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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   26475 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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If that was their motivation they wouldn't vote for Trump a second time, they already got their judges and Trump has expressed much milder and more reserved pro-life sentiments than many of his contemporaries on the primary ballot.

  • -10

Religious conservatives have reasons for supporting the GOP and being very invested in GOP judicial appointments that go beyond abortion. Notable among them are conscience rights/religious objection, support for parental rights, especially in education, and preventing discrimination against religiously-based organizations by public agencies. And the GOP does in fact deliver on these promises to its conservative Christian base; it's generally easier to live the trad conservative christian lifestyle in red states than blue states, and generally easier in blue states than in western Europe.

The GOP, yes; I'm talking about supporting a different Republican.

Why? Trump delivers on his promises to that section of his base, it’s only fair to give him loyalty in return.

He appointed a conservative Justice when a seat opened up, which is what literally anyone with an R next to their name would have done at the time.

He's been a lot softer on the pro-life message than some of his competitors, it's pretty reasonable to predict he's not the option that would deliver the most on that front.

Of course if your decision metric is 'giving loyalty for past favors' instead of 'doing the thing that will accomplish your goals in the future' then yeah that makes sense.

  1. The real-or-feigned inability to build a mental model of the majority of conservatives that aren't "internet-brained rightoid" is a problem that extends beyond this immediate topic.
  2. To respond to your specific point, I wouldn't expect anyone who got a win that big to immediately change horses. Their choices are between the guy that indirectly got them their biggest wins in 50 years, or more of the same losing strategy. Why wouldn't they vote for him again?

I mean, if they're paying attention: The win was from Mitch McConnell stealing a seat from Obama. Literally any warm body with an R next to their name would have produced the same or better results for the pro-lifers during Trump's term, that's just when the last seat needed happened to open up.

Literally any warm body with an R next to their name

we have decades of history with people with R next to their name who nominated justices who refused to do just that

arguing counterfactuals are nice for the proponents because in practice they're unfalsifiable; no other GOP candidate was going to flip PA, MI, WI, likely even Ohio, and other states to win the presidency in 2016

the corporate neocon grift of GOP, Inc., which had lost elections for over a generation in those states, was somehow going to accomplish what Donald Trump accomplished with a radically different message who near single-handedly made the 2016 election about immigration and trade while explicitly denouncing the idiotic neocon projects to boos from GOP, Inc., stooges

Mitch McConnell blocking Obama from replacing Scalia was likely a conditional to the win, but the rest of your statement is based on counterfactuals supported by an unfalsifiable myth of the great alternative GOP winner which does not exist

yup. There were always better pro-life alternatives. It was clearly obvious in 2015/2016 that Trump was not a pro-lifer

...And yet Trump still managed to be one of, if not the, most Pro-life presidents we've had since the days of Reagan and Carter. I dont recall either of the Bushes participating in the March for Life. Do You?

Trump opposed DeSantis on abortion ban https://apnews.com/article/trump-desantis-abortion-ban-republican-primary-5bdbba55f9c2f328d49b5fbe9727677e

Speaking Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump repeatedly declined to say whether he would support a federal ban on abortion. He said he could “live with” the procedure being banned by individual states or nationwide through federal action, though he said “from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better” to be handled at the state level.

Trump has a long history of prevaricating on this issue.

George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act , although it was drafted by Rick Santorum.

And the elder Bush https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/22/us/as-expected-bush-vetoes-bill-that-would-pay-for-some-abortions.html

The evidence would suggest the Bushes are more stridently pro-life compared to Trump.

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