Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Dobbs Keeps On Resonating

 Last night, the reliably red state of Ohio voted to stop Republican plans to make it harder to amend the state constitution. This effort was made because there is a ballot initiative to amend the constitution this November to write abortion rights into the Ohio constitution, so Republicans wanted to make it harder to achieve this. While the narrow issue was the ability to amend the state constitution, everyone knew that abortion rights were on the ballot, and abortion rights got 57% of the vote. In Ohio.

The question that we will not have an answer to for 15 months is whether widespread outrage over Dobbs will lead to Democratic victories for Joe Biden, Jon Tester and the like. If New York Democrats weren't such feckless knobs, the Dems would've carried both houses of Congress in the midterms during a time of economic unease. If the economy continues to hum along, it could be that the backlash to Dobbs creates a wave that carries Democrats. If Trump is on the ballot - which looks almost inevitable at this point - then Dobbs will intersect with 1/6 to create the sense that it is Republicans who are out-of-step extremists. 

The main strategy for Dems should be to make the case for overturning Dobbs, saving democracy and not launching a bunch of unforced errors like Defund the Police. If they do that, I think - for once - that the under 30 demographic could tilt the field overwhelmingly towards Democrats.

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