In a historical week, dwarfed as usual by the shattering news about Trump’s escalating alleged criminality, the Biden Democrats passed legislation involving climate change, forcing companies and the rich to pay their fair share, lowering drug and health care costs, and stimulating the formation of semiconductor chips companies that are essential for every modern economy from defense to cars to fridges and finally providing health care for veterans who for decades had been exposed to cancer causing toxins. To cap Biden’s week, like anyone cares, was the lowering of inflation and gas prices. The media cycle was, as usual, all about the alleged criminality of the “Republicans” own megalomaniac for the ages, Donald Trump. Not that it is the news that anyone else would be exited about but Donald Trump is not anyone and for him any spotlight can raise money.
So of course grabbing the head lines was the Forty - Fifth President whose temporary White House, Mar A Lago, was subject to a court ordered search warrant executed by the Department of Justice. Even by Trump standards the outcome was electrifying, boxes of classified documents including those that were for a few eyes only - the Washington Post reporting that they included those on nuclear weaponry - were carted away. No wonder one of the suspected crimes on the court order was espionage. Let that sink in espionage a term sanctioned by a Federal Judge.
Incidentally those violence seeking internet Trump supporters who want to murder the Attorney General need to stick around cause Mar A Lago is just a curtain raiser to the investigations of the criminality of their Fuhrer. There is still the outcome of January 6 investigations to follow, In case the faithful might have missed it Trump, who had previously categorically judged that only the mob plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid incrimination in a deposition, identified himself as such by pleading the Fifth in the crucial case in New York that could bankrupt him and his Organization. The date for the trial of his life long accountant of the Trump Organization was set and he was involved in a plea deal and an Appeals Court ordered him to produce his tax records to the House Ways and Means Committee in what had ti have been a momentous week even by his standards, To cap it all his lead lawyer Rudi Giuliani was named as a target in a criminal investigation in Georgia.
It is fair to conclude that as good a week as Biden had was juxtaposed with the disaster of Trump’s. However although these events will impact the 2022 midterm elections none will dominate the outcome more than the issue that is central to all women, and men for that matter, - abortion..
PRO LIFE AND PRO CHOICE - THE ISSUE
One of the great big ironies of the clash between the Pro Life and Pro Choice movements is that both have as their central thesis the sanctity of life. The problem then arises whose life - that of a fetus or the mother. Then it rolls onto what is life and what is the sanctity of the mother. To a large extent the issue had been resolved in virtually every country in the world, even Orban’s Hungary, that the sanctity of the mother overrode that of fetal material till the latter could become a viable child, (approximately twenty - four weeks gestation) then it could be a medical decision as to the risks and to whom.
In the USA all hell broke loose when the Supreme Court in all its wisdom gave the go ahead for even six week fetal material the size of a baked bean to assume transcendence over the mother. A large section of women interpreted this as a misogynist move without any regard to the consequences. The Republicans were rapturous in hailing this as a victory for the ages. Even more significant in the ruling was that The Court didn’t differentiate between elective abortions, miscarriages which occur in one out of four pregnancies, life threatening ectopic pregnancies which occur outside the womb and unlivable fetal abnormalities. The latter dilemmas threw the medical world in chaos.
So onto the story of the impact of the decision.
THE IMMEDIATE RESPONSE
The banning of the Constitutional right of a woman to control her body, was made possible by the Trump three judicial appointees with the opinion written by the smug self righteous Justice Samuel Alito and was heralded by the “Republican Party” with a frantic rush by “Republican” State legislatures to ban outright a legal termination of a pregnancy. The only rare debate among the lemmings was whether or not to make an exception for reported to the police rape and incest and the life of a mother. Neither was any attempt made to address ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages.
As Jay H. Ell blogged on June 29 2022 “ Trump, McConnell and the GOP be Careful What You Wish For”, the expected backlash has rocked the midterm American electorate in a historical way. (To find the blog go to Archive on the right of the page and click on June 2022 and then click on the blog). The outright arrogance of Samuel Alito who then went to Rome and basically said “Sucks to women, I just don’t care”. Adding to the political flavor of the judicial opinion was Justice Thomas’s opinion in support of the position that the other decisions involving constitutional privacy such as contraception and same sex marriage should go the same way. Fascinatingly he didn’t mention inter racial marriage which falls under the same rubric and he must have been shocked to the core when Viktor Orban the new co leader of the faith, at his guest appearance at CPAP, condemned inter racial marriage.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR TRUMP?
The newest string to the Donald’s bow is the raid on Mar A Lago his “beautiful” home where his not well designed safe was opened.. This will solidify his already solidified alt right base, produce the usual sycophantic support and promises for retribution from the “Republican” legislators but not one more vote. The leak from Susan Glaser and Peter Baker’s new book that he wanted his Generals to be just like the Nazi Generals will bring cheers from you know who but will not bring back the votes from the Independents and the disaffected Republicans that he has already lost.
For the moment the principle game changer is abortion.
The only “Republican” that the women’s right to privacy being revoked helps is Donald J. Trump, who is credited with this success - rightly so Jay H. Ell would opine. Evangelical Protestants represent fifty - six percent of the Republicans as do thirty percent of the Catholics all of whose religions have a very tough line on abortion≥. Again of that group that voted for Trump their support was rock solid anyway and the decision is unlikely to add to his tally. However the certainty of their votes is what keeps Trump head and shoulders above the rest of Republican Presidential wannabes. Of course Trump is no fool so his victory is not part of his spiel. He still is on about the 2020 election. He has the alt right and all the militants that aren’t locked up to think about as well.
His standing amongst the base may be as assured as ever but the January 6 hearings have done his overall support harm. The Congressional “Republican” Party have taken a knock too but with Trump’s support of the base they cannot abandon him. Rather they have dumped Trump’s critics, chief among them Representative Liz Cheney who has as her mission to make sure he never becomes President again. In the latter regard his legal jeopardy has crescendoed in the last few months, especially this week.
Trump is more than aware that you can’r win a lottery without a ticket so at the moment he hopes to survive even if indicted and as long as not convicted he will win the Republic nomination, where the abortion decision helps him. Then he could become President. After all look what happened in 2016 when Hillary was way ahead in the polls and that amoral James Comey, Head of the FBI, announced to the ecstatic Republicans, against all established protocol, that he was reopening the ludicrous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e - mails. Clinton’s internal polls showed the impact as Trump reframed Comey from a ‘slime ball” to a hero.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO AND CONSEQUENTLY AMERICA
To frame Alito’s newly found importance The Supreme Court is the third branch of government in America and the final arbiter of all matters including what laws are constitutional or not.
Justice Samuel Alito who is Clarence Thomas’s junior in seniority by fifteen years has succeeded in becoming the leader of the six Conservative judges on the Supreme Court, a position Thomas has held to date. The very fact that he not Thomas wrote the opinion axing the constitutional right to abortion has vaulted him to the top of the heap. He claimed that the fifty year old Roe v Wade precedent was “egregiously wrong” stunning the legal world and the world in general. Alito’s religiosity is widely known. However his utter disdain and even cruelty for what the outcome would be for a ten year olds that were raped and would be forced to deliver a baby had certainly never been on display. In addition lumping everyone not carrying a pregnancy to term and lumping health care workers together with “abortionists” shows a depth of ignorance at kindest as to the fate of women and doctors whether the former had had a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, or till then a legal abortion.
Alito’s address at the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit in Rome following his decision, when he would have had some idea as to the negative and dangerous impact of the Court ruling underscored his religious values and the “challenge for those who wanted to protect religious liberty”. He claimed that, “Religious liberty is under attack… because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power….. “it probably grows out of something dark and deep in the human DNA…” Presumably that included the right to terminate a pregnancy.
There can be little doubt that Justice Alito allowed his religious values to influence his decision. As Justice Sotomayor opined that nothing had changed in medicine or society to overturn a long standing precedent but the composition of the court. Incidentally Alito stated in his confirmation that the centrality of precedent guided his decision making,.
The upshot is that Samuel Alito is the de facto Chief Justice. He rather than Roberts will be the final arbiter as to what the Constitution of America is and if the approval rate of the Supreme Court is currently twenty percent it can still go lower.
In case he hasn’t noticed he is about to become the savior of the Democratic Party and as popular as the head of the Taliban is with women.
SOCIETY RELIGION KANSAS AND THE COMPLICATED ISSUE OF ABORTION
As Jay H. Ell tried to explain what a complicated issue abortion is in his blog, of July, 24, “Have the Democrats Any Hope in the Midterms”, this was not for the education of women but rather of men. As Trump doesn’t read hopefully Justice Alito might. If he hasn’t he might want to learn a bit about the subject. Also the Supreme Court is supposed to make decisions in the context of society as a whole not in the interests of just one group as they have appeared to have done in this context.
Societal opinion as reflected in the polls has ranged from seventy to eighty percent who wanted Roe to remain law, The assumption was that of course that was just the Democrats. So far the only test has been a plebiscite in the red state of Kansas which Trump beat Biden by fifteen percent. The latter’s state assembly is awash with Republicans. It is really only the fundamentalists who share Alito et al’s opinion on abortion. Both Islam and Judaism for example prioritize the sanctity of life of the mother. There is even litigation by a Jewish Religious Sect that their constitutional right to carry out this dictum has been overridden by this decision, The complaint alleges that constitutionally church and state are separate.
To date in the Primaries there has not been too much interest in the Democratic Primaries that are genteel compared to those of the Republicans where the battle for the soul of the Party goes on. Largely the Trumpists have won. Consequently the turn out for the Democrats has been nineteen percent below the 2018 midterms and the Republicans up by a similar percent. The Kansa referendum on dumping the abortion rights was held on Primary Day in the belief that this would favor the Republicans. Well guess what the Dems increased their turn out from 2018 midterms by eighty percent. Their new voter registration was predominantly women and abortion rights won by sixty to forty percent in red Kansas.
Abortion what ever pollsters may say is a top issue for 2022 and 2024,
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Biden is on a roll as his approval rates go up. Trump is in bad shape and he is what the 2022 election is going to be about. The economy is improving and there are still three months to go.
The Democrats are on the way to increasing their majority in the Senate and are slowly improving their chances to retain the House.
The “Republicans” have chosen not to hang alone but to hang together. Their policy is Trump is President, impeach Biden, investigate the January 6 Committee and the Department of Justice
Just in case there was any doubt as to that Trump is the “Republican” Party the recent Primary Fights including the elimination of Liz Cheney make it clear that the “Republican” Party is a cult.
Just in case everyone thinks Liz Cheney is the answer to world tension it should not be forgotten that she voted for Trump’s policies over ninety percent of the time and hailed Justice Alito’s decision on abortion.
It is more than a bit scary that Samuel Alito is in charge of the Third Branch of Government. On can only hope that he will not reverse legislation on Constitutional grounds.
Abortion is turning into a central issue in the forthcoming election but Trump's alleged criminality has to be impacting Independents and democratic Republicans.
It stands to reason that the importance of the 2022 mid term elections cannot be overemphasized.
No comments:
Post a Comment