Why Are Republicans Doing This? Because They Can
It Will Get Worse Until The GOP Faces A Massive Defeat At The Polls
A year ago, every American woman had the right to an abortion. Today, about one in three Americans lives in a state where abortion is banned or effectively banned. That threshold was crossed last week when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, ahead of an expected bid for the presidency in 2024, signed a law banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. As women usually find out about a pregnancy around the sixth week, the restriction is essentially a ban.
The move is the latest right wing law to pass in the country’s third-most populated state to appease the far right, along with bans on books, symbols of LGBTQ pride in schools and restriction on drag shows.
The last few years have been an endless caravan of far-right culture war policies implemented by Republicans on the state and local level that have shocked, frightened and confused liberals, moderates, and the media. While Florida has been Ground Zero of these culture wars, states across the country have been passing laws targeting marginalized communities and social justice causes. Currently more than 105 million Americans live in a state where abortion is effectively banned, including three of the ten largest states: Texas, Georgia and Florida. Laws have been passed targeting LGBTQ people, immigrants and other marginalized groups. DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have been busing migrants from their states to blue states like New York and Massachusetts;.
The policies get worse. Missouri effectively banned gender affirming care not only for trans children, but trans adults as well; Tennessee has essentially banned abortion and drag shows, while at the same time expelling two black lawmakers for joining a protest pushing for gun control after last month’s mass shooting at a Nashville school. These moves have left pundits and liberals dumbfounded. Why are conservatives and the Republican Party pushing and endorsing such unpopular and radical actions and policies, especially after underperforming in last year’s midterm elections where they were expected to win big?
Simple. They don’t care. They don’t have to care. They believe voters will not punish them for it.
Back in 2012 after Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama, Republicans did some soul-searching. Facing what they believed to be certain defeat by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, Republicans tried to portray themselves as more moderate.
Then came Donald Trump.
The former Apprentice host smashed any attempt the Republican Party made to rebrand itself. Trump was, and still is, all the worst attributes of us; cruel, angry, racist, bigoted, xenophobic and misogynist. It was expected that he would go down in flames, and take the Republican Party with him. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), later one of Trump’s strongest allies, said of Republicans in 2016: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed….and we will deserve it”
He was wrong.
Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016 upended American politics. After all he said and did, the fact that the GOP didn’t get destroyed downballot led Republicans to reconsider their earlier autopsy. Perhaps they were wrong, the problem wasn’t that the GOP was too conservative, perhaps the issue was the party wasn’t right-wing enough.
Since 2016, Republicans haven’t had many electoral wins nationally, but despite that, the party has held its own – with a generous assistance from gerrymandering and an archaic political system that dates to a time when France was still a monarchy. Despite losing the House in a “blue wave” in 2018, they actually gained seats in the U.S. Senate, and that after going to the mat for a Supreme Court nominee accused of rape at the height of the #MeToo movement. Even though Trump was defeated in 2020, he still won 74 million votes, more than any presidential candidate except Joe Biden, and came within 50,000 votes of a 269-269 Electoral College tie that would have handed him the presidency.* Downballot, Republicans nearly retook the House of Representatives in 2020 and kept their significant advantage in state houses across the country. Last summer, DeSantis sent a group of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, caricatured by the right as a vacation spot for smug liberals, where local authorities were forced to improvise to take care of them. Some of the migrants were not even told where they were going or were lied to. It shocked and appalled both progressives and moderates and was called a childish bad faith political stunt. DeSantis won reelection by 20 points anyway.
The GOP has now faced three national elections since Trump won. Republicans have not paid a political price for their radicalization in states like Florida, Texas, Tennessee and Missouri, and there is no indication that they ever will. Even Georgia, which Biden carried and where Democrats won both U.S. Senate sats, the GOP has held on to the governorship and both houses of the legislature. In Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Democratic governors are rendered effectively powerless by Republican supermajorities.
Even after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 that overturned the right to an abortion, Republican still held on in the most states and won back, albeit narrowly, the House of Representatives. The decision did give Democrats control of the state government of Michigan, the state that handed Trump the presidency in 2016, for the first time since 1982; and rolled back progress the GOP was making in states like Maine, Nevada and Minnesota. That was a trade they were happy to make. Dobbs, arguably the most damaging thing to happen to the Republican Party since the Iraq War, did not lead to a devastating defeat.
Republicans act like cult leaders, believing their supporters can be persuaded to take whatever position they take, no matter how radical or wild. This gives them leverage even when the popular will is against them.
Republicans believe half the country would follow them anywhere, so even when the popular opinion is against them, they can polarize an issue and get their supporters to vote for them anyway. They believe, for example, that support for social justice causes like abortion, LGBTQ rights and immigration exists because people feel pressured into it and if they speak publicly against it, it will free those people and give them the space to express their long-held true feelings. They believe animosity toward immigrants and minorities is widespread and, just as they had in the post-Civil Rights era, they can ride that wave into power, and recent election results haven’t dissuaded them from that. Republicans act like cult leaders, believing their supporters can be persuaded to take whatever position they take, no matter how radical or wild. This gives them leverage even when the popular will is against them.
Tennessee Republican legislators do not believe they will pay a price for banning abortions or drag shows or expelling black lawmakers simply for standing up to them; Florida Republicans do not believe they will pay any political price for fighting Disney on LGBTQ rights, banning books, and abortion. Few Republicans believe they will face defeat by pushing radical policies, because the polarization, and a help from gerrymandering, ensures they will win no matter what.
It’s possible that they are wrong and there will be a mighty backlash that will usher in 2008-style majorities for Democrats. It’s possible that states like Wisconsin, where liberals just won a majority on the State Supreme Court in a decisive 11-point victory, will begin to put the fear of God in Republicans. It’s possible longtime Republican states like Kansas, where a referendum to ban abortion was defeated last summer, and Texas, where Democrats have been increasingly growing in support, will follow Georgia, Arizona and Virginia and flip blue. Republicans will believe it when they see it. Until such a time though that Republicans face the type of defeat they suffered in the New Deal Era, or Democrats suffered in 1972 and 1984, they will act invincible, continuing to push the Overton Window as far to the right as possible.
*Even though Democrats had a House majority after the 2020 election, Article 1: Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that in the event of an Electoral College tie, each state delegation in the House has one vote to elect a President. The Republicans controlled 27 state delegations to 20 for the Democrats with three Biden states (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota) tied.
Why Are Republicans Doing This? Because They Can
91 years ago politicians thought Hitler was a joke. The Republican Party is not conservative. The Republican Party is not the Republican Party of my hometown mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, when I was a little boy. As modern biology advanced, I thought the Republican Party's strategy was to try to clone Mussolini and run him for President. The result was Donald Trump. Wait until they clone Hitler. They're almost there. I plan to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 party primary. Lesser evil candidate, and all that jazz.