Republicans in disarray
Republicans want desperately to control the national narrative around the presidential election. They need voters and the press focused on any number of subjects not-Donald Trump and his visible mental decay: an immigration “crisis,” inflation, the economy, Joe Biden’s age, sexual identity politics, election “fraud,” etc. It’s just that their MAGA base keeps spitting out the bit and Donald Trump cannot stay on his own message.
Trump’s campaign finance criminal trial in Manhattan begins on Monday despite his every effort to derail it. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-MAGA) threatens to oust yet another Republican speaker of the ungovernable House. GOP-controlled states keep tripling down on abortion restrictions. Arizona’s state Supreme Court just reactivated a Civil War abortion law.
The ruling, Washington Post reports, is “expected to have a seismic impact on the politics of the battleground state, testing the limits of Republican support for abortion restrictions and putting the issue front and center in November’s election.”
Arizona’s conservative Supreme Court on Tuesday revived a near-total ban on abortion, invoking an 1864 law that forbids the procedure except to save a mother’s life and punishes providers with prison time. The decision supersedes Arizona’s previous rule, which permitted abortions up to 15 weeks.
Arizonans are poised to consider the issue in November, now that the groups working to amend the state’s constitution to enshrine abortion rights — which include the ACLU of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona — say that they have acquired enough signatures to establish a ballot measure, according to the Arizona Republic. Meanwhile, Republicans in the state are asking Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and the Republican-led state legislature to come up with a solution.
The developments in Arizona are part of a wave of state actions to reckon with the future of access to reproductive care after the U.S. Supreme Court, with a conservative majority installed during Donald Trump’s presidency, overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. While several states enacted abortion restrictions as a result of overturning Roe, protecting access to reproductive care has broadly been a winning issue for Democratic candidates and for ballot measures that protect abortion access in the elections since the 2022 ruling.
Reproductive freedoms will be front and center in the national psyche, especially among women, between now and November. After Republican election losses and wins for reproductive freedoms in state after state post-Roe, this unpopular ruling is just what Republicans and Trump don’t need. Reproductive freedom guarantees are on the fall ballot or proposed in multiple states.
Trump’s bragging about ending Roe will be a centerpiece of Democrats’ campaigns across the country. It could even put Florida in play for Democrats. Trump’s attempt to leave abortion to the states and to back away from enacting a national abortion ban adds to the message confusion on the right. Republicans are trying to disclaim from their own positions. Women and men know that the fringe right won’t stop with abortion. Contraception access and IVF treatments will be next. Trump’s campaign is all over the place on these issues, Politico reports.
It is not helping that Trump is so discombobulated over the start of a criminal trial for the first time in his life. He’ll have to attend court each day where his criminality will be in the spotlight. He’ll try to play the victim, naturally. But it’s not exactly the campaign ad his party wants playing on repeat even if this jury fails to convict when another sent Trump fixer Michael Cohen to prison.
The propaganda arm of the GOP is no help either. Fox Business guest Mark Simone tells Larry Kudlow, “This issue does not hurt Donald Trump, he’s not against abortion. He’s actually okay with abortion, he wants that 15 week limit. Perfectly reasonable.” This Arizona decision will soon blow over. Letting states decide makes Trump the pro-choice candidate!
SIMONE: Yeah, it is to be pro-choice, states can decide. If you had to travel to another state to get an abortion, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Hopefully this is a very rare occurrence in your life, once in your life, maybe you would do it. Buying a bus ticket to go somewhere to get it is not worst thing in the world.
That will play well with the majority of voters, won’t it?
If there’s an upside for the GOP, the fight to restore women’s freedoms takes the focus away from GOP efforts to rig the election for themselves in state after state.
Passing out in an hours-long line outside a polling station undersupplied with machines to vote on a single day in a Black precinct because the GOP outlawed anyone giving you water “is not the worst thing in the world” either, amirite? Hopefully your voting is very rare occurrence too.
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