By Peter Burrows elburropete@gmail.com 4/2/21
The Democratic Party is finding it impossible to reconcile the conflicting interests of its various constituents. Jews and Asians, for example, are two ethnic groups who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, yet they are being increasingly victimized on the streets by blacks who go unpunished and by school standards being lowered to accommodate a few blacks who can't be educated.
Thus, the imaginary victimhood of blacks creates real victimhood for Jews and Asians, but there are only 7 million Jews and maybe 20 million Asians in America, vs. 40 million blacks.
Simple demographics, however, doesn't explain why the Democrats, from Biden on down, are so eager to accommodate transgenders, the latest group to claim victimhood. They probably amount to only 1-2% of the population, if that. Outraged feminists and soccer moms should be raising Hell about the absurdities of transgenderism, but the highest elected woman in America, Vice President Harris, is apparently OK with transmen competing in women's sports.
I guess that in today's woke world, "equity" trumps everything, and "equity" is in the eye of the progressive beholder.
This should be rich pickings for the Republican Party, but for many people in America, "Republican" is a pejorative. Years of being demonized, with very little push-back I might add, have convinced many voters that Republicans are bad, evil people. Republicans want to keep women "barefoot and pregnant," they "want to put y'all back in chains," they're a bunch of red-neck racists who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them." Why – GASP! -- David Duke says he's a Republican. What decent person would ever want to be a Republican?
Unfortunately, there is a tiny grain of truth in that sea of lies, hypocrisy and hate. The Republicans have only two hot buttons, abortion and gun control, and abortion is the really hot, always on button. Not all Republicans think Roe v. Wade should be overturned, but that's the general impression. Democrats very effectively use a "war on women" theme tied to women's reproductive rights against Republicans.
That's why a great many liberals, especially Jews and suburban women, aka soccer moms, will not vote for a Republican. They might if that Republican openly supported Roe v. Wade, but I don't know of any Republican who has or would get nominated if they did.
Even promoting birth control can get a Republican in hot water if that is seen as supporting abortion in any way. Republican Senator Rand Paul found that out a few years ago when he supported the morning after pill, Plan B. That cost him any chance at the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, not that he had much to begin with.
The argument is that the Plan B pill is an abortifacient, causing the fertilized ovum, the gamete, to dislodge from the uterus wall, thus preventing pregnancy, ergo an abortion. I think this "life at conception" argument dooms many Republicans to defeat at the polls. Star Parker, a black lady who is very anti-abortion, ran for Congress in 2010 and I sent her a campaign contribution because I agree with her on every other issue under the sun. However, if her election had meant overturning Roe v. Wade, I don't know if I would have supported her.
I personally would support any private foundation that provided generic Plan B pills free of charge to every high school in America, to be dispensed with no questions asked. As I see it, the reality is not a choice between abortions or no abortions. The demand for abortions will always exist and the question is if they will be legal or illegal. I prefer the safety of legal abortions, and generic Plan B has the added attraction of CHEAP legal abortions.
Ironically, the Republicans could turn the "war on women" issue against the Democrats if they would continue to make affordable contraception an issue, as they did in 2016, but not very effectively. In most of the world, birth control pills are available without a prescription, but not in America. Here, a woman has to go to a doctor, frequently go through a battery of unnecessary tests, take her prescription to a pharmacist and pay thru the nose OR – and this is important -- have her insurance pick up the bill.
This is why Democrats opposed Trump's position on over-the-counter birth control: "It should not be a prescription." I didn't know this was Trump's position until I recently read an article about OTC contraception in Reason Magazine. Why did the Democrats oppose this? In a word: Obamacare.
The Affordable Care Act required insurance companies to cover FDA approved contraceptives, and any attempt to approve OTC pills was portrayed as an attempt to undermine the ACA. This deprived birth control to women without insurance or the funds to get a prescription. It also benefited insurance companies, pharmacies, doctors and abortion providers.
Republicans need to take advantage of that inequity if they are ever going to have a chance with many women voters. An NBC poll a couple of years ago reveals the stark political realities:
"A comprehensive 2019 study of attitudes toward abortion by the Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of U.S. adults oppose completely overturning Roe v. Wade, while 28 percent support overturning it. Support for preserving Roe was lopsided among key groups of women who are already skeptical of Trump, according to internal Pew Research Center survey data provided to NBC News. Female college graduates oppose overturning Roe v. Wade by 79 percent to 20 percent, Pew found. Women who identify as politically independent oppose overturning Roe by 74 percent to 22 percent. And suburban women oppose overturning it by 74 percent to 22 percent."
Replace the above "skeptical of Trump" with the more accurate, "skeptical of Republicans," and there is the problem. While Democrats are focused on overthrowing the nation, Republicans are focused on overthrowing Roe v. Wade. The Democrats are succeeding.
Sources:
reason.com/2019/01/16/deregulate-the-pill/