Would that be so terrible?

Watch the Video Version of the DMZ America Podcast:
Ep 91 Sec 1 – Texas Abortion Lawsuit
Ep 91 Sec 2 – France’s Retirement Fight
Ep 91 Sec 3 – Dominion vs. Fox News Defamation Lawsuit

 

 

Why Are Women Falling Behind?

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Ted Rall

            Why do women keep getting pushed to the back of the line?

            The sociological history of the United States has been defined by struggles for equality with the landed white males, presenting as straight, who founded the republic. Though it’s still a continuing effort, the abolitionist movement and the fight for racial civil rights scored the first major triumph, emancipation in the mid-19th century.

            Gender equality and feminism achieved the second big win with the ratification of women’s suffrage in 1920. Since then, however, equal rights for women have frequently taken a back seat to other liberation struggles that got off the ground later. The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, putting the United States among the tiny minority of nations that do not specifically guarantee equality between men and women in their constitutions. The Dobbs decision made the U.S. one of just three countries in the world to have rolled back the federally-guaranteed right to an abortion since 1994.

            The worrisome stalling of women’s progress is highlighted by the bipartisan passage in the Senate of a bill that will codify same-sex marriage at the federal level. The bill is now headed to certain passage by the Democratic-controlled House and will be signed into law by President Biden.

In this era of extreme polarization, it’s newsworthy that 12 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote alongside Democrats. What’s really interesting is that the Respect for Marriage Act addresses a theoretical threat to liberty over one that is extant. In the Dobbs opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the Supreme Court’s newfound skepticism of a constitutional privacy right undermines the case law used to legalize contraception and same-sex marriage, and invited petitioners to bring test cases to the high court. But there was no indication gay marriage was on the judicial chopping block. Nor did the incoming Republican House leadership signal it wanted a ban—not that one would have survived the Senate or a presidential veto. This was a “just in case” move.

Abortion rights, on the other hand, were actually eviscerated by Dobbs. Half the states, comprising most of the area of the country and nearly half its population, ban abortion. Only 15 states allow the procedure without restrictions. Yet there is no possibility that the incoming Republican House will consider codifying Roe v. Wade at the national level. Even Democrats, packing their bags, offered only tepid lip service. As with the ERA, women will have to wait.

As seen with the progress on same-sex marriage, the movement for LGBTQ equality keeps moving forward—and at an impressive rate.

It’s harder to identify a discrete official start of the transgender rights movement, but media and political consciousness began to focus on the T in LGBT in the 1970s and 1980s. There still isn’t a federal law designating transgender as a protected class but the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock decision prohibits employment discrimination against transgender people. By way of comparison, it remains legal to fire someone because they are too young, specifically under age 40.

Stonewall augured the rise of the gay rights movement 121 years after the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York did the same for women. Why does the women’s struggle, which got off the ground so much sooner, seem to have stalled, or even lost ground compared to more recent movements?

Barbara Jordan, the trailblazing congresswoman from Texas who won national attention during the Watergate hearings, said that she found it even more challenging to be a female politician than a Black one. In a country built on slavery and cursed by racism still embodied by racist policing every single day in every single town, that’s saying a lot.

Yet evidence that women are stuck is everywhere to see. Looking ahead to the 2024 presidential campaign, the growing buzz around Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, coupled with the poor approval ratings for Vice President Kamala Harris, raises the possibility that we might see a gay man become president before a woman—and remember, it’s been 36 years since Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman on a major party presidential ticket. Progress in closing the pay gap between men and women has stalled at 84%, with no sign of improvement in sight.

It is ironic that women, who comprise the biggest demographic of any of the traditionally oppressed minorities in the United States, are having such a hard time compared to smaller groups who got started later.

Hell, women aren’t even a minority at all.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

Lies Begin at Political Conception

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Ted Rall

Which Joe Biden should voters believe? The one who, for many years, was a pro-lifer who was so extreme that he voted against federal funding for abortions even in the case of rape, incest and the life of the mother? Or the current one who says he would codify Roe v. Wade if he got the chance — which, of course, Obama chose not to do while Biden was vice president.

Herschel Walker, Bloody Hypocrite

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Ted Rall

Georgia senatorial candidate and former NFL star Herschel Walker is campaigning as militantly pro-life and anti-choice on abortion rights. But there is credible evidence that he paid for and endorsed an abortion that his girlfriend had in the past. Because they simply want to win, Republican officials and voters are happy to overlook his brazen hypocrisy.

I’m Going to Need a Little Bit of That Money Back

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Ted Rall

Republicans oppose abortion rights in Congress, but Democrats have the chance to codify abortion into federal law when Obama had a 60-vote supermajority in the US Senate. He chose not to do so, saying that it was a low priority. He also made it a low priority to push through his supreme court pick, Merrick Garland, because he assumed that Hillary Clinton would beat Trump.

Every Day Is Fundraising Time

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Ted Rall

After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court, President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats were heavily criticized for their response, which boils down to pleas to vote for Democrats and fundraising. They were surprised because this has always been their typical response to such events.

Want Abortion Back? First, Women Have to Die.

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Ted Rall

            The Supreme Court has sent a message: we’re no longer in the business of ratifying social change. No more legislating from the bench. If Americans want abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception legalized as opposed to merely tolerated, they should look to Congress.

            Distraught over the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many women are searching for a quick fix—and they’re right. A 20,000-abortion-per-week nation can’t go to 10,000 overnight without dire social, economic and medical consequences. But the system won’t give us the rapid remedy we need.

            Women will have to die. They’ll have to die in ugly ways. Their deaths will have to be public.

            Congress won’t help. Bless her heart, Elizabeth Warren articulated the Democrats’ plan, which is magical thinking at its finest: “If we pick up two more senators [in November], we can ditch the filibuster and make Roe the law of the land.” Odds of Democrats losing seats and Senate control are solid; odds that they’ll gain two or more seats are slim to none.

            Neither will the Supreme Court. Only one justice, Clarence Thomas, is likely to die in the next year or two. He’s 74, overweight and rumored to be in poor health. Even if Mitch McConnell allowed Biden to hold a vote and the president were to replace Thomas with a liberal, the conservative majority would remain 5-to-4. Adding new (liberal) justices to the Supreme Court is a pipe dream that would require a 60-vote Democratic supermajority, not to mention changing Biden’s mind about packing the court.

            We the people won’t act either. Now that Roe is no more, look at what has happened in the streets: Nothing, unless you count a few sporadic, easily-ignored, low-attendance protest demonstrations. Pro-choice groups like NARAL are still fundraising, not mass-mobilizing.

            Want abortion back? Women are going to have to die hard, ugly, public deaths.

            A 2021 study estimates that 140 additional women will die each year in the U.S. due to complications from pregnancies that otherwise would have been terminated in abortions.

            Vaguely- and carelessly-written statutes allowing for abortions in case of medical emergencies will kill even more. Women with heart conditions and diabetes are at higher risk of death during childbirth, but what level of risk rises to an emergency? Who makes the call, a doctor or a judge? How many doctors will take the safest course—for themselves—and refuse to perform a needed abortion? Some abortion bans are so sweeping that the procedure isn’t permitted even in case of a miscarriage, which can lead to fatal sepsis unless the fetus is removed.

“What does the risk of death have to be, and how imminent must it be?” University of Michigan reproductive health professor Lisa Harris asked in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Might abortion be permissible in a patient with pulmonary hypertension, for whom we cite a 30-to-50% chance of dying with ongoing pregnancy? Or must it be 100%?”  Doctors in states where abortion is now illegal will probably “wait to that very last minute when it’s clear that a patient will die to do the procedure, and that’s just not an ideal time to do any kind of intervention.”

Pathetic and absurd and wrong, yet plainly true, is that the quickest and likeliest route toward codifying abortion rights into federal law will begin with one, or more likely several, highly-publicized cases of women who suffer hideous deaths because Roe is no more. If enough of those tragedies go viral on social media, there may eventually be enough horror and outrage across the political spectrum to persuade some Republicans to join Democrats into passing an abortion-rights law.

            This, of course, is no guarantee. Many thousands of innocents have been slaughtered in mass shootings, all caught in gruesome high-definition video and spread via social media, yet Congress has barely begun to act on gun control measures. Cops routinely murder Black men on video yet the police remain woefully un-defunded. Women’s deaths may be like that, piling up with nary a “thought and prayer” for a generation or more until the United States rejoins the developed world and restores Roe.

            Without the Supreme Court, a functional Congress or sustained, energetic grassroots activism, however, outrage prompted by social media and high-profile martyrs are all we can hope for under this current system.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, “The Stringer.” Order one today. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

Bourgeois Feminism

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Ted Rall

The decision of the United States Supreme Court to no longer guarantee the right of a woman to get an abortion helps to expose other, equally important rights, that are not guaranteed under the United States Supreme Court or, for that matter, the United States government at all.

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