Wedgies

Two links to Kevin in one day, but he’s on a roll and has some very good advice here, riffing on Noam Schieber’s post today on the abortion/birth control wedge issue:

We need more issues like this. Republicans have used the culture wars to divide liberals and moderates for decades, and we need issues of our own that divide conservatives and moderates. In the end, the best way to win the culture wars is probably to switch gears and force conservatives to fight on an entirely different set of subjects. After all, time is on our side on most culture war issues anyway, and putting conservatives on the defensive in other areas may be a better way to win than a headlong assault.

I actually think this is part of the culture war, but that is neither here nor there. His point is still correct. Republicans have been masters of wedge politics for years, but this tactic goes both ways and there are many openings in a party that has been holding its coalition together with a strange amalgam of nationalism, tax cuts/big spending, rapacious capitalism and religious traditionalism. There are dozens of conflicts within those factions that have been successfully covered over up to now. With power comes the constituencies who expect to be satisfied and they cannot satisfy all of them.

The birth control issue is an excellent example. I would imagine that most of those pro-life married women who voted for Bush are in favor of women having easy access to birth control. Indeed, I would expect that they have no idea that the pro-life movement us run on the institutional level by people who think that birth control is a form of infanticide in some cases and an invitation to female promiscuity in others. They would be very surprised to learn that under all the high flown pro-life rhetoric about abortion there lies a movement that is based upon a belief that it is wrong for women to control their reproductive capabilities. Back in the day, people understood this but it’s been lost in all the pearl clutching about partial birth abortion and the like. It’s never really been about reducing the number of abortions. It’s always been about feminism.

This country is not as conservative as the base of the Republican party. That’s why both of Junior’s cowboy hat ‘n boot campaigns have been as phony as JimJeff Gannon. It’s time to pull down the flap on their big tent and introduce the Republicans to each other up close and personal.

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