Yesterday, there were protests aimed at Joe Biden over Dobbs. Several protestors consciously invoked Alice Paul, by "chaining" themselves to the gates of the White House.
I have thoughts.
First, historically, Alice Paul was the more "romantic" hero of the woman suffrage movement. She was the outspoken radical who took bold, dramatic actions. My own opinion is that she was at best marginally effective in winning women the right to vote. Woodrow Wilson (unlike Joe Biden) was a fairly vindictive guy. If you crossed him, he remembered it and his epic feud with Henry Cabot Lodge, for instance, is the centerpiece in many textbooks and biographies. Wilson did not like Paul and her efforts to "shame" him into supporting woman suffrage.
Carrie Chapman Catt, on the other hand, did the necessary cajoling and assuaging of Wilson's ego to get him to come around and support a constitutional amendment. Wilson's support, in turn, won over enough Southern Democrats to allow the passage of the XIXth amendment. In much the same way that Obama finally coming out for marriage equality moved African Americans to support it, Wilson's support signaled to an important constituency that this was now the orthodox position.
Wilson didn't "win" the fight over woman suffrage - generations of women did that. But Catt - unlike Paul - knew where the important levers to pull were and how to manipulate them
Protesting Joe Biden because you are upset with Dobbs is nuts.
The reason it's nuts is that there is only one way to get Roe written into law: adding 2-3 Democratic Senators and retaining control of the House. If you concentrate your fire at Democrats, you effectively signal that they are the problem, and not a theocratic, proto-fascist Republican Party. If your message is that Democrats are "just as bad" as Republicans, then what happens to voter turnout in November? Why not give in to despair and apathy?
The existing message right now is that Democrats will likely get creamed in November because of inflation. Dobbs has the potential to rewrite that dynamic, but not if you focus all your ire on Biden.
Yglesias is typically like a dog with a bone once he gets an idea stuck in his head, but one idea that he's been advancing that I'm increasingly seeing merit in, is the idea that "activists" - especially online activists - are fundamentally divorced from the reality of how politics works in America. Americans are NOT especially left wing - just the opposite. Individual progressive policy ideas might be popular if presented in certain ways, but there are a lot of "temperamentally conservative" people out there.
Dobbs is not conservative, but deeply reactionary. Trump's White Nationalism is not conservative, but deeply reactionary. Democrats can plausibly and easily move to the center, win elections and then accomplish reasonable left of center policy goals packaged in moderate messaging.
For activists - increasingly young, liberal arts graduates - a policy victory is insufficient (in part because they'll lose fundraising abilities) if it doesn't come with the right messaging. It's not enough to win, you have to WIN.
Protesting Biden because you are upset with the ruling of the Assembly of Religious Experts is to fundamentally miss the point of this moment in history. America faces a very real threat to democratic governance. Democrats need to win - and win big - until the Republican Party turns its back on authoritarian, blood-and-soil nationalism. Every attack at your allies is a way to undermine efforts to preserve this moment.
What's more, let's say we wind up with a 4 seat majority in the House and a 3 seat majority in the Senate. Roe is "codified" into law.
The Assembly of Religious Experts (formerly known as the Supreme Court) rules it unconstitutional.
What then? You pretty much have to pack the Court, and I think you'd probably need more than 4 and 3 seat margins to do that.
In other words, without substantial Democratic majorities, even codifying Roe won't work. But by all means, continue to yell at Joe Biden.
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