Overturning Roe vs Wade will Devastate Electoral Prospects for Republican Party in Future

As some of you might have heard, a leaked draft from Supreme Court suggests that conservative majority of justices will vote to overturn Roe vs Wade. While this was expected during the past few months, it is a big deal for future electoral prospects of Republican party- in ways they will come to regret. Moreover, the profoundly negative effects of such a judicial decision on the ability of Republican party to win national elections will be long-term and potentially generational. Napoleon Bonaparte is often quoted as saying “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. For the past year, or so, it appeared that the Democratic party was the one making a series of mistakes- ranging from closing schools for over a year during COVID-19 pandemic, pushing useless public masking rules, pushing trans ideology and CRT in schools in addition to ignoring inflation, supply chain problems and many other issues which had a cumulative negative impact on the lives of average voters.

If the Republican party had any ability to think strategically, they would have just let Democrats screw themselves, while avoiding making any major mistakes. But they had to do something dumb to fuck up their otherwise excellent chances of massive nationwide electoral wins in 2022 and 2024. Now I am not sure they will win anything more than slim majority in the house, if even that. To understand why this potential legal decision is so bad for immediate and medium term future of Republican party, let us acknowledge something which is often forgotten: all political issues can be divided into two classes, emotive and non-emotive. Emotive issues in this country include terrorist attacks, 2nd amendment and right to an abortion. Non-emotive ones concern such topics as changes in rate of taxation, health insurance premiums and the cost of university education. My point is that certain issues evoke far more visceral responses than others, and thus has much larger electoral and social consequences.

With that in mind, let me list the many ways in which repealing Roe vs Wade is the equivalent of political suicide for the Republican Party.

1] The hardcore anti-abortion types, who are heavily old and white, will always vote for Republican party regardless of whether it actually succeeds in repealing Roe vs Wade. Indeed, for many decades the Republicans have used the bait of judicial repeal for Roe Vs Wade to gain a few percentage points and leech money from dumb white rubes. In some ways, this is quite similar to Democrats collecting money and votes from dumb coastal PMC types by promising they would ban guns. Some of you might remember that the one time they tried to do this semi-seriously, in1994, was also the year Democrats suffered a historical thrashing at the polls. The non-dumb members in both parties understand that trying to ban abortion or guns are both very bad ideas because try to implement them on a large scale makes it virtually impossible to win in subsequent national elections. Sure you can try to pass all sorts of “gun control” laws in CA, NJ or NY.. but doing so on a national level is always political suicide. The same applies for laws against legal abortion.

2] It is important to understand that there is an interesting liberal version of the “shy conservative voter” and “shy trump voter”. Many more women and men will say they against abortion, than actually have strong beliefs in that matter. When push comes to shove, the number of people who want to criminalize abortion are far fewer than opinion polls suggest. There is also an especially strong generational component to this where even otherwise conservative women below a certain age (40-something) are far more supportive of a right to abortion than their wrinkly post-menopausal family members. I would go so far as to say that a majority of pre-menopausal women who currently vote Republican are barely in agreement with the ideology of that party. It would not take much to stop them from voting Republican or become Democrats.

3] Passing laws reducing access to abortion in poor southern states such as Alabama, Missouri or even Texas is not the same as trying to pass them in relatively affluent coastal states or even the Midwest. Almost the entire educational establishment, the medical establishment, media and managerial class in this country hold socially liberal beliefs- even those who vote Republican. Any attempt to make abortion illegal at the national level will face very strong blowback from these powerful groups. If you thought that pronouns and promoting trans ideology was excessive, you have no idea about the massive shit-show you are going to witness if Roe vs Wade is repealed. And there will be a massive, almost inexhaustible, amount of money and power behind an effort to codify the right to abortion into law. And for good reason, the constituency of people who want abortion to remain legal is dozens of times larger than those who supported gay marriage and hundreds of times than those support trans issues.

4] Let us also not forget the explosive growth of social media, its real-world effects and cancel culture over the past decade. You can bet a lot of money that social media giants and tech companies will personally put in a lot of effort to make sure that every tragic story about a botched illegal abortion or suffering caused by lack of access to abortion will appear in the feeds of every person in the country to the point where it will make the murder of George Floyd by that cop look like deliberate underexposure. I am willing to confidently predict that nobody who aspires for a public career beyond speaking gigs at conservative conventions will want to be publicly associated with an abortion ban, because the downside will be just too high. Do you seriously think that the children of any current supreme court justice who vote for repealing Roe vs Wade will get be allowed into prestigious universities afterwards? This is 2022, not 2002!

5] Then there is the issue of social inertia. It is far harder to remove an established right rather than it is to create a new one. There is a reason why Republicans don’t dare to touch Social Security and Medicare even if their corporate puppet-masters don’t like those programs. The nationwide right to abortion has been around for almost 50 years, which is the average age of menopause in women. The majority of women alive today were born after Roe vs Wade. If you are dumb enough to think that cancelling such an established right with a strong visceral component will not elicit massive blowback- you are highly delusional. Are all those suburban white women who often vote Republican going to vote for you after pulling this stupid shit? But what about those Hispanic women who are supposed to be religiously conservative. Well.. the vast majority of such women under 40-something are Americanized and have the same mindset and worldview as any average white women in their age range.

6] It should be also pointed out that such a legal decision will give the Democratic party a massive and legitimate excuse to successfully pass all sorts of legislations- from packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Filibuster and other questionable laws which have little or nothing to do with the issue. It will also legitimize their attempts to rig future elections. I mean.. with such an visceral issue in play, who care about things such as fairness, due process or established precedent. And nobody who wants a public career is going to stand in their way, nor will any corporations protest because issues such as this one allow them to appear virtuous without sacrificing any profits. In summary, if the Republican party had any strategic vision, they would beg the justices to uphold Roe vs Wade. But if they want to desperately steal defeat from the jaws of victory, I think we should all encourage them to do so.

What do you think? Comments?