Now that that the dust has somewhat settled after the leak of a draft by the US Supreme Court with its intention to rescind the 1973 ruling establishing precedent for abortions in the country, and the backlash from pro choice supporters, and praise from antiabortionists, the verified document will send abortion rights back to the states, and will undoubtedly create a patchwork of laws affecting over 60 million American women.
The 6 to 3 conservative majority has also become a political beast of its own with the legacy of three Trump appointed justices, and a conservative chief justice, and along with their majority they are also Roman Catholic, whose church is famously opposed to abortion.
The country has been rolling over what a post-Roe America will look like, but it also provides a window of hope for the Biden administration in the upcoming midterms, as his unexpected presidential agenda, includes a land war in Ukraine, without boots on the ground, but with considerable US financial aid; and, a continuing pandemic, which despite appearances, is still present, and battered by foreign policy flubs such as the bypass with France, to favor a deal with Australia over submarine contracts, and now another racially motivated mass shooting, that has the president pockmarked with bad poll numbers: 54.5 disapproving and 41.0 according to fivethirtyeight.com.
While perhaps not a stage for a counter revolution, seeing the country’s women face down a barrage of statewide trigger laws outlawing abortion, that alone, might galvanize abortion rights supporters, including independents to the November polls, or at least enough voter escalation to sustain the current slim majority by the Democrats in the Senate.
For those of a certain generation, the appeal to states rights is a familiar refrain of “rights history'', and was infamously used, more than fifty years ago, to fight civil rights laws for Black Americans, against the stronger teeth of federal legislation.
Extended to its most grievous aspects, the fear, of such legislation, is that it will be used to prevent women from accessing birth control information on their personal electronic devices, such as personal computers, or smartphones, but, also to the imprisonment of doctors, and even family members, who might assist in any manner to aid a woman in obtaining an abortion, even, as we’ve recently learned, crossing state lines to obtain one.
This has its roots in the the Texas law that saw an abridgement of these freedoms which prompted Vice President Kamala Harris to state:
“All Americans should realize that this is a direct assault on the freedom of women, and it is an attack that can affect all Americans.”
Those fears also face the possible roll back of same sex marriage, and other key social legislation that has been passed, and as Harris continued, “When you look at the privacy rights that are in jeopardy, it could very well include the right to marry someone of the same sex.”
These fears can be seen, say some pollsters and academics, as a path to harness the needed votes for the Democrats to hold onto not only current majorities, but also to redefine the Biden administration.
The president has also called out the radicalism of the MAGA crowd, and while not mentioning the name of former President Trump, whose support for primary candidates may have splintered in some areas, (but certainly not all), still resonates with a radicalized and conservative crowd, even in a reliably blue city like Chicago, there are many residents that revere his name, and want him back in the Oval Office.
“Let me tell you about this ultra MAGA agenda,” Biden said, using former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan — “Make America Great Again” — as a pejorative. “It’s extreme, as most MAGA things are.”
Then, in the subsequent days, Biden and his team continued to hammer Republicans in aggressive terms, attacking them as “MAGA” and “ultra MAGA.” Biden even dismissed his predecessor at one point as “the great MAGA king,” reported The Washington Post.
A rallying call of sorts, was a coda issued by the vice-president who added, “I also believe strongly there is another fundamental right that is at stake, the right that all should be entitled to self determination.”
The problem is that in midterms of the past the Dems have taken a shellacking, Clinton in 1994 with 54 seats lost in the House of Representatives and Obama in 2010 and 2014, of 77; with a regain of 12, and with stakes at their highest for a denouement with Biden.
Presidential historians show that midterm losses, the report card if you will, by the electorate, is now considered a given, as well as a travesty, by the standards of 2010.
To try and change that pattern Harris has used the New Frontier rhetoric of the Kennedy administration, when she said, “There is, at this moment, a time for education, a time for communication, a time for mobilization.”
What will be necessary for this to come together is a calculated campaign with all hands on deck, to show that the calculated politicization of the court: the assault on women's rights is something that is of utmost importance.
Doug Sosnik, a senior political advisor to Bill Clinton, told the Los Angeles Times, earlier in May, that after the ruling, in June could show “the impacts of the court’s actions will affect the lives of more voters, providing Biden with a further opening to sharpen his political narrative.”
Also, from veteran pollster Celinda Lake in that same forum , “This could be game changing in the midterm elections, and changing what happens in the midterms could have a profound effect on how people view the Biden presidency.”