"marinating in its own self-righteousness" is a killer phrase, no matter what your politics.
30
Time to form a coalition of the winning and willing. Preach pragmatism over purity. Run local candidates that can turn out the vote. Keep economics at a kitchen table level i.e. folks need jobs, jobs, and more jobs!. Communicate a vision that is center left that even working class republicans can rally too. The Left can't be simply anti-Trump but we have to communicate what we are for. Energize the base with a candidate that is under the age of 70 let alone 50. Build a true grass roots operation that will turn statehouse and state legislatures blue. Yes, that means going into deep red states i.e. the lion's den to contest senate and congressional seats. Enact this blueprint come 2018 during the midterms to build momentum when comes to the national elections of 2020. Turn America Blue!
21
Kelly has a similar mindset as Colin Powell had when knowing that the Iraq Invasion was not a good idea, as a military man, he went along with Bush. The principal of “SALUTE THE FLAG PREVAILED “
But while Powell remained silent, Kelly, remarks were horrible
Finally until the Democratic Party finds an outstanding Chairman of the DNC, things will not change. Perez is a lightweight, and they should pay a minimum of $2,500,000
Per year with a strong HR staff, to find electable candidates that are patriotic first and partisan second.
Over 30% of American voters are registered Independents
And an example of the democrats problem, is spending $30,000,000 to try to get Ossoff elected in Georgia, in a race that was not for the full term.
And Diane Feinstein running for re-election at age 84 is wrong.
Until the Democrats get their act together, it is hard to be optimistic
11
Democrats could turn their fortunes simply by taking a stance against illegal immigration. But they won't because they have tirelessly acted as if any discussion on that topic is actually about racism, and thus they shut down open discourse.
Frankly, I'm not happy knowing we are sacrificing everything I care deeply about - the environment, women's rights, education, fair equitable taxation and opportunity - on the altar of the "rights" of illegal immigrants. That is the unstated deal made by Democrats, so frightened are they of being accused of racism.
If we (Democrats) don't come to terms with this single issue, we will continue to lose. If you doubt it, just read comments after any article in the NYTimes about illegal immigration - articles which are invariably skewed toward open borders. The liberal readers beg to differ, when given the opportunity to contribute.
Wake up, Dems! I can't imagine getting through 8 years of a Trumpian administration. But that will happen unless Dems show some courage to deal with illegal immigration.
27
Tell you what, Douthat, I will entertain your concept of abortion after you entertain mine concerning guns. Oh, by the way, your guns kill far more actually alive, walking and talking human beings than abortion terminates fetuses.
While late-term abortions are heart-rending because they usually involve either the viability of the fetus or the life of the mother, gun deaths have no mitigating circumstances. There is nothing for which a gunshot is the best answer.
29
As as long as we’re clear that Ross believes a fetus’s right to birth always outweighs a woman’s right to life, wer’re all good here. Good to get clarity on women’s stature in the works from our Oracle of virtue, Ross.
14
Just stop. Knock it off.
Weaseling out on liberal freedoms in a vain attempt to seduce those who will never vote or agree with those freedoms is a mug's game. It is the favorite chant of the disillusioned and panicked "moderate" right. You had a chance to preserve liberal democracy by not demonizing and undermining a President who, despite his innate intellect and decency, offended your optics of the office.
And this is the whirlwind you reap after sowing that wind.
The world will be fortunate to look upon an unbigoted and progressive era again in this decade or the next. Britain, The Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary... on and on the liberal dominoes are falling.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
17
Mr. Douthat: there is such a thing as objective truth. The Democrats may need rural, Southern and Midwestern votes, but it is far more honorable to try to get them by trying to tell the truth and educate them than by pandering to them. This is not condescending to them. Of course some are resistant to education, but the effort must be made.
18
Why is it that "cultural conservatives" are so fixated on what women do with their bodies ? Y'all are not cultural conservatives you are 21st century Puritans intent on subjecting those of us who want freedom to abide by your religious dogma. If men got pregnant abortions would be as available as a Big Mac.
15
If men could get pregnant, abortions would be as easily obtainable as guns.
28
Doug Jones is a run-of-the-mill generic Democrat and this special election may be much ado about nothing.
If Judge Moore wins he will be one of 100 U.S. Senators and a freshman one at that. His views and proposals are unlikely to be enacted into law.
If Doug Jones pulls off an upset, he will serve the brief unexpired term of Jeff Sessions and then be handily defeated by an Establishment Republican in the 2018 regular round U.S. Senate election.
The US bourgeoisie’s decades-long failure to ameliorate the fallout from the 2008 economic crisis has struck hard in the heartland. More and more sectors of the American populace are turning right and left for solutions to their discontents, forcibly altering the country’s political terrain.
The Democrats can already be seen shimmying to the front of the anti-Trump movement. Posing as “resistance leaders,” their progressive avatars – Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, and Maxine Waters, and incredibly even HRC – have appeared at protests and even called for mobilizations against GOP policies. Once again, the Dems are taking up the “people’s party” mantle to close the gap between the party and base – to recover their legislative majorities and shake off the Obama Presidency’s domestic failures.
Mr.Douthat, Republicans must not worry.
"The Democrats in Their Labyrinth" haven't learned diddly-squat from Queen Hillary's epic election defeat to a genitalia-grabbing, moronic reality TV host.
American liberalism is morally bankrupt.
12
Most of the time, almost always. America will vote for what they genuinely perceive as the lesser of two evils.
Apparently voting in spite of yourself and your better judgement is now fashionable.
1
Another Catholic Republican who opposes abortion who says nothing about the men who abandon the fetuses they've engendered and the women they've impregnated.
Given the ease with which DNA testing is done these days, the men could be identified and forced to support their offspring.
And given the efficacy of birth control these days, there should be no unwanted pregnancies at all. Agree, Ross?
19
"America has two political parties..." For the first time in my life, in the last presidential election I didn't vote for either a D or R. Previously I had voted for Bush and Obama, but no more. The duopoly is the problem, because a large plurality of Americans want something different, probably a majority if given the real option. If both the Ds and Rs were smart, they would make room for, and even woo, people like me. I'm pro-life (and a non-secular, a Christian) that is left of Hillary and the establishment DNC on most issues. I want Berniecare (improved Medicare for all), as do Trump voters in West Virginia (see Bernie's town hall in WV). We need it now. I also favor a universal basic income, free higher education for all, etc. I have found a home in the American Solidarity Party. I'm OK with being a "spoiler" voting third party; but if the two major parties don't want to die a quick death by internal fissure, they need to start by lowering barriers to entry, and aggressively advocating electoral reforms, like all the reforms pushed by FairVote.org. Ranked choice voting nationwide in presidential elections would be a helpful start.
4
Here's the light:
FDR Letter to the Democratic Convention 1940
In the century in which we live, the Democratic Party has received the support of the electorate only when the party, with absolute clarity, has been the champion of progressive and liberal policies and principles of government.
The party has failed consistently when through political trading and chicanery it has fallen into the control of those interests, personal and financial, which think in terms of dollars instead of in terms of human values.
The Republican Party has made its nominations this year at the dictation of those who, we all know, always place money ahead of human progress.
(...)
Until the Democratic Party through this convention makes overwhelmingly clear its stand in favor of social progress and liberalism, and shakes off all the shackles of control fastened upon it by the forces of conservatism, reaction, and appeasement, it will not continue its march of victory.
(...)
It is best not to straddle ideals.
In these days of danger when democracy must be more than vigilant, there can be no connivance with the kind of politics which has internally weakened nations abroad before the enemy has struck from without.
It is best for America to have the fight out here and now.
I wish to give the Democratic Party the opportunity to make its historic decision clearly and without equivocation. The party must go wholly one way or wholly the other. It cannot face in both directions at the same time.
...
18
Please send this to the Third Way Democrats who are losing their own base.
2
"try to imagine what it’s like to believe that at least some abortions are tantamount to baby-killing."
When a woman's life is endangered by carrying child to full term, try to imagine what it's like for here to be told that she has no other option but to do so, because of what your religion tells you.
22
As a supporter of Hillary, I heard her begin every campaign speech by calling out the race or sexual preferences of her supporters in attendance. She celebrated identity politics while forgetting that the largest identity group of voters were white people. She assumed women would identify with her and vote accordingly but it turned out many identified with their families and their under employed husbands on drugs and disability, so they desperately voted for change and a misogynist candidate instead. Let's give identity politics a rest and campaign on improving the economy instead, stupid!
23
Interesting, this spate of columns with Republicans giving advice to Democrats on how to win again by becoming Republicans themselves. No thanks.
17
Yes, in fact, unlimited abortion and unlimited immigration are doing Democrats in. These are not traditional "liberal" positions, not at all--not for FDR, not for JFK, to cite two important examples. And I can only say, if the Democrats hold obstinately to these positions, they will get what they deserve. Maybe they should focus on economic justice instead? Just wondering.
15
The Democrats could run someone who combined the best qualities of every founding father, Albert Einstein, Florence Nightingale, Edmund Hillary, and Steve Jobs and, this being Alabama, he'd still lose.
10
Douthat, it's kind of your duty as an American to make good suggestions to Democrats regarding policy so they can win. This horror show of a President and his administration has to end soon.
3
It's not just Democrats -- but Democrats also fall into the category -- who vote with their emotions, and for whom purity of purpose counts for everything. Thus, one must be in favor of complete freedom of abortion, no limits, else one be in the same category as those who want to ban all abortions without exception. This the world of black and white (and no, I'm not talking about so-called "race"), in which compromise is in itself a sin without forgiveness.
Democratic politics (lower-case D) requires compromise, meeting somewhere in the middle, hopefully somewhat on one's own side of the line, but not necessarily on every single issue. That willingness has largely disappeared from public debate--on both sides.
Who knows the eventual outcome? We may have a hint in historic regimes that took hold in the 1930s in Russia and Germany both.
5
I have been a lifelong Democrat and my son was born prematurely at 21 weeks. He was 4lbs 7oz when he was born. Today he is in college on a full academic scholarship, he’s 5’11”, handsome and he has a wicked, wonderful sense of humor. I’m sure there are many valid reasons why some women or couples choose to abort a fetus, but after seeing what I’ve seen I hope people would consider a cut-off point.
9
When someone emerges "blue and flailing from the womb," that is called a "birth." Are you proposing we ban C-sections and induced labor, Ross?
And, by the way, please stop referring to "the womb" as if it were a disembodied incubator box? A pregnant uterus is a reproductive organ inside the belly of a sentient person with her own rights, needs, will and conscience. When and whether she has children will be the single biggest factor in determining the course of her entire life -- health, education, career, finances, and family. Why should she give up her self-determination to strangers who neither know nor care about her?
25
Less than halfway through this article, I predicted that half of the commenters would latch onto one or more of Douthat's specific examples while completely missing the point of the article--and hilariously demonstrate the exact lack of imagination and flexibility he describes. I was right!
20
A Democrat compromising is the sound of one hand clapping.
You need two to tango.
2
Wow. I actually agree with Douthat in this column.
3
No. The comments indicate another Dem washout. House and Senate stronger GOP, Bannon ascendant. They just never listen to themselves, let alone a voter.
7
Blah blah blah...
"As much as the country needs a conservatism with some idea of what it’s doing, some theory of the common good..."
History proved long ago there is no such thing. "Conservatism" is not and has never been about conserving anything--not money, people, America, or even the planet itself. The fact you feel so compelled to move immediately to the ultra-extremist misnomer of "infanticide" proudly displays your intellectual and emotional shallowness. You don't even bother with the dog whistle.
Still, because you are a male--not a man, btw--you have no standing on the subject. Until Congress and religious meddlers take action to tell YOU what you can and can't do with your own body--how about outlawing masturbation, for instance--you will remain blissfully, deliberately ignorant of how the issue affects half the world.
12
There certainly is no absolute right for women to have abortions, and any such assertion is idiotic. Aborting girls in India and China is ok? How aborting non-blue-eyed babies? Babies with a lower-than-average IQ?
3
This is a timely article as I am currently participating in pro-life work outside the Planned Parenthood facility in Manhattan. The group consists of like minded folks who are opposed to abortion and see it as the taking of an innocent fetus/infant within the womb. We are dedicated and our efforts have resulted in the saving of thousands of babies from the destruction of abortion.
I arrived in front of the Planned Parenthood clinic later than expected (5:30 PM) and almost did not show up. I forced myself to go as I am committed to this very important cause of pro life. I was alone for about one-half hour and at moments felt a little awkward but one by one people started arriving and there is always strength in numbers. I want to mention that I would have stayed even if no one else had come. We quietly pray due to a strong commitment to saving innocent young lives within the womb. The people I have encountered are some of the nicest you will ever encounter.
There were not any threats to us or serious confrontations except from one young woman who was so angry that she spit on the ground out of contempt for our being there. I was glad that I was not alone but this incident would not have resulted from my leaving. I am passionate about this cause as are many others and our volunteer work does not stop after the birth of the baby.
There are many fine people who are ready and willing to assist mothers and babies after giving birth. They just need to ask.
4
Please remove Uncle Sam's head from my vagina. What ever happened to 'small government' ? Here is one place (Doctor's office) that needs no government at all. This untruth about 'blue and flailing' is cruel and even Ross D knows its false.
14
As to the "right to life," principles are one thing, realities are another, and personal feelings and situations still another. How to make political decisions that encompass all these levels - is it even possible? At the planetary level, mankind is 40 desperate people in a life-raft built to hold only 20. At the principles level, life is sacred and and to be preserved. But on the reality level what justification is there in denying abortion rights, yet allowing the offspring to struggle in a hostile, dog eat dog society (on an already overpopulated planet), that is ready to send them to die for national (read corporate) interests in foreign wars or shoot them in the streets if they ask for better treatment? Women should be the ones to make the decision about having a baby that they either can, or cannot take care of for some reason. If as a society we can't take care of offspring with love, safe foods, a clean environment, health care and education, what exactly is the purpose in forcing women to bear unwanted children? Men's interest is in control of female bodies and maintaining armies. If one could be stopped, perhaps the other. Some wishful thinking!
8
Doug Jones' positon is the current legal standard. Late-term abortions should be allowed to protect the life of the mother. Who would Douthat choose, person with Doug Jones' view or a person that would force a women to give birth to a child that resulted from rape or incest?. Also, it is called Family Planning for a reason. Individuals should determine when they want to have children. Yet the same religious fanatics who will not protect the life of the mother and who would force a raped women to give birth are the same people that want to prevent poor people from gaining access to contraceptives, since they believe a fetus is a person at conception. But once many poor children are born, these same religious fanatics will restrict their right to vote and their access to health care. If we are not careful, we will end up with a country under minority christian conservative white rule.
5
Mr. Douthat, based on your definition and reference point as a self described "cultural conservative" and assuming that limiting abortions is your idea of a breakeven point; then what should we do about climate change, environmental degradation, guns, undocumented workers, a repeat of supply side on steroids and a host of other issues that are no less polarizing, to say nothing about the power of money influencing our political machine, whether it be the Russians, the Kochs and/or Soros and their ilk?
Everyone is in some kind of a purist ideological labyrinth Mr. Douthat, or so we tell ourselves, but, if your real intent is to have a more robust and honest discussion of our issues, then issue number one is ridding our entire political system of all corrosive influences (including the power of money and how it can influence the electorate), in addition to both protecting and expanding our election process.
Nothing is more important and this is the real lesson that should have been learned from our last election Mr. Douthat and it is also the one that we have yet to learn and/or we are not even prepared to discuss.
1
If standing firm against religious fundamentalism means losing votes in the confederate states, then your terms are acceptable Mr. Douthat.
5
Mr. Douthat, what you don't recognize is that many in the Democratic party are too principled to compromise their beliefs for the sake of winning elections. And what are their principles? They are actually ok with infanticide. And they are actually ok with unrestricted, illegal immigration (basically open borders). So give credit where credit is due: for being open about their principles and sticking to them. And give credit to American voters for rejecting them. The system works!
5
Douthat is so uncompromisingly focused on restricting/banning abortion that he cites and provides links to two far right media sources (Hot Air and Red State) that lie about what Jones actually said and conclude that he favors unrestricted late term abortions. Nowhere in the MSNBC Chuck Todd interview they provide nor in the quotes they take from it does Jones say any such thing. What he does say is what the law says: women have the absolute
and fundamental constitutional right to choose what happens to their own bodies. Roe v Wade forbade governmental restrictions on abortions until viability, which at the time was defined as the start of the 3rd trimester: 26 weeks. The decision left the door open to an earlier cutoff if and when medical advances supported such a reduction. While there have been cases of survival as early as 22 weeks, 80% of such infants die, a figure which improves to 63, 40, 23 and 15 for weeks 23 thru 26. Despite these hopeful trends, the majority of 22-24 week infants have moderate to severe cognitive disabilities and motor function impairments due to cerebral palsy. These facts do not constitute an argument for abortion (or infanticide), but should be sobering to those who believe the fantasy that life is hunky dory once you are born. Finally, the "pain capable" justification for a 20 week limit is another lie foisted on the public discourse. The brain development required to feel pain does not even start until week 26.
7
Mr. Douthat. I hope you read the entire opinion section. I just finished Sarah Leonard's piece. I'm not a millennial, but I have been radicalized. I agree with my children. I want to 'capture' peers to come along with me. Our current political toxicity makes it impossible to try to negotiate with those who are so challenged by change that we lose everything that's important. (Do you remember the theory of existential projection? To move society, even slowly, we need to constructively propose much greater change.) Please note, as a few of us (multi-generational) discussed at dinner last night, it's fine if our paradigm change includes losing our position as a super-power. We don't deserve it. And of course, if you had the empathy to put yourself in a woman's shoes, you would understand that no one 'wants' an abortion (duh) especially after 20 weeks. You sound like you might be religious. I hope that means that you are of spirit and not dogma.
5
The truth is that women will have abortions, legal or illegal, and have done one way or another throughout history, whether through herbal "remedies", hangers or in clean operating rooms. To ignore that is to ignore human history and that women, the nurturers of life, will do what they need to to preserve their own lives and the lives of the children they already have.
If Mr. Douthat and others like him prefer to be jerked around by cultural warriors forever using abortion as a cudgel is their choice. I prefer to talk about what Democrats can do to make it legal and rare or rarer, and something not done because a woman knows no one will help her care for a child after it's born.
In the absence of clear, common-sense solutions to our problems (and I agree with Ross on the lack of immigration solutions), Democrats can expect to lose, especially when Americans are so easily distracted by these hot-button issues.
The Democrats did not take seriously the voters in the south and to some extent the voters in middle America which is the reason for their loss of the presidential and local races. President Trump visited the states that Hillary Clinton ignored because she thought she had those votes without her putting forth much effort in these parts of the country. Was she ever wrong.
Also the Democrats have been pushing a pro abortion agenda for many years now which many Americans oppose. Americans see the life issue as very important to them and will not vote for a candidate that favors abortion on demand. When will they learn that a major part of the country opposes abortion and considers it murder. Pro life groups have made significant gains convincing people that abortion is inhumane and immoral.
Many Americans are also opposed to open borders and want control of them but the Democrats are opposed. They do not care if people enter illegally no matter the costs to our safety and security. This is not fair to those who follow the proper channels and arrive here legally.
Until the Democrats are willing to listen and pay attention to average Americans, they will continue to lose voters. It appears they do not care if this happens as they continue to put forth a liberal agenda that favors both elitist coasts.
6
After the election, one of the Democratic leaders said that the party had to get voters to believe like their party does. Hillary campaigned on the theme, "Now it's my turn." In the meantime, Trump was running on the theme, "Now it's your turn." Instead of putting up fasade they don't believe in, they should just keep on stating what they stand for. It is like a New Yorker trying to sound southern. Its just not believable.
2
OK, agree...moving to the center on the issues you mention would be a sane move..but I fear we are not living in sane times.
1
I've been hearing the "debate" about abortion in this country now for over 40 years. Enough !! It is nothing more than a well crafted and deliberate diversionary tactic used by the Republican Party and their "conservative" operatives designed to divide all of "us" year after year after year. And if it's not abortion, it's gay rights and marriage...it goes on and on and on and on. And why have they been successful at dividing the electorate? Well take a good look at the economic conditions of the poor, working and middle classes in this so called "great" country. While they have us fighting one another on social issues year after year, the corporations and the oligarchs have been busy laughing all the way to the bank, siphoning off and transferring the wealth and well being of the average citizen to the top. It's not hard to figure out why our nation in 2017 has the highest income inequality in its history. Why is it that the economic wellbeing of corporations and the very wealthy have been nothing short of spectacular for the last 35 years? And it's not enough. McConnell and the GOP will now pass a budget that just may put the final nail in the coffin for us and our precious environment. But we can continue to discuss and debate at ad nauseum abortion....that's what they would like us to do....isn't that correct Mr. Douthat?
8
Jones' actual quote on the matter- '“I am a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body,” Jones said. “And I’m going to stand up for that and I’m going to make sure that that continues to happen.” Douhat is apparently a firm believer that a woman should not have the right to choose. The conservative 'death of a thousand cuts' to Roe V Wade is a barrier here, a barrier there until finally there is no freedom of choice. Douhat is in that camp.
5
Finally refreshing honesty from a Republican. Thanks Douthat. The one silver lining of Trump is I can more clearly - as a lifelong liberal - see the ossified posistions of both "wings" and their danger to their respective parties. Both Democrats and Republicans need to nominate and support candidates who promise to get things done via compromise with the opposition, not slamming the "enemy" into submission.
2
On one hand, Republicans are the party of small government and individual choice.
On the other hand, they want to legislate people's choice on things like abortion and who people choose as a life partner.
But we really know the Republican Party is the party of hypocrisy, culture wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and social programs cuts for the rest.
It is not coincidence that our division is the greatest just when our income inequality is the greatest.
Culture wars and trickle-down Reaganomics - the Republican Party.
2
I'm about as far left as one can get. But I often read your column and a few times, come away agreeing with you. This is one of those times. I think an abortion ban after 20 weeks is quite reasonable. Advances in technology that have proven how much the fetus improves as a human being should be accepted as evidence that it would indeed be infanticide if it is aborted at a later time. I am in favor of a woman's right to choose but a woman is also in the unique position of giving life to another human being. Therefore the issue of abortion is not just about one life, it's about two. The right to choose is a limited one in my view. When will Democrats learn the truth about Kansas? Yes people want jobs desperately but they are often more motivated by cultural issues and that is what drives the populist movement in Europe and in this country more than anything.
5
Mr Douthat frames the political debate over the morality of legal abortion as a choice between the mother’s right to commit infanticide and society’s right to preserve the life of the innocent child regardless of the consequences for the woman, the child, and society.
Kant defined moral absolutism with his famous moral imperative: always behave in a manner that you could will your action be a universal law for all humankind. Stated plainly, his principle claims that the mother’s moral choice must never depend on her contingent circumstance. Abortion is a moral evil unjustified by any paricular situation.
If you believe believe that ,in general , a good moral maxim—infanticide is bad—can produce evil consequences when universally applied, then you have the grave responsibility of creating law that makes frivolous abortions illegal while preserving a particular woman’s freedom to autonomously decide for herself if abortion is her best moral option among conflicting moral principles.
Mr Douthat admits to being a moral conservative. I hope he can forgive those American’s whose moral imperative favor deep personal reflection and personal responsibility for difficult moral choices when moral maxims are in conflict rather than depending on blind adherence to universal moral imperatives that allow for no exceptions.
1
Your points are not unreasonable, but they day you recognize that it has been the left doing all of the compromising over the past decade. Obama spent 8 years attempting to get republicans to the table by negotiating against himself before bringing his proposals out. Is it really fair to say that the only thing stopping the dems from moving forward and building another winning coalition is not enough compromise? At some point you get a bit tired of being the only reasonable side of the table and only continue to harm your own goals by appeasing the other side.
1
Almost all Republican politicians have abandoned or substantially wavered from every single principle they have espoused, including abortion, immigration, family values, deficits, individual freedom, individual accountability, corporate subsidies, nation building, foreign interventions, tax cuts for the middle class, and so much more.
Republicans have demonstrated utter contempt for human life by supporting wars, use of weapons of mass destruction, opposing food supplements for hungry American children, opposing health care for children, opposing regulation guns and legalizing of them in schools and churches.
Republicans opposed all attempts to enforce labors laws and hold employers responsible for hiring undocumented laborers. Republicans opposed all proposals that included any solution including any degree of anything have the scent of another Reagan amnesty (which Republicans have conveniently forgotten even though that amnesty saved Social Security and Medicare).
So, since Republican politicians clearly are not really pro-life or anti-immigration, why does anyone continue to vote for them?
It is abundantly clear that most of the GOP's support for the last 47 years has been fueled by "Christian" whites' fears, prejudices and hatreds.
Douthat is naive, indeed, if he believes that Democrats can attract the votes of these fervent bigots without engaging in race-baiting, but, if Democrats stoop to that immorality, they will be Republicans.
3
Great column Ross!!!
3
The problem with your "commentary" today Mr. Douthat, is that you write what you heard in your head, or what you imagined, but not at all what Mr. Jones said in his interview.
Fake news, sir.
11
Yup. Totally our fault. Gonna quit thinkin and stop doin research. Thanks for the advice. I'd give you some, but the times still has standards of decency.
8
To the New Democrats. middle America is just a basket of deplorables. They would rather lose to Trump again, than compromise on their infanticide, and ethno tribal dog whistles like "diversity", and "people of color". They use these ethn-tribal dog whistles in the same way the right uses the dog whistle "make America great again".
1
I hope your comment is sarcasm, otherwise it makes no sense.
@ No big deal
If you really believe abortion is the same as infanticide, which I do not, then there is no compromise possible. And if you believe civil rights and discrimination are merely "ethno-tribal dog whistles," then we have no common ground to start from.
And I am a Democrat who has no contempt for "flyover country" (your description, which I never use) except in your imagined projections onto me. Clearly, you never heard the full text of Clinton's words, in which she condemned bigotry as deplorable, but expressed empathy and a desire to help those who supported Trump simply out of desperation, fear and frustration. Is nuance beyond you?
2
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would always be legal."
--Jimmy Breslin
9
This Op-Ed, shines a light on why Trump is likely to be a two term President.The majority of comments in response, simply amplify this sad truth.While Democrats have virtually unlimited opportunities to swing voters away from a vile ,ignorant and dangerous man and a cynical morally bankrupt Party that continues to support him, they manage to shoot themselves in the foot (or worse),every time.Abortion beyond 20 weeks is illegal or by exception only in virtually all developed countries.Immigration is an issue in the West but US Democrats mange to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by conflating the value of Immigrants in general with the specific issue of illegal immigration in a way that enough makes Americans feel is fair.When Trump rolls back environmental regulation,Democrats focus on Climate Change rather than immediately tangible issues like the quality of our air and water or the self evident obsolescence of coal but not natural gas.And when more and more Americans fear for their safety, emphasis on gun control ,mass incarceration and police brutality than secure borders or neighborhood security.When De Vos seeks to modify manifestly unfair and impractical guidance on sexual assault,Democrats reflexly object instead of conceding that while well intentioned, the guidelines do merit re-examination.An educated affluent North East Liberal, I can afford to sit comfortably atop Maslow's Hierarchy.Sadly, there aren't enough of us to make a difference at the ballot box.
9
Trump seems unlikely to last out his full term, let alone get re-elected. He has destroyed the trust or reputation of virtually every political ally he might ever need. And that's not counting the deep look by law enforcement into his notoriously law-flouting career.
These allies show every sign of continuing to support him since they need him more than the reverse.
1
"This Op-Ed shines a light on why Trump is likely to be a two-term president." I hope you are correct and from your lips to God's ears.
2
I applaud Ross Douthat for suggesting that “imaginative leaps” would be one important step to begin to bridge the political divide that is strangling our country. I say that as a liberal social democrat, albeit one who is appalled to see Mr. Douthat’s critics (see the top of the Readers’ Picks) utterly discount any attempt he makes to find middle ground. As much of a threat as the Trump administration poses for us, I have this awful growing feeling that a large swath of liberal democrats and the unquestioned orthodoxies they cling to (around, for example, abortion) represent just as much hindrance to a healthier body politic. Good for you, Mr. Douthat, for at least suggesting “imaginative leaps.” I think you are entirely correct.
4
@ Gerald
Civil liberties -- including bodily autonomy and the right to make our own medical decisions -- are not mere "orthodoxy." They are foundational, as the Supreme Court ruled in its nuanced decision on Roe v. Wade, and in other landmark decisions on fundamental rights.
It's easy to offer up a right that you personally will never need as a political bargaining chip. What rights of your own would you be wiling to give up as mere "orthodoxy"? Perhaps men could be forced to give over one of heir kidneys so that a total stranger can have life. You up for that?
2
Voters pulled the lever twice for Obama but then voted for Trump because of concerns about immigration, Ross writes. But if they did so, it's because they were duped by the Republican party into believing that Democrats were weak on the border issue. As the NYT reported last year, the Obama administration deported a "record number" of illegals, more than 2.4 million people. So those fears were irrational ones stoked by a Republican party determined to win even at the cost of truth. This speaks more to current problems with the GOP than with the Democrats, I think.
5
Dear Ross,
You completely misrepresented the Chuck Todd interview with your "blue and flailing from the womb" comment. But at least you had the decency to provide the link. In the interview candidate Jones said he did not support restricting a woman's right to choose even after 20 weeks. But that he would be there for the child once born. What is controversial about that?
Why do you think women wait until 20 weeks or later? You make it sound as if they and their supporters are intent on making the unborn suffer. Let's get real Ross. Most women who choose to get an abortion after 20 weeks are facing very difficult decisions often involving life threatening birth defects of the baby they hoped for. Why should you have the right to insert your cultural conservatism into their private, heart-wrenching medical decisions?
6
What makes a baby or an infant different from a blastocyst, an embryo or a fetus? It is an independent life. A fetus is not a baby until it can survive on its own, processing oxygen for itself. & no longer connected to its mother's blood vessels. Republicans insist on confusing the issue by equating them as we see Ross doing here.
The other mistake made on post-20 week abortions zealots make is ignoring
that the vast number of late term abortions are done for medical reasons, such as a fetal demise that threatens the mother's life or congenital abnormalities incompatible with life.
5
It would be refreshing if the self-righteous conservatives, with their far-right media empire, would stop whining about and blaming the democrats. The Republicans over the last three decades intentionally have weakened our institutions
and have fostered extreme, non-democratic (small d) positions. They have ruined Congress’ ability to compromise by holding it hostage to their demands (remember 2011?) and made their sole position for six years to stop Obama and now that Obama is gone, to undo anything he did. Their goal is small government; the best way to achieve that is to make govt dysfunctional - they win by breaking things, which they thought they could just rebuild in their image. But now the real extremists (the ones that drank the Republican snake oil) are taking over and pushing out the old line Republican architects of this farse,. Instead of taking responsibilty for where we are now and working with Democrats to fight these far right elitist demogogues, Conservatives like Ross, whine and blame those bad, bad Democrats for not being able to stop this Republican-sired threat to our democracy. Ross et al, enough. Either help stop this or move aside and let others who can help do.
4
The Democratic Party needs to move left on economics and to drop the litmus test on social issues.
3
If all abortions are banned after twenty weeks (an arbitrary point, NOt actual natural viability), women will die.
Do you favor killing women, Mr Douthat?
7
Fact: America is divided
Fact: Amazingly the division is about 50-50 or close enough.
Fact: Trump won with only 27% of registered American voters. Hillary won a few percent more. Over 40% failed to vote at all.
Fact: Roughly 12% of Bernie voters admit to voting for Trump -- purely out of spite and twice that number refused to vote at all. This 12% cost Hillary PA, WI and MI.
Fact: Democrats need only their own to turn out and they will practically every race.
Fact: The party with higher turnout wins.
4
Mr. Douthat, in your first sentence you state the Democrats have a "reasonably coherent political vision" then veer into the usual reactionary diatribe castigating imagined innocent baby killers. Enough already.
There was a time in this country when one could be scorned, literally driven from a community for want of church attendance or 'unconventional' beliefs.
There was a time one could own, use, rape, even kill another human being based on skin color.
Lives have been ruined, spent imprisoned or lost due to the choice of substance imbibed in ones' private life.
In every instance the hostile bigots "entranced with authoritarianism" you disdain have gained and exercised sheer power over the ability of individual life choices. Choices are hard, don't always work out for the best, but inevitably are ours alone. If the conservative opposition holds a coherent belief it is that these (mostly) white men possess the received wisdom and upon gaining power must impose their will on what inevitably become subjects.
Mr. Douthat, the Democrats vision is "mostly coherent" because they bicker and argue and bargain and commit politics among themselves. If you will opine, please do some field work in the thirteen counties across the middle of Alabama that went for Ms. Clinton, some by huge proportions. Is abortion less important there? Are there other issues our fellow Americans there value more? Could you attempt to engage and inform from somewhere other than behind your desk.
3
Let's talk abortion for a minute. Republicans learned decades ago that dead, dismembered, skull-crushed babies being sold for parts was great politics. It won votes from the religious zealots and the ignorant. It was a lie, but it was an effective lie. There are very, very few women monstrous enough or doctors depraved enough to perform "late-term" abortions for no medical reason. But, it's still good for Republican votes so it gets promoted being what Democrats want.
It wish that the Democratic position on abortion was this. We want to eliminate abortion - full stop. But, we want to eliminate abortion not by restricting women's rights. We want to eliminate the need the abortions by eliminating unwanted pregnancy and reducing the financial burden of pregnancy. How? Simple: 1. Early sex education so both boys and girls understand the consequences and protective measures available. 2. Contraction, freely and readily available. 3. Financial support; free prenatal care, delivery and postnatal care, family leave, job security, day care, education support through community college. 4. Reduce incidence of rape and incest by very aggressive law enforcement and penalties.
That's how you end abortion. You don't do it by closing clinics, shooting doctors making abortion illegal.
6
Mr. Douthat, have you talked to a woman or an OB/GYN doctor? Because your wording implies nothing but ignorance and scare tactic. Not to mention that a check of the tape would show the complete text of what Mr. Jones said or are you taking the General Kelly route and ignoring fact?
Why should Democrats move toward a compromise with a Republican position that is not based on science, denies women the right to determine what happens with her own body and is ultimately hypocritical. Republicans want their Viagra subsidized to the tune of hundreds of millions and want to deny sex education and birth control. How about Republicans move to the center and endorse birth control leading to reduced unwanted pregnancies so that abortion is as rare as possible? THAT would be an imaginative leap for you.
As for immigration, yes Democrats have shied away from ever detailing an explicit immigration policy and need to do so. Democrats are caught up in responding to Trump's hatred. Make no mistake, Trump's bald and bold racism and bigotry are the foundation of his political 'thinking' from the moment he glided down his gilded escalator to pronounce Mexicans as rapists. Defending the DACA recipients is a worthy cause met with Republican bigotry and fear mongering. Throwing out the DACA recipients will not bring back the Midwestern jobs that Trump claims. Democrats have always fought for human decency to varied results. We can do better for sure.
2
Ross: you have hit the nail right on the head. As a conservative, i am delighted with the Dems' refusal to compromise and their continuing belief in the myth of the curve of history.
3
I am certain that Democrats everywhere thank Ross Douthat for his advice about how to get Democratic candidates in the deep South elected to office, especially since he's probably not voted for a Democrat in his lifetime, unless it was to vote against Donald Trump, but I don't even know that.
And, don't we all recognize that abortion as a political issue is essentially a issue the GOP manufactured years ago to create a lasting wedge between Democrats who support privacy and Republicans who seem happy with authoritarianism, a wedge designed to keep its Southern and Midwestern supporters together as a voting block. If, by some miracle, abortion receded or disappeared as a political issue, the GOP would disappear as a contender in elections since its economic, gun control, and general welfare proposals are generally supported by the rich donors and lobbyists.
3
I'm more confident that Democrats will win because of the extremism in the GOP. And President Trump is just a gravy train through whom conservatives finalize self-centered goals.
But he's more like Nixon, whining to portraits. Angrily stalking the White House, mean and resentful. Up earlier tweeting to stir the pot:
The most unfulfilled man in the universe.
He's still the vulgar Manhattan guy focused on self interest, who could use some competent intellectuals in that administration-- but has yes men getting perks. Offering to pay their legal fees, in yet another conflict of interest.
He and his cabinet alone will swindle $3.556 billion dollars when eliminating the estate tax. It will be left to historians to explain how this presidency was all about enriching itself, while dividing the nation on any issue, simply for power. As the GOP filled their wallets.
3
A Tomi Lahren ticket already sounds intriguing. Democrats don't get that it's not the message that matters anymore: It's the messenger. An enigmatic and disruptive candidate is what people are looking for now - note Bernie Sanders' incongruous success if you don't believe that - and the same old same old doesn't cut it anymore. Hysterical liberals with their Mainstream Media friends have become the status quo, and people like myself are waiting silently for the next voting cycle to tell them how vehemently I reject their false narratives and propaganda in toto. The liberal folk should consider themselves lucky that all they got is Trump and probably Judge Moore; the arrogant, hateful and dismissive behavior of the left deserves much worse. MAGA 2020.
1
Some days I think Democrats have decided to sit back and let Republicans control everything, so we can watch the Republican nonsense implode. However, I do not want to relive the deregulation that caused the crisis of 2008 (i.e., eliminating down payments, particularly on speculative properties), the lack of job creation under Republicans (roughly 1/2 the rate of Democratic Presidents), the higher deficits, the tax cuts for the rich of prior Republican regimes that worsen inequality making us more polarized, and efforts to takeaway healthcare from 20 million people.
Democrats can win by focusing on a simplified economic platform:
1. Universal health insurance, either via expansion of the ACA or Medicare for All if that doesn't get us there and get costs down.
2. Free tuition or trade school for middle-class kids at in-state universities, with credits earned over time to support life-long learning.
3. For people over 50 with job losses due to technology and trade, early access to Social Security and Medicare.
4. Paid for by higher taxes on the rich, eliminating their loopholes ($250 billion/year for the top 1% alone, another $500 billion for the next 19%) and raising marginal rates for income over $1 million.
Keep hammering the fact that immigration is a net economic win and there is no evidence of job losses due to immigrants; that is just Republican scapegoating that should send up red flags for anyone who uses that to fool them.
3
I don’t understand the calls here for Democrats to compromise on abortion.
Abortion is a medical issue. How can a medical issue be a source of compromise? “Sorry you were raped and impregnated, teenage girl, but we’ve already reached this year’s quota for rape victims who can get abortions.”
Or would it be this: “How tragic you might lose your life giving birth, adult woman, but we told conservatives we’d compromise, so we have to permit a certain number of pregnancies to proceed even if it mother’s health in danger.”
Compromising on matters that affect human health is a stupid approach for the just plain stupid, which we seem to have plenty of these days.
6
Thank you for mentioning it's a medical issue. No doctor will perform an unnecessary abortion. It's part of their code of ethics. I can't imagine what would go on if a woman, through medical necessity as agreed upon between physician and patient, was suddenly subject to the "approval of the state." Is it going to go like this: "you need an abortion, but we have to get permission from the State Attorney General?"
What gets me is that these people already don't want government in their lives at all, but are happy to have government tell doctors what they can and cannot do. The hypocrisy is astounding.
6
I guess it's ok to move to the center as long as the rights you compromise aren't your rights. Is a woman, I've learned I need to fight any and all compromises of my rights made on my behalf.
4
Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. The sensational allusion to infanticide is an absurd tactic.
As a very progressive voter, I do indeed understand the religious or moral objections to abortion. That's why the bumper sticker "If you are anti-abortion, don't have one," is so popular.
And really Ross . . . making fun of "Imagine?" If only conservatives had a scintilla of the moral integrity of John Lennon.
6
Obtuse Rossness bleeds off the page.
For someone who claims the God's-eye view of events, you seem blind to the reality that is a critical factor in both Democrats ' still figuring a way forward and Republicans' bizarre confidence that, despite the geek show they built in Washington, their base will hold steady.
The reality being: while you seem to claim to speak for the people you write about, you miss this one by a mile "...the Republican Party has nominated a Senate candidate manifestly unfit for office, a bigot hostile to the rule of law and entranced with authoritarianism."
Because where you see a problem, Republicans and their base see a long cherished goal achieved. This is the Rights' strongest selling point, and its not going away any time soon.
Its also the reason we can't take you all that seriously. Because you don't seem to see straight when you're looking off to the Right.
2
It would seem that Mr. Douthat is not enjoying his commute in the Trumpster Republican clown car and all it's baggage.
Ross wants to trade it in for his version of a hybrid, to wit: a '55 Democratic T-Bird that looks, drives and feels like a '55 Nash Rambler.
Sorry Ross, the Evangelicals wouldn't approve of a car whose front seats fold back into a bed. Things can happen!
2
Mr. Douthat, I followed the link you gave to the right-wing talk show site. It reposted the original interview, which given your constant inveighing about intellectual standards, you should have known to use.
You should have known to use it because the candidate didn't say that he "favored abortion," at any stage, let alone the one you came up with, let alone the shrieking headline that the right-wing talk show site gave it.
He said that he OPPOSED restrictions of the right to choose.
Now I understand that you're aiming at what people hear, not what was said. And one may only agree that when leftist candidates (which this particular guy isn't) flt about demanding more leftism, they help lunatics like Roy Moore get into office.
But there ought to be some respect for what actually got said. And there ought to be a point at which you stop lecturing the other sides--so very like the demands that Pres. Obama "address black violence," as though he hadn't--and drain yer own darn swamp.
"Labyrinth," doesn't do justice to the current Republican-to-Right insanity, which is as intolerant as it gets. We've got SOME hammerheads; you got the whole basket.
6
I don't see here a cogent explanation for how or why distilling all the partisanship and polarization in US politics down to this single issue brings any clarity, for Democrats or anyone else.
Perhaps if all Republican voters and those they elect again and again were as committed and consistent on this issue as Mr. Douthat it might all make sense. But neither The President, as leader of his party, nor most of the Republican leadership can demonstrate much on this issue beyond wavering hypocrissy and "orthodoxy for thee" empty sermonizing. As things stand today the GOP position on reproductive rights consists almost exclusively of strident opposition to abortion for poor women, and particularly women of color.
1
This article brings two thoughts to mind.
First off, it fits into the a common genre of essays that blame Democrats for the disturbed state of the GOP these days. By implication, somehow, the Democrats are responsible for the election of Trump. I disagree. Republicans created Trump. They elected him. They now tolerate his cruel and destructive presidency.
Secondly, as happens so often when I read elite essayists talking about what the Democrats should do, I feel as if I am being lectured by someone who has never done any serious political organizing--that is, the person-to-person grunt work that actually gets people to vote Democratic. The actual work is unpleasant, trying, and soul-killing. It's like cold-sales with no commission. There are strange vast murky dynamics out there in the way of Democrats--issues of identity and grievance and spite and other visceral forces that cannot be countered by reason--even appeals to self-interest. One fact clearly refutes Douthat's claim that Democrats need to back away from pro-choice positions on abortion. It's that any fool with a computer and an internet can find ample evidence of Trump's pro-choice stance. Yet anti-abortionists strongly supported him. That's not rational. That's something else.
As Donald Trump famously said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, ok? It’s, like, incredible.”
His voters are largely unreachable for Democrats. They have to write them off.
3
I'm glad you've picked up on this, John. It's astounding how Democrats are now essentially being blamed for the election of Trump, so it's up to us to move even more to the right to fix it.
Trumpians, those who would cheer at the 5th Avenue shooting, are going to vote for Trump again no matter what. The rest of the Republicans, people who haven't been brainwashed, have nuanced views on both abortion and immigration, meaning that a little of both isn't necessarily bad. Those Republicans also know Democrats feel the seem way, and they aren't going to fall for this nonsense from Douthat that Democrats are extremists on both issues. I mean, infanticide? Come on.
3
Douthat thinks like young men on the Right men who end relationships when their girlfriends became a "little bit" pregnant. If only Democrats thought like Douthat, he says they'd win the votes of those young conservatives.
Sure. That's every bit as likely to come true as Senate Republicans claim that giving the top 1/10th of 1% more than $1 million more in income via reduced taxes will cause corporations to raise wages by 10%. That's never happened, but in Republican fantasies it happens over and over.
Douthat says Democrats should give up on rational public policy.
Give Republican fantasies a chance.
Look at how well those fantasies worked out under Reagan and Bush. Sure.
3
On immigration the democrats are in left field. Both parties should favor secure borders along with a liberal immigration policy including giving the DACA people
a path to citizenship. This should be a slam dunk for the democrats but they will blow it and with it their election hopes.
3
'Round about 1 in 5000 us citizens has an abortion in a typical year. The legal environment is unlikely to seriously affect this figure.
So, why is there a never-ending political fight over abortion?
Is it because a small fraction of our population is having great fun with it?
Is it because it enables conservative Christians to box far above their weight?
4
Mr. Douthat, abortion needs to stop being a politicized issue. It is the legal law of the land since 1973. Since, then the GOP has tried every dirty trick in the book to narrow down how accessible it is and parameters to get one. I am a life long Democrat and while there are certainly may things the Democrats have done wrong over the decades I've been voting, I know of no Democrat who feels abortion on demand after a certain point in a pregnancy should be allowed simply because the mother doesn't want the child. Pro-choice is just that - the ability for the woman to make decisions about what's best for her and any unborn child she may carry, period. Doctors, of course, are involved n that process since they perform them, and they are the ones who ultimately make the decision to provide one or not. If you want to be against abortions, fine, be against them, but stop politicizing this medical procedure just because you believe it's morally wrong. It's not about morality, it's about following the law and keeping the government out of a woman's personal life.
4
In broad terms, Mr. Douthat is making an important point. His several examples may be despicable, but his broad point is valid. Democrats absolutely must get themselves elected if they are going to make a difference! We can be as idealistic and travel the high road as much as we want, but if Republicans are in power, they'll put locks on that high road so we can't drive there.
A democratic candidate doesn't have to compromise his beliefs in any way shape or form to be able to describe his policy goals in a way that resonates with any audience. It is not a lie or misrepresentation for a politician to describe the parts of a policy that will appeal to a specific audience and then describe the same policy differently to a different audience. Students have different needs than retirees; would you give the same campaign speech to both types of audiences? Not if you want to get elected!
Example: Rural poor areas of the South rely heavily on small local hospitals both for medical care and for local employment. They provide some of the best paying jobs and excellent career paths in some localities. A Democratic candidate should hold campaign rallies near small hospitals and explain to the Trump voters that they may lose their hospitals and jobs if the Republican healthcare bill is passed. Will that resonate with Trump voters? Some. Is it the truth -- unlike Trump campaign speeches -- yes.
2
I am a Democrat and happen to favor abortion rights. But consider that 85% of Evangelicals in the last presidential election held their noses and voted for a man who is in many ways the antithesis of family values they hold dear. They did this in large part because he would support a conservative seat in the Supreme Court who would push against abortion.
If so many people are SO passionate about one single issue that they are willing to go to such extreme measures, isn’t it time to make a tactical decision and give them what they want? There are so many other important matters to fight for in this country.
1
"Cultural conservative"?
It has always struck me as the height of hypocrisy when Republicans insist that the government back off of everything except the right for women to determine their own path in life. That insurance companies' paying for Viagra is acceptable, yet Planned Parenthood is on the ropes is just the height of absurdity, yet illustrates a systemic misogyny in action.
Firstly, the decision--and it's often a painful one-- to have an abortion should be ONLY the business of the mother's (and fathers, in many cases). Making birth control a financial burden for women while, at the same time, outlawing abortion, appears to further an agenda to disempower women, reducing their agency.
Who gains by keeping women "barefoot and pregnant"?
2
As always, the problem is dogma. A really low level of coercion and belief where nobody thinks. Just endless parroting of unworkable schemes to win political power. It is exceedingly tiresome and will be the downfall of this nation.
Sure, Republicants can play the game. Let's all agree they have the power and see what happens. Democrats need to develop some passive aggression.
I thought I knew where Ross was going. There is cognitive dissonance within the Democratic Party between wining arguments and winning elections. I thought this would examine that dilemma. Wrong.
Democrats are not loosing elections because of abortion. Immigration maybe, but not abortion. The natural Democrats who drifted toward Trump are driven above all by kitchen table issues. And to the extent that immigration was linked to economic dislocation it became a lightening rod. The cure for that is a stronger economy (happening) and a modern immigration policy for 2017, not 1965.
Democrats need those midwesterners Ross speaks of. And the way to get them is via younger candidates who inderstand them. Candidates to Tim Ryan of Ohio, and others. Candidates like that would scare the pants off Mitch McConnell because he knows where the Republicans are vulnerable. Unfortunately, Democratic leadership does not.
2
Feel free to debate the Democrats and moderating their position on abortion all you want, but don't lie about it. There isn't one poll that exists to support Douthat's charge "given that a clear majority of Americans...favor banning abortion after 20 weeks." Not one.
In fact, according to the latest Gallup, 82% of American favor legalized abortion in some or all cases. Only 18% support the extremist position Douthat is advocating.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
4
Voters who pulled the lever twice for Obama but then voted for Trump because of concerns about immigration, Ross writes. But if they did so, it's because they were duped by the Republican party into believing that Democrats were weak on the border issue. As the NYT reported last year, the Obama administration deported a "record number" of illegals, more than 2.4 million people. So those fears were irrational ones stoked by a Republican party determined to win even at the cost of truth. This speaks more to current problems with the GOP than with the Democrats, I think.
1
The Democrats do not need advice from a self-styled "cultural conservative" (which is a euphemism for what, exactly?) on whom to put forward as a candidate.
3
Abortion is a lazy politician's issue. Wallowing in it does not require the politician to do anything tough: job creation, balancing the budget, building infrastructure. It is an easy, cheap trap laid by the Republicans at no cost to them. Apparently the Democrats believe it is their job to populate Republican traps on behalf of their less talented opponents.
1
Folks on the left could certainly follow Douthat down the trail of arguing about abortion ad infinitum. Or we could fight even harder for contraception. Let's simply prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Douthat never talks about the insane lies hurled at Planned Parenthood, which helps people access many contraceptive methods He never explores his side's inability to understand that praying and wearing a promise ring never trumps sexual urges. Instead, he flogs liberals and calls them baby killers, while his right is allowed to dismiss the reality that education and prevention gets rid of the need for just about all abortions.
1
Polite reminder: Democrats have won 6 out if the last 7 presidential elections by popular vote.
I wouldn't call that failure.
Democrats are an election cycle or two away from making states like Arizona, Georgia and even Texas purplish blue.
It's the Republicans (nationally) who should be worried.
2
Well, of course there should be some room for wiggle, but the current laws and rulings are valid and reasonable. So, the wiggle would be advocating for change of our current court precedent? Stating that the health of mother and infant are the only exceptions for late term abortions ( Roe V Wade determined viability began at 24 weeks, after much testimony by doctors) is like saying we will allow only allow appendix removal if there is a health problem. Late term abortions occur ONLY because of significant risks and usually when it is determined the fetus would not survive either way. You and other conservatives want to change the 24 week limit to 20 weeks because 20 weeks is when results of amniocentesis are available to inform parents whether or not the fetus is severely impaired. You and other conservatives claim this 24 week cut off is a controversy, when this discussion has already taken place at the Supreme Court, and it was not and is not controversial in the medical community. You and other conservatives do not want the woman to choose abortion if the fetus has severe chromosome issues. That is the reason for the 20 weeks.
Roe V Wade was a very reasonable ruling. If the Southern culture cannot accept that women make these decisions, with the assistance of doctors, for the right reasons, then we are all sorry. If they choose a bigot over someone who accepts current law, then that will define them for a very long time.
1
I held my nose and voted for Hillary, but I really wish the Democrats would put up a candidate who has broader appeal. I don’t know what, if anything, would have shifted more voters to the Democrat side in the last election. Douthat is right, but I don’t think it’s any one issue. It’s abortion, it’s illegal immigration, it’s religious freedom, it’s transgender bathrooms and locker rooms and rich college kids shouting down speakers on campuses and protesters blocking roads, it’s political correctness run amok. It’s outsourced jobs and stagnant wages and politicians in bed with Wall Street who turn around and call them deplorables from fly over country. It’s people who say they don’t recognize their country anymore and vote for change, any change. It’s the contempt dripping from the comment section in the New York Times. That’s what I’m hearing, that’s the zeitgeist. If Democrats want to win, they’re going to have to make some compromises.
5
Since the day Douthat picked up a pen and started to write for public view abortion has been his north star.
All paths of his arguments lead eventually in that direction.
He cares nothing for the other issues that Republican espouse that hurt the poor, restrict medical care for the disabled, degrade the environment, promote mass slaughter by bowing to the NRA and are leading us to an evangelical theocracy.
1
Ross continues to confuse and conflate the 57%, 59% and 58% majority of the white majority who voted white Republican McCain/Palin in 2008, Romney/Ryan in 2012 and Trump/Pence in 2016 with all colored gendered ethnic national origin sectarian Americans.
2
If late-term abortion is infanticide (or feticide?) then the perps must be punished just like other murderers. The doctors do 25 to life, and the women, as willing accomplices before the fact, do likewise.
In some states, murder for hire is capital for both the killer and the buyer --- so if the doctor and any staff that assists get paid for their services then they qualify for the fatal needle.
Anything less is cowardly hypocrisy. However, is it any less hypocritical to insist that the helpless infant, once it is born, deserves neither good nourishment, proper health care, and education? Once quit of the womb, how does the newborn instantly become a "taker" who must be punished for picking the wrong parent(s)?
I've been asking these questions for years. Not once has a "life-in-the-womb-is-sacred-but-afterward-not-so-much" zealot answered me. I'm still waiting.
1
Absolutely correct. Thank you.
1
I call bull. To the everlasting torment of our entire nation, Democrats shut out the progressive left in 2016. They favored some dream of turning the South blue again with Clinton as a candidate. We all know how well that worked out. Meanwhile, Democrats ignored the Midwest in shameful self-confidence. The Democratic platform in 2016 was essentially an appeal to the center without abandoning long held cultural positions.
The cultural part isn't why Clinton lost though. Both sides rejected the center on economic grounds. Bigots aside, immigration is a scapegoat for lost jobs and economic hardship. Democrats had no policy to address the nation's increasing downward mobility. Bernie Sanders had something that at least sounded like a solution. Clinton had absolutely nothing. That's why we have Trump as President. Abortions are largely irrelevant to the conversation. Live in the now man.
1
Democrats should move to the center? It's that madness that got us into this mess over the last 40 years. Ds appease, appease, appease, compromise, compromise, compromise with right-wing bullies leaving good policy on the cutting room floor. And for what? To still be told they're too radical? Nonsense. Let's not forget that before the ACA was Obamacare it was Romneycare...and before that, it was hatched in the bowels of The Heritage Foundation
The radicals are evident here and it's not coming from the Left.
2
Here's a flipside for you, Ross. Unequivocally state that opposing birth control is stupid and counterproductive.
4
Everyone sees abortion as a vice.
The country with the highest abortion rate historically has been Brazil where abortion is illegal. The country with the lowest abortion rate historically has been Netherlands where abortion is both free and legal. So legality (supply) is not the issue, demand is.
This takes us to the Morality Paradox of American voters. Morality is a middle class characteristic, the rich don't need it and the poor can't afford it. If you want a more moral society you need to expand the middle class in both directions.
However the GOP is the prime agency for the rich & powerful. The GOP has only one prime directive, the ever greater concentration of wealth and power for the sake of the wealthy and the powerful.
By definition the wealthy & powerful lack the numbers needed to win elections. They must find voters who value things other than money, such as values voters. So the GOP campaigns on values, the middle class then votes GOP, the GOP then concentrates wealth & power, the middle class shrinks and values decline. Wash rinse and repeat. After 40 years of this you get Trump as president.
Meanwhile the rich thru their foundations fund religious orgs w/ money w/ the understanding that they lead their flock to the right & abortion is one such issue to do that.
There is a reason why Christ commanded his followers to separate religion from civics. Civics/law has to make compromises (on some vices for practical reasons) that religious ethics cannot make.
11
'blue and flailing"? How dare you! That NEvER happens. You are a fraud and a rasputin-like proselytizer, and do not deserve to be printed in any self-respecting news organization. How dare you! complete fake idiocy, from a self-interested and probablly suspect (do you protest too much, ross?) conservative. They are usually guilty of the sins of which they accuse others, going by historical precedent.
16
In addition to a Fake President occupying the White House, Ms. Thorsen, we can now add to the present age of rampant Trumpian falsities a Fake Journalist-Ideologue at the Times, eager to make his own "contribution" to this sorry state of affairs.
4
Once again Mr. Douthat creates a reasonable-sounding frame to push his pet issues, particularly his pro-life stance. It is, of course, hard to know from this essay, if Democrats would have a better time getting elected if they moved to the center on abortion and immigration, because Douthat provides zero evidence to support that argument. He does what he usually does, which is to create an argumentative circle: x voters care about y: if Dems changed their position they would get more votes from x voters: therefore they should. Not especially sophisticated or convincing, but when you are a traditional Catholic conservative dressed in faux-intellectual clothing, I guess it's the best you can do.
9
Here are some statistics on abortion in the US and recent polling. The statistics show that abortion at 20 weeks and later is rare. Most people support a woman's right to choose, even among catholics. The only exception are white evangelical Christians. It seems the Democrats should stand up for women's rights clearly - and also workers' rights.
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states
http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
8
It's thinking like yours that will leave the Dems in the sidelines for years to come. Women's rights are a Constitutional issue, not to be interfered with. Workers "rights" are a fiction that attempts to do an end run around market forces. The two couldn't be farther apart. The fact is that every generation since the Greatest Generation has put forth this growing sense of entitlement that will never be quenched. This county was built by people who got a pittance for their sweat, didn't have labor regulations, OSHA interference, wage laws or mandatory lunch breaks yet got their jobs done with pride and loyalty by accepting their place in the food chain.
2
"$20 million is the combined amount all candidates and political groups have invested in the special U.S. [Republican Primary] election in Alabama, including both the primary and runoff phases of the contest." For a breakdown of this, much of it dark money see www.issueone.org/money-behind-alabamas-special-u-s-senate-election/
(9/22/17)
"Currently with $253,000 in his campaign coffers, Jones has been gaining a steady trickle of contributions and quietly preparing for the Dec. 12 general election." From www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/09/contributions-flood-alabama-runoff/ (9/21/17).
So nu?
3
"There shouldn’t be any restrictions on the right to choose,” you hear, “I think infanticide should be legal in America.”
Would you vote for a candidate who said that?"
"There should be no exception to outlawing abortion after 20 weeks even in the case of rape, incest or to save mother's life."
Would you vote for a candidate who said that if you were anti abortion?
"Abortion is the murder of an innocent unborn child. But I support a woman having the right to an abortion in cases of rape, incest or to save mother's life."
Would you vote for a candidate who used weasel words like that if you were anti-abortion?
The GOP is in an equal labyrinth but they just work a heck of a lot harder than Democrats in getting people to believe what they say.
1
Imagine that whenever you hear a politician say, "I want to repeal Obamacare," you hear, "I want to commit mass murder."
9
Brilliant. Perfect. Well said.
3
Republican political manipulation destroyed the influence of Mainstream Christianity in America.
1
Republicans understand the basics of marketing. Keep the message short and emotional. Democrats are clueless. Hillary Clinton repeatedly told voters to visit her web site to read her positions. Homer Simpson said he gets his news from monitors in gas stations. Who do you think understands the public better? Republicans get away with claiming Democrats are in favor of open borders. Democrats want to take your guns away. Democrats believe it is okay to kill unborn babies. How about a party platform that plainly states "that's not true." The spokesmen for the party are Barack Obama, George Bush, and Jimmy Kimmmel. DNC Party Chairman Dan Perez believes the solution is better polling. Republicans are marketing Red Bull in football stadiums. Dems are selling three cent cups of lemonade at the bottom of their driveway, proud that the product is healthy and provides an income to hard working kids. Repubs control the Executive office, the Senate, the House, State legislatures, and the vast majority of governorships. You may not want to believe it, but Mr. Douthat today is exactly right.
7
You are more right than Ross was. Abortion is NOT the lynchpin of why Democrats loose. Gooey candidates and poor messaging (as you point out) are why they loose.
Democrats want to win arguments. Republicans want to win elections. Until that changes expect the same.
2
Ross, who is your audience, and what is your message? Half of your article concerns abortion. What does this have to do with convincing people to vote Democratic?
3
Well, the Republicans are on the cusp of reaching their anti-abortion limits if they are able to convince the general public that Constitutional rights should be afforded to a fertilized egg before the first split.
1
If that language goes through, given that human females from 12 years old to 50 may be pregnant at any time, so to protect the “unborn human” a female may (or may not) be carrying there will need to be oversight, of course. Girls must take pregnancy tests before riding a roller coaster (probably not cost effective for a park), so, for business liability reasons, just ban females from roller coasters and any other activity which could jostle them, or stress them or tire them. Then, of course, there’s restrictions on jobs - no construction, certainly not police or firefighting but then again being a doctor is way too stressful, so is lawyer, CEO, professor, small business owner, and of course politician. Does anyone see what the real issue is? The Republicans (the male ones do as do the female ones who think they’ll be the exception - which they won’t be) do not care about “the child.” They want to control women in order to go back to fantasy (nasty) world of Father Knows Best where they are the male superheros and “God’s” image incarnate - and their wives and daughters and all women bow to their superior maleness. Seriously, these guys actual define their manhood not on their abilities and acheivements - but reduce manhood to pushing women down. Most men earn their self-esteem, this Republican hierarchy of a little boys’ club steal theirs.
Legal abortion is not "feticide."
Stop trying to term all abortions as "murder."
8
What other talking points against Doug Jones would you like to sneak into a balanced-sounding article Ross? i can think of an Aesops fable analogy.
1
Imagine that whenever a politician says, "I want to repeal Obamacare," you hear "mass murder."
2
One can only conclude after reading Mr. Douthat and/or listening to him on the radio that he finds objective truth an inconvenience at best or at least, an irrelevance to disregard.
2
There are certain values that Democrats can compromise on and others where they need to stand firm. Abortion is an area that Democrats need to stand firm. Your melodramatic infanticide nonsense refuses to look at the facts. Nearly 99% of abortions are done prior to 20 weeks and the small percentage done after 20 weeks are generally either to protect the life of the mother or because of potential birth defects. Abortion is a decision between the woman and her doctor.
Immigration on the other hand is an area that Democrats need to be willing to compromise on. Not just illegal immigration, legal immigration needs to be addressed also. The abuse of h1b visas needs to stop. It's degrading to train your replacement so that your company can save labor costs. While we are sympathetic towards dreamers and support DACA, illegal immigrants should continue to be subject to immigration hearings and deportation.
Yes Democrats need to compromise where it makes sense. What's good for wallstreet hasn't been so good for everyday working class people who just want to live a comfortable life. Common sense policies will attract voters who are turned off by the extreme right candidates from the Republican party. Frankly, until Republicans come to their senses they kind of deserve the extremists that they have been cultivating for the last 40 years.
3
I'm as conservative as they come but the border and immigration issues have morphed into bumper sticker slogans and emotional appeals that ate aimed at the lowest common denominator. Our borders should be secure. Every country has a right and even a responsibility to effectively control their borders. That control solidly be only to vet those who cross the border to exclude terrorists and known criminals. It should never be to effect an ersatz labor protectionism scheme. Like it or not, we are part of a global economy. Capital can be moved around the globe with the click of a mouse. The labor supply outstrips labor needs by a mile and growing. Those Ford assembly line workers who stood with Trump early in his campaign and those Carrier workers who put that video on YouTube priced themselves out of the labor market. Not Ford. Not Mexicans. Not Wall Street. Not NAFTA. It was 100% the UAW.
2
This Hillary Clinton voter completely agrees with this assessment of Democratic Party ills. Making abortion illegal after 20 weeks of gestation is not unreasonable. And imagine, the citizens of the USA, through their elected representatives, determine how many immigrants will be admitted and from what countries. The fact that Democrats consider this radical is appalling.
Dem's extremism on these issues is partly responsible for the menace in the White House.
4
It is if you've just found out that you're pregnant with a fetus that has no hope at all of decent survival once delivered, and are faced with carrying to term what is to all intents and purposes a dead baby.
I've yet to see ONE of you guys come up with ONE case in which a woman waltzed into Planned Parenthood eight months pregnant, said gimme an abortion, I been busy, and she's outta there by 3 PM, because she's got a hot date.
3
Conservative? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
All conservatives stand for these days are "I've got mine, too bad about you." Greed is good. Most science is a hoax. Rich people need more money, and poor people need less. And they wave the abortion flag to distract the suckers.
7
Conservative solutions:
Inequality? Cut taxes, end immigration, forbid abortions.
Opioid crisis? Cut taxes, end immigration, forbid abortions.
Obesity epidemic? Cut taxes, end immigration, forbid abortions.
Racism? Cut taxes, end immigration, forbid abortions.
Terrorism? Cut taxes, end immigration, forbid abortions.
(In the words of Oscar Hammerstein's King of Siam) Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The conservatives who offer these solutions are now in charge of the White House, the Congress, most state legislatures and most governorships. If you believe they are on your side & want to help you, then Douthat is your prophet.. If you don't believe it, then Douthat is just another right-wing flack.
6
This "op-ed" piece is absurd. Doug Jones said he supported a woman's right to choose. Aborting a fetus right up until it is born is NOT A THING. It's not legal. In most states abortion is illegal after 24-26 weeks. Stop trying to put words into the candidates mouth. Brietbart News misquoted him and you continue the lies. Now, let's talk about infant mortality - because this is a far bigger issue in the state of Alabama. Many women in Alabama are poor and lack prenatal care. And because Alabama didn't take medicaid expansion, infant mortality rates are higher in Alabama than ever. And now that the government let CHIP expire, those babies will lack medical care after they are born. THIS is what Doug Jones addresses. He wants the people of Alabama to have the health care they currently lack. The NYT should retract this article.
8
Bravo.
3
Will never happen. Democrats, as a party, are actually on a suicide mission. They are headed for electoral extinction...
5
Democrats have to “woo” the people who voted for him? Sick of hearing it Ross, sick of hearing it.
We all know that Trump won by 77,000 votes in three states because voters went third party or held their noses while they pulled the Republican lever. The brainwashed 30% of Republicans who are committed Trumpians will vote for him again. Their minds will never change. The rational others will not make the same mistake.
The real problem this country has is people like “Ten Commandments” Moore (you think this is a “toss-up” seat in Deep Crimson Alabama? Ha ha.) Get enough of them, and no sane Democrat will even want to run for President. It will make Obama’s strife with a recalcitrant Congress look like a dance around the Maypole. I can see Senator Franken going home and writing a book, this time with not so much humor in it. I can see Senator Warren thinking that too many of the consumers she’s helped are too stupid to deserve it, maybe it’s time to go back to teaching smart people something. I can see Senator Harris going home to find legal ways to make CalExit a reality.
The moderate Republicans are already packing their bags after supporting Trump wholeheartedly. I’m sure the ones that were not so all-in are feeling bereft and will soon go AWOL to their gun toting states.
The Democrats should channel Mr. Tom Petty: “I will stand my ground. And I won’t back down.”
Ain’t no easy way out, Ross.
6
I’m getting ad after ad after ad from the DNC asking me as a card carrying liberal to donate to his campaign because the opposition is a bigot.
What does the Democrat stand for? Alabama — do you know yet? Please tell me he stands for better jobs, education for children, firearms in the rural areas, and maybe a clean environment- you know - things Alabamans can relate to. They cannot relate to Pelosi Politics.
1
So we shall pretend that racism, sexism (including assaults bragged about by their leader), destruction of the environment, emptying of treasury funds for the benefit of the wealth class, the dream of having more nukes and questions about why the heck we don't use them, threats to break treaties and assure the world that our word can't be trusted are all well, not so bad at all. So we can "woo" Trump's fans? Why do you never advise the right to be nice to liberals, Mr. Douthat? When will you tell them to be nice to us so we're not so upset, so we won't wreck the nation and world in our snit?
No sir, you are no friend to the democratic party, nor to liberals, and our taking advice from you would be foolish. You are unlikely to have the welfare of the left or our goals in mind. Perhaps you might try stating our views with empathy and respect; you might woo us. I'd find that pleasing and refreshing, so anytime you feel like taking your own advice, please do.
2
This piece feels like a tantrum, not a well reasoned argument. Perhaps not beginning this diatribe with a skewed abortion position would help get your point across. Blaming Democrats for Trump may feel good, but let's leave John Lennon out of it (and the Stones).
7
The Democratic Party has displayed such profound foolishness on the abortion issue, failure to address serious poverty issues, and thumbed their noses at democracy itself in allowing primary race cheating to hand the nomination to Hillary instead of Bernie, that some progressives have concluded that only a third party not dominated by monied interests would offer a channel for them to express and advance their views. I am nearly at that point and may only try to work with a few Democrats to try to advance local concerns. I have no hope that the national party will shape up.
1
Oh, Ross Douthat comes before me as an ally! I'm in luck. He's praising Democrats for having vision and sane policy views. And now he's got a tip for us: go easy on human rights for women and immigrants!
Better listen up everyone, pearls of wisdom are coming out!
1
As Douthat speaks, there is a young, pregnant woman in Federal custody seeking to have an abortion. But, the Republican-controlled Feds are doing everything they can to delay that.....This is but one reason why the 20 week rule is bogus.
3
Mr. Douthat’s plea for liberals to make a leap of the imagination in order to understand the opposite point of view works both way. Would he try to see things from my perspective? I am a mother (which he could never be) and when he says “feticide” I hear “ reproductive slavery”. I am a Jew (and I am sure he is aware of his church’s history with regard to my people), and when he says “fetal personhood”, I hear “your tradition, which recognizes no such thing, is deficient and to be superseded by mine”. I am a legal immigrant, and when he says ‘restrictions on immigration’, I hear ‘we don’t want people like you here, and the more productive and successful you are, the less we like you’. If the Democrats want to court people who share Mr. Douthat’s views, they will lose people who share mine.
Laws against abortion work as well as laws against drugs, speeding, or gun ownership, i.e., they don't, by and large.
Abortions always happen: Rich women go to where it's legal; poor women use the alleyway butcher. We know that; it's beyond disputing.
So, in my mind, Democrats have the only wise position: abortion on demand, because some old white guys in Washington, D.C., should not have the power to dictate how American women make their personal decisions.
Full disclosure: I oppose abortion. So, yes, I will never get one; but I don't have the right to make that decision for someone else, do I? In a large sense, it's none of my dang business.
This comment has made me late for church. So I will have to speed all the way there to make it on time; it's a common, thus permissible sin, yes? I am against you speeding, but I'm in a big hurry, a date with the Father of ethics, so it's okay, in my mind. Ah, nothing like the convenience of a flexible morality.
They might win if
(1) They abandon the cryptosocialist stance of Sanders and Hillary;
(2) Detach from their coattails the loud-mouthed vegans, anti-tobacco, and pro-cannabis supporters;
(3) Stop kowtowing to the so-called political correctness;
(4) Realize the difference between the equality of choice and equality imposed by the father-state.
I do not know, whether there could be such a leadership of the Democratic party assembled in time to replace the current inmate of the White House.
1
Doug Jones would have been far better served by simply saying that “abortion is a medical decision between a woman and her doctor, period.”
Democrats would be far better served hewing to the James Carville aphorism, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Start with the big republican lie that their “budget” will benefit anyone in the middle class.
State and Local Tax deductibility to end? That punishes the middle class. Today’s front page floated a lead balloon that the republicans plan to limit deductibility of 401K contributions to $2400, down from $18,000 for those under 50, and $24,000 for 50and above. That is a middle class way of saving for retirement. So the republicans want to cut it 90% for those 50+? Nice.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, there are almost 8 million Americans over the age of 65 whose health care is on Medicaid, including about a million elderly in nursing homes. So the republicans, to the squealing delight of Ayn Ryan, plan to cut Medicaid by $1 TRILLION? So who is going to take care of all those old folks on Medicaid, especially those in nursing homes?
I thought Ross and his party were the “pro life” people? I guess not for the poor, eh, Ross?
1
The actual motivation for this most unlikely column, hawking centrist(??) prescriptions by a hard-right theocratic Republican on how Democrats can expand their electorate and win, must involve a galvanizing personal fear being acutely present on two different levels: fear over the growing specter of a complete implosion of the G.O.P. at the hands of Trump, Bannon, and the Moore crazies; and fear over the ascendancy of a growing, progressive Democratic Party, championing social, political, and economic justice for all Americans. So, let's all relocate to the center(??) folks a.s.a.p., for a "platform" embracing the Best Hits from the 1950's!
1
Excuse me but democrats did win in 2016, by 3 million votes. Tragically, that victory was nullified by an electoral system intended to protect us from the very kind of candidate who was put in office.
All democrats need is a candidate with Hillary's message who isn't Hillary.
And by the way Ross, no one is encouraging late term abortions. You made that up.
2
Suggestion from an old timer. Don’t mince your words, and don’t mask your true thoughts within your own inescapable labyrinth. Just call it like it is. Your frightened of you own Republican Party, and the destruction it has wrought upon the American public. A complete incompetent and failing President with no scruples whatsoever. And Republican voters electing the likes of Roy Moore, a disgrace to the rule of law, masking himself as a Judge.
No Ross, the Democrats aren’t going to bail you out by moving to the center, or center right. What I would suggest is you and millions like yourself “move to the left” to the "reasonably coherent political vision" (your words) of the Democratic Party. Then maybe the country can start to come together again.
Alabama isn't about to vote for a Democrat for ANY REASON and never was or never will. They will as always continue to vote against their financial interests, and for guns (which also kill people and occasionally even a fetus). They will lose their health benefits, continue to provide poor education, and allow the richest one percent to get richer while they get poorer.
2
I had hoped to read an intelligent analysis of the Democratic Party's dysfunction, but instead found myself reading yet another Ross Douthat screed against abortion. Ross Douthat makes the preposterous charge that pregnant women will suddenly decide to have an abortion, or commit infanticide, only moments before a baby is born. This allegation is so untethered from the facts that I might expect to hear it from Roy Moore, Todd Akin, or even Donald Trump. Third-trimester abortions are quite rare, accounting for only 1% of abortions. These abortions occur only in case of medical emergency. Roe v. Wade is a compromise on the issue of abortion, and well expresses the views of most Americans: abortion should be legal in the early months of pregnancy. In this column, Mr. Douthat has unfortunately allowed his obsession with the issue of abortion to hijack his train of thought.
6
Dear Mr Douthat,
Here's a handy compromise: Limit abortion at 12 weeks and expand clinics around the states.
1
How many woman go 8 months of pregnancy, no sleep, always tired, uncomfortable, etc, and then decide, oh, I just don't want the baby.
Or, are like the Santorums, the baby is going to die at birth or shortly thereafter. Oh, I want to carry it to term, watch it die, and then bring it home for the family to meet and to sleep with.
Give women credit. If they have endured pregnancy for 5 months, it is likely that they have a strong reason for wanting an abortion. But wouldn't it make more sense for some 65 year old white evangelist male judge to decide if her reasons are valid, and if necessary explain to her why she is mistaken. I went to law school, and do not feel qualified to second guess a woman's decision.
6
Even full term baby brains are insufficiently developed to actually understand/feel pain and suffering. Of course they unconsciously sense pain. They are like worms with reflexes that do respond to painful stimuli. But a 40 week old fetus is no more capable of consciously "knowing" pain than a 20 week or 12 week fetus. Who remembers his own painful birth? (I am sure you mother remembered it very vividly) But older children and adults certainly know pain and suffering. So let's stop all this silly ranting about infanticide and concentrate on making life better for those who are now capable of feeling the pain and suffering thrust upon them by their fellow humans. Let the mothers carrying unwanted fetuses decide the fate of those fetuses, not politicians or religious hypocrites who are not capable of feeling what the mothers themselves feel.
1
From the Judeo Christian tradition we learn:”7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”This should be the basis of belief if you are a Christian or a Jew, right? Breathing is a crucial. But tha’s a religious belief. Doesn’t the First Amendment prevent government from instituting the beliefs of any faith in Law? And then there’s the ensoulment from Christians who wander from Aristotle to Pythagoras, two non-believers, as the authorities that “Church Fathers” referenced, instead of Genesis. Very Odd.
This issue, and the issue of birth control are patriarchal, male privilege based. Using religious beliefs to subordinate women is obvious. Morals are cherry picked in all power structures, like government.
Douthat and other spinners of narratives including Brooks invite Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives to cleave to male privilege and denounce female prerogatives. Their theme demands abandonment of reason, science and the First Amendment and call zygotes and fetuses babies. The Conservative propagandists like to tell Dems that they can win if they renounce reason, science and the First Amendment. Pro-women voters chose Democrats by 3 million in the last election. Why would anyone listen to adversarial propagandists? No, voter suppression, gerrymander, racism, religious bigotry, and Russia are what got Trump in the WH. Not women’s equal rights to privacy or medical choices.
"America has two political parties"
Five words in and we can see the problem.
1
True to form, Douthat glides over the specifics in a horror like Roy Moore and writes freely on the failures of Democrats to move towards a center that everyone knows has been moved off the Far Right end of the map.
Yes, there are some Democrats with too-far, too-Left positions that will never play in TrumpTown, but if this article had seriously looked at Democrats across the nation it would find campaigns based on sensible, real-life issues that the voting public is hungry for.
I dare Ross to come 50 miles up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie and talk to the Democratic candidates who are running in every Town and County race this Nov 7th to reverse the effects of 20 arrogant years of Republican one-party rule. And what is the platform they are running on? Reduction of the highest taxes in Dutchess County, end of Pay-for-Play cronyism, and making local government put the needs of its residents first. There is no late-term/transgender talk in their door-to-door campaigns, just good old American values struggling to survive in the Right Wing world that Douthat & Co. helped create.
I’m a 70 year old church organist running for Councilman for no other reason than to help my community regain a place at the political table. So, Ross, before you write us off as unwinnable, at least come for a visit to find out what Democrats really stand for. We’ll even pay for your train ticket to our Nov 7th Victory Party!
Dan Fannon
Candidate – Councilman Ward One ~ Town of Poughkeepsie
2
Cultural conservative: equal pay for men, save the zygot - budget a trillion for policing the world, trickle down and down, death sentence, sex education - not, PENCE.!
Men should not be able to decide whether or not a women gets to choose to have an abortion.
2
I am a pro life pro choice democrat who also believes that we are poisoning ourselves with our food and destroying the one place in the solar system where we can live. I think there is a winning political platform in those ideas. Oh yes, love people and use things.
For Democrats to win:
1. Freedom of Accuracy (know as facts or truth) would have to prevail.
Freedom of accuracy, or, science, as I like to call it, would be presented in totality.
2. Districts would have to be easy geometric shapes, not Rorsharch test shaped.
3. Voters of color would have to not be banned from voting in the hundreds of thousands in key states-- (that's not Russia, that's the Republican party apparatchiks. )
4. 74% of all US broadcast systems would have to not be weaponized with right wing propaganda.
Really, Ross? The way Dems need to "woo" more voters is to have ideas/anti-ideas in the same cranium without exploding? To wit: be against abortion AND birth control (which would make abortion more rare), be pro-Jesus and anti-poor (they need to be more desperate and well-armed), pro-foreign war yet pro-soldier, pro tax cuts for billionaires while pro-family healthcare?
There is a surprisingly important group that doesn't over-think all of this. They alternate parties for POTUS because things are bad ("Um, let's give the other guy a chance") or things are kinda OK ("Let's give him another term").
Imagine, too, that you had come to the conclusion that feticide-on-demand is merely a form of genocide, targeted against yet another innocent and defenseless population: a privileged uberclass taking the lives of an underclass - indeed, a class that lacks legal standing as persons - for any reason whatsoever, or none at all.
Who would I vote for? Someone who believes that abortion should be not restricted or some who calls homosexuality an “abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God".
Really, tough decision Ross.
1
The quality of these responses is appalling. The question is not whom those of us who alwyas vote democratic would be happiest voting for. The question is who can get elected by drawing enough votes from Americans that don't always vote democratic?
The commenter who preferred to lose every election rather than field candidates with whom she disagrees scares me almost as much as Trump does.
1
Again, a well stated OpEd from Douthat - the only columnist at the NYT that seems to realize there are vast swathe of America where everyday people do not hold extreme positions but just want good governance so they can be left alone to go about their lives.
Yet, those same Americans also do not want the ideological, secular humanism that continues to be crammed down their throats by smug, global, bi-coastal elitist who are the 1% or, even worse, the 9% toadying up to and serving the 1%. Said elitist and their flunkies have no clue how they've ditched so many mores and principles that made America great for their own narrow interests and enrichment. For shame! For shame!
2
The problems with the democratic party are that they do not reach out to their base. It is not that they need to move closer to the center. The democratic party is the definition of amorphous vote sucking, lacking any sort of moral or ethical spine. Democrats need to be unapologetic in their positions and stop having lobbyists as super delegates. Maybe then they will shake their pandering image.
When Does Mr. Douthat NOT consider abortion infanticide? Does he agree that first trimester abortions are none of his (or the government's) business? I haven't ever discerned that that is his position.
2
Democrats can win, of course, when we have free and open elections without out gerrymandering, voter suppression, and Russian Cyber Warfare.
1
Yep! Add to that recipe for doom, the Dems have no charismatic leader except an egomaniac from Vermont who rather have Trump win than compromise on anything.
1
Ross, for a guy who literally believes the following is not qualified to speak on women's reproduction issues:
A married virgin gave birth to god's baby 2,000 years ago (Christmas)'
A zygote has a 'soul' (whatever that is), and is a 'baby'
These beliefs are nutty to put it mildly. They show a lack of critical thinking skills and just plain old common sense.
An individual woman's reproduction issues belong to solely to that woman. She does not need your opinion or approval, or that of any one else, period.
2
No one favors abortions. No one. Doug Jones favors a woman's right to make her own informed medical decisions and that is all he favors. When we accept the phrasing of even esteemed NYT columnists we reinforce the rabid anti-choice message that took over the conversation a long time ago. Repeat: anti-choice, not pro-life, pro-choice, not pro-abortion.
1
Elections have become a contest of lesser evils in this country. We've lived with bigots for a long time, but someone who believes that abortion should be legal right up until the infant emerges wailing with life from the womb. Again we've lived with bigots for a long time, but terminating infants emerging from the womb, if you can't figure out the greater evil, then, yeah.
1
Whether or not the candidate said he favors abortion..."up until baby emerges" Douthat's nefarious objective is clear. If he were being at all objective or fair, he would have called out that statement not as "radical left" but as erroneous, ill-informed and/or poor use of terms since any birth after 24 weeks is just that: a birth. It might be performed via a cesarian or induced labor. It isn't an abortion. The child might or might not live. It might be premature depending on the week number and weight. No doctor, or for that matter mother-to-be, would make a choice to have the baby early if it weren't medically necessary. There is no such thing as "late term abortion". It's called giving brith.
1
No matter the voting outcome, I personally prefer John Lennon's Imagine to any heartless conservative alternative. Sorry Ross, but Lennon was, and still is, way ahead of his time.
1
I am tired of the "problems of the Democrats." We live in a big country; the Democrats - because of the nature of their diverse tent - cannot satisfy those living in West Virginia, San Francisco, and St. Louis with the same politicians. That's the facts. If people refuse to acknowledge that Claire McKaskill has to be more conservative than they'd like in an ideal world, we indeed will never win an election. Get realistic. Two parties: they have shades of gray.
1
I think Roe v. Wade got it about right. You really don't have any convincing nonreligious arguments against it, or at least I haven't read any. I think killing an unborn child just before it's about to be delivered is, you know, murder. Of course I'm willing to say that abortion should, at a certain point, be illegal. But people like you seem unwilling to imagine -- and I mean REALLY make the imaginative leap -- that not all abortions are infanticide.
But I get your point: The Democratic Party has moved far, far leftward on this issue, and perhaps it's to their detriment, and certainly it hurts them with the religious. Then again, on how many issues -- economic or social -- HAVEN'T the Democratic Party moved leftward on? Hard leftists have made huge inroads into the Democratic Party. Left is good. Right is bad. This is how it works these days. And as for immigration, the Rubio bill, which you disliked, should now be law. For me, it's difficult not to see the Republicans as the crazy Party on this issue. But you're probably right that too much diversity, too much difference, makes democracy rather difficult, despite the understandable Brooks-Stephens adoration of Senator McCain's admirable appeal to American ideals.
Let me get this right Ross, Are you in favor of not telling the electorate your beliefs or are you in favor of soft pedaling your beliefs to get elected? If you are for soft pedaling isn't the electorate voting for a "squishy" politician? Someone everyone derides?
Have you considered that maybe the problem is the general electorate in Alabama? They would rather vote for a person who is manifestly unfit for office than consider someone else who would be a good senator but believes in abortion. Isn't this the very definition of identity politics? Isn't this the type of litmus test you are always deriding the Democrats about?
Essentially the majority of the electorate in Alabama are hypocrites when it comes to being Americans. They don't believe in the constitution and they don't believe in the separation of church and state. They are about to vote for a man who doesn't in believe the very oath he will take when sworn in as a U.S. senator.
1
The problem democrats have is telling lies to win. The republicans are the opposite, they never tell the truth.
1
Well, putting a link there and then lying about the man's words really make me think Douthat is desperate. Saying you favor a woman's right to choose abortion if the baby is found to be malformed and will likely die moments after birth is not the same as saying, "he favors legal abortion, without restriction, right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb."
Douthat does what the pro-life movement does all the time. Misrepresent the statements of pro-choice people in an effort to demonize them. Until Douthat can take a look at his own party and their inability to accept reality over fantasy, his column will not be read by me.
1
"Then voted Trump in part because of anxieties about recent immigration. "
I'm sorry Ross the anxieties about recent immigration are really fairly thinly disguised racist beliefs. These people have no problem with whites coming into USA - it's only the non-whites that they are against.
Trump had the white, middle aged, less educated voter block the moment he come down the escalator and announced that a huge threat to the nation were Mexicans coming over the border. According to Trump they were rapists, murderers and drug dealers - and at a very minimum a huge cost to the state.
It does not matter that the facts tell us otherwise, that immigrants have revitalized parts of this country with their hard work and entrepreneurship, that they do jobs that none of these self appointed critics of immigration will ever do and they are less of a burden to the state then the white farmers in Iowa, who voted en mass for Trump, but scrounge tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for agriculture and ethanol while complaining about the unfairness of the system!
Get a grip!
1
What you fail to recognize is that in a country in such divisive and self absorbed political and social turmoil, both sides are lost in the weeds, even if one side appears to have a clearer direction.
Meanwhile as we speak and tweet and post, a very real human being is held under lock and key by religious fanatics in the Trump Administration in an attempt to force her to carry the fetus of a rapist when she wants an abortion - a medical procedure to which she has the right.
The right wing fundamentalist zeal to force religious behaviors on other people never stops unless it is stopped. Douthat's "reasonableness" is the camel sticking it's nose under the tent.
All women are human beings who deserve the sanctity of controlling their own bodies without interference of the State.
Frankly, the pro-war/pro-death/yet somehow pro-life crowd’s opinions about a woman’s healthcare choices over processes that occur entirely inside her own body are as irrelevant as they are hypocritical to those of us not wishing to see women returning to back alleys for reproductive care. As a fellow white guy, I suggest you cease and desist from your lecturing about issues pertaining to women’s health unless you wish to support women’s freedom to make choices over what happens to and inside of their own body. The ease at which someone can cast aside the importance of a woman’s reproductive rights in 2017 is jaw-dropping.
2
As a born and bred Southerner, I can promise Mr. Douthat that there is little that Democrats can do to sway the Solid South. It worked great for the Democrats during FDR's time when the Northern elite looked the other way on the Dixiecrats' bigotry and racism in order to have them under the tent. But the deal is that the only thing that changed was the party affiliation. Southern Republicans are essentially the same people Southern Democrats were, just the Third Millennium version 3.0.
Whether it's legal or not, these people are being told from the pulpit that they must vote Republican or risk not being a Christian. Southern whites are Scots-Irish, tribal and clannish. All the charts, graphs, modulating on abortion, etc won't move them to the D column. Truly, Donald Trump could shoot someone on 5th Avenue or grab a woman by the, well, you know in front of Saks and they would still support him and his spineless party.
It's a losing cause.
"...alternative requires wooing Americans who voted for him." Or maybe reaching out to the 45% of eligible voters who did not vote in the 2016 election.
Another "compromise is you becoming more like me" columns.
One key change between 2004 and today is the failure of anyone to be held accountable for the financial meltdown in 2007. There were culpable rich guys that did not get prosecuted because a Democratic president listened to fiscal conservative advisors with an eye on staying moderate. Aggressive prosecution of key financial executives would have preempted the emergence of both the Tea Party and Donnie.
"As much as the country needs a conservatism with some idea of what it’s doing, some theory of the common good," Actually, the country has a conservative party that know what it is doing. The problem is it's goals don't have anything to do with any theory of the common good. They are all about wealth creation and preservation, for themselves.
These conservatives won't compromise. From a signed pledge for no new taxes to - no bills which don't represent the majority of our party to - our prime goal is to make this president a one term'er to - no votes on judges nominated by the other party this party has long demonstrated it politics ahead of the country.
After this generation of conservatives are thrown out of office, maybe by Democrats, maybe by nut-jobs then compromise can happen.
Here we go again - for the gpod of (fill in the blank) we must postpone and compromise women' rights and freedoms. I've been hearing this for 50 years and history tells me it has been going on for as long as women anywhere have wanted equal rights to the freedoms and privileges accorded men in any society you care to name. No woman ever "wants" an abortion. It is always an agonizing decision. What women want is the right to chose what she decides is best for all directly concerned - herself, the baby and the conditions into which the child will be born. Why is this seen as too much to ask for at any particular moment?
1
I am fed up with the conservative mania about abortion. Take a chill pill Ross, and then breathe deep. "Most" Americans do not favor a ban on abortions after 20 weeks. Doug Jones does not favor infanticide. Women, including Hillary Clinton, are not clamoring for the right to indulge in child sacrifice to the gods of lust. A vast majority of Americans use and support the use of birth control. There are clear moral, legal and scientific arguments that fetuses before a certain point of developement are not "persons" and so do not have rights that supersede the rights of the pregnant woman. I also would not wish to interfere in the horrific choices that parents of severely deformed and diseased fetuses must make. Hysterical oversimplification of this issue debases everyone involved. We need to stop trying to legislate sexual chastity and instead work to provide support and care for women and children. Republicans are singularly hostile to that support and care, and need to be voted out of office.
3
Well of course Mr. Jones didn't say that. He said he supported a woman's right to choose. Anti-abortion folks, like you, don't want to allow any abortions. The pro-choice folks want to allow any and all abortions. There's very few of us who stand in the middle on this because it makes us targets for both sides and who wants to be in that position?
Now if you were willing to accept an untrammeled right to choose up to some point that would be one thing but I'm pretty sure you are just another abortion extremist.
Try being more honest next time.
Ross, As a Democrat I agree with you on some but not all points. After having lived in the Deep South for a long time, where you have not, you need to look at LBJ's writings and statements about his signing the civil rights act and the future of the Democratic Party, esp in the South. While I think late term abortion is reprehensible the guy running in Alabama with a D behind his name could be as prolife as Calista Gingrich,and still would lose. The political science professor Alan Abramowitz (sp) at Emory University has published data that 80% of white southerners are Republicans, while 80% of African-Americans there are Democrats. The only way a Democrat could win in most of the south is to not only disavow all abortion rights, but to return to the era before 1965. I might add, some pretty fine D-candidates have run in the south; with the exception of Virginia, and Florida, there are no statewide office holders with a D behind there names in what was the old confederacy and all the border states, save Maryland. Given your 2030 feelings about the Democrats of 2017, they would have to regress 80 years on socio-economic policy and philosophy to be competitive in the South. I think the luster of Donald Trump is his restive rhetoric to restore the luster of a bygone era when everyone knew their place in society. The Bible belters are also enamored with this restoration. The Dems need new leadership, and chip away at the southwest. The south is lost for them.
If Mr. Douthat believes, as he harps on incessantly, that abortion should be far more rare, then he should do a series of detailed columns about how to expand sex education programs and birth control access. That would be something that "liberals" could easily get on board with, and far more useful than this reiterated dogma.
3
This is tiresome. Abortions very rarely occur after 20 weeks, and when they do it's for justifiable medical reasons. Ross Douthat and the men who run the Catholic church can assert all they want that zygotes are persons, birth control is a "grave evil" and women shouldn't have control over their reproductive lives. Pretending to believe such nonsense isn't an acceptable electoral strategy for the Democrats.
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Excellent.
1
More than tiresome, and more than nonsensical--it's almost Trumpian, both in terms of truth-telling and in terms of political sanity. CDC statistics for 2013 showed 1.3% of the total reported, medically-supervised abortions were after 20 weeks, or roughly 8,600. Of those, reliable estimates are that over 90% are specifically related to baseline fetal viability or maternal survival. That means, then, approximately 850 abortions per year that could be understood to be in any real way "elective," after 20 weeks. And even then, there are wrenching medical, psychological and spiritual dimensions that are not in any way pertinent to (most of) the good folks with whom Ross thinks Democrats ought to compromise. No--they are not thinking primarily about those ~850 women, nor are they thinking about compromise. They are thinking about an end to safe, legal and rare abortion. Absolutely.
3
Wrong.
The problem isn't with what he said, but the way he said it. He should have simply said that he believes in a woman's right to choose, but that both sides should come together to find ways to reduce the number of abortions.
Democrats don't need to change their policies- on most issues large majorities already agree with them. They have to get better at selling their policies and themselves.
I realize that this is an exercise in "imagination," not reason. And I understand that I'm supposed to imagine how Alabamians think, and what Democrats should do to win that state.
The trick I'm supposed to accomplish is to imagine myself as less rational than I am, or at least imagine myself pretending to be.
When I do that I concur with Alabamians that abortions after 20 weeks are just like early abortions, except with a more developed fetus. Abortion after 20 weeks is just "family planning" for procrastinators, but more horrible, grading eventually into infanticide. (The truth is that "abortions" NEVER occur in the U.S. extremely late in pregnancy as Donald Trump ignorantly claimed during the campaign; what happens then is more properly called an emergency C-section, with every attempt made to save the baby.)
The truth (shouldn't that matter?) is that the farther into a pregnancy an abortion occurs, the more likely it is to be for serious medical reasons, and such abortions are quite rare compared to early term abortions. People don't have late term abortions because they changed their mind, or because they just didn't get around to it sooner.
Progressives used to dealing with the rabid right aren't willing to submit the test of medical necessity to the approval of other persons' religious beliefs. They prefer to keep the moral decision closest to where it most matters, and where it can be exercised most sincerely.
Maybe that can be explained to Alabamians.
1
I take serious exception with the way this op-ed equates stupid positions with progressivism and portrays conservative-lite as being practical. That's a spurious picture that Mr. Douthat paints.
Once and for all, progressives are not insisting on some kind of ideological purity. We're insisting on common sense positions, bold leadership, and a system that is not beholden to special interests, e.g., corrupt. A Medicare-For-All system is not radical. It's how we get the best healthcare for the best price--common sense. What's radical, truly radical, is the system we now have, that bankrupts millions and leaves millions more without healthcare. That's not just radical, it's insane and immoral.
Yes, I agree that a politician stating that they support abortion at any stage of a pregnancy is just plain stupid, and should not be seen as progressive. And, yes, the Democrats need a serious approach on immigration, one that has clear limits, not because that is what will win them votes, but because that is common sense. We have to regulate our borders.
Why does the Democratic Party have to be so mealy mouthed about everything? They need to grow a backbone and argue for sanity, and continue making that argument until sanity returns to this country.
3
You would think a conservative could wrap his/her head around an idea of pro-choice, that they wouldn't want to allow the government to tell them what they can or can't do with their bodies. Instead, all they hear is baby-killers. Conservatives hate Planned Parenthood which reduced abortions more than any Bible-Thumper ever did.
Ross, no one, not even liberals "like" abortion. It's a deeply personal trauma, that education and assistance can help alleviate.
2
Required reading for any an all Democrats in office and who may be running in the future. We need a competitive view that doesn't have to match the Right but has to be consistent with what most people believe. That is the point here. Being "holier than thou," won't cut it.
Ross is correct. These comments are an echo chamber preaching to the coastals, of which I am one. (If you want to see how the other half does the same thing in their echo chamber, go read the comments on WSJ.) Cultural issues are killing the Democrats in flyover country. The Dems will never win anything as long as they emphasize identity shoutouts and unfettered (oh, excuse me, undocumented) immigration over economics. Why do you think Trump keeps doubling down on his missteps and lies? It's because he will never lose his base as long as Dems keep leading with losing cultural issues. (You may not LIKE that they're losers, but they are, the explanatory comments here on 20-week abortions notwithstanding.) There is only one winning issue--the economy. One might ask why it is that the Dems don't lead with that. For the answer, look at whom they're beholden to, or perhaps I should say, "Google" it.
2
Fine article. As a social conservative and economic liberal I have no one to vote for with any degree of enthusiasm. As a Christian I hate making the choice between the murderers of infants and the oppressors of the poor.
The perfect being the enemy of the good, vote for Doug Jones. The vast majority of his positions will help Americans, not hurt them.
Electing Moore to the Senate is a nightmare for everyone. Moore will give more migraines to his fellow Republicans, than to Democrats who will use him as a bogeyman in their congressional ads in fall 2018.
Doug Jones for Senate.
While, as a practical matter, I can see the wisdom of at least professing a 3rd trimester limit on legal abortion, there IS at least an academic argument for removing even that compromise: As long as Mother Nature is committing what we would call 'infanticide' on full-term infants, with or without the acquiescence of the Mother and/or family or any human intervention to the contrary, we should question ANY legal limits on what Nature is already doing to the female gender of our species.
We're already not in full control of what happens to a developing infant inside the mother. Every day, for reasons that still mystify our best medical experts, Nature removes unborn infants at various stages of development from having a life outside the womb. An additional, arbitrary, legal restriction on top of that incipient helplessness is really just using the mother as a scapegoat so the rest of us can feel AS IF we are exercising control over something we really don't yet have.
I find that, together with the willingness to use our public institutions of justice and punishment to enforce such a restriction on the female person, to be equally morally repugnant.
I find it oh so strange that Ross seems to embrace concerns about life when DJT has threatened to unleash nuclear war on this planet. Using those weapons will bring about the death of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. I do not think such a policy or act is about preserving the sanctity of life. Yet what do we hear from Ross ... crickets.
He looks the other way as an uncaring Congress plots to defund children's healthcare while slashing Medicare and Medicaid to give gigantic welfare benefits to our overlord billionaire class. We near nothing about such an obscenity from our conservative moralists.
This, like all of Ross' columns, always is tinged with a Scrooge-like sneer. Frankly he needs to look in the mirror and quit telling the rest of us that somehow being a conservative is "moral" and "better" than being a liberal. I have always found it peculiar that so many "preachers of the Gospel" obsess about abortion while drawing huge salaries enabling them to live like kings. They make faux gestures about helping the poorest among us. I pray that they will some day they will realize that faith is about engaging with life and making it better for the weakest among us; of advocating that we punish the poor. It is a peculiar moral position. Ross take a few minutes and meditate on AJ Hershel's words before you writing another hectoring column: "The sins of the poor are more beautiful than the good deeds of the rich."
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Here is the question for the Presidential Debate: "How many genders are there?" If you don't answer "2" then abandon all hopes of winning the election.
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I watched the clip from the MSNBC interview with Doug Jones. (Link is in 4th paragraph of Mr. Douthat's article). He did not say what Mr. Douthat quotes him as saying. Ross, did *you* even watch it? You do not strengthen your arguments (which are usually excellent) by simply misquoting people.
2
"Imagine" and nothing less. You are a square stick in the mud. Yes, I would rather lose every election from now until I die than give in to "cultural conservatism." We need to force the break, and if it breaks the wrong way, so be it. Bill Clinton, and Hillary, have no principles. They are just trying to get to the center of the electorate, so that, when, if, they get power, there is no movement, just status quo.
Change! Fundamental, earth-shaking change. That's the ticket.
32
@ Marvin
(1) You really don't know the Clintons well enough to make such a
that absolute judgment about their principles.
(2) The Founders purposely and specifically designed our Constitution to limit "fundamental, earthshaking chsnge." Your quarrel is with them, not with the Clintons, who simply operated by the rules laid out in the Constitution.
I'm not sure why you see Clintons as the enemy, rather than regressive Republican plutocrats. What are your motives, and by what mechanism do you expect "earthshaking change" to occur? Or are you a Republican in disguise, trying to give D's advice on how to -- in your words -- "lose every election."
“If it breaka the wrong way, so be it.” This is a NYT pick??? Do you have any idea what happens to women when things break the wrong way? Hillary spent her life advocating for women, families, and children. She knows, as most women know, that women have to be very careful with change as the backlash is so severe (only men, white men in particular can strut with “so be it” statements) not only politically, but at work, at places of worship, and in their own homes. Democracies necessarily tend toward center, as everyone gets a vote and everyone has different circumstances. Hillary is a person who has worked extremely hard, has done her homework, and earned her place (in the Oval Office as well, if we were a majority-ruled democracy). To oversimplify her without any reference or acknowledgement of her contributions to women (you know, the 50%of the population who bleeds for 35 years, goes through 9 months of pregnancy, 20 hours of labor and then delivery - though easily forgotten as the parent who does no work gets to name the baby) - is lazy and childish. All or nothing grandstanding is school age bravado - and we have to much of that silliness already. Do your homework - and NYT do yours.
1
Well, of course. Abortion is a temporal spectrum over time, at one end practically indistinguishable from contraception and at the other end practically indistinguishable from infanticide. What could be clearer?
1
Ever get the impression when columnists run dry on what to write, the fall back mode is to bash Democrats? It's the same article every time. If the writer wants Democrats to succeed, you'll could have fooled me.
Here's something to communicate to the readers:
Former Congressman David Jolly (R- FL) recently said he personally wondered if the country would be safer “if Democrats take over the House in 2018.”
And said he raised this issue with another Republican who had been thinking “the same thing.”
An issue, Mr. Jolly said. is the Republican Congress hasn’t been doing anything to check Trump’s power.......He repeated--as to the Democrats--
“We might be better off as a republic if they take the House in 2018.”
"Some of these voters pulled the lever not once but twice for Barack Obama,"
Positive identification of those "voters" are about as common as confirmed sightings Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
But I digress.
At least our most far out lefties this side of Communism are plausibly sane.
The same cannot be said of the your party, whose "mainstream" has warmly embraced and in turn been infected by the the racist alt right and conspiracy "theorists" who traffic and revel in ignorant nincompoopery that an average fifth grader could discern as fraudulent.
I'd rather aspire to live in 2030 than 1830, which when you get right down to it is always the problem between Democrats and Conservatives.
Sounds like RD just volunteered to chair the DNC, Debbie's gone I heard, don't see why!
1
I wish we had a rational, moderate party. The donkeys and elephants can stay where they are.
if democrats are not willing to be competitive in the bible belt then they are going to have to abandon their socialist tendencies. the democrats in california are already getting to the point of no return. the proposal there to for a 400 billion dollar single payer medical insurance bill was an indication of that. the republicans tend to be fascists and the democrats socialists. with fascism you lose your freedom but with socialism you lose both your freedom and your economic well being. which do you think americans are going to chose.
2
The Democrats, slaved to progressive our-way-or-else thinking, will not win another presidential election for a generation.
The hate training being presented here, at the WaPo, at CNN, and all the funded blogs from Slate-fail to HuffPo-fail to MediaMatters-fail and dozens of others, only train people to fear and hate. That kills off any chance they could ever work with anyone, eveen other progressives.
Garrison Keillor saw this coming years ago. Fundamentalists can onmly keep shearing off into smaller and smaller sects.
1
Mr. Douthat gets the Carly Fiorino award for smearing and manipulating Mr. Jones stand on Rove v Wade.
2
I have never heard of Doug Jones advocating abortions at 39-40 weeks. He says that Roe vs. Wade is the law and women should have the freedom to make their own choices. Roy Moore is a wackadoodle to be sure, but I think that Doug Jones biggest hurdle to get over is that he, as a US attorney, convicted two members of the KKK in the bombing of the Baptist Church in Birmingham. This is Alabama, and someone who finally got justice for four little black girls may not fly with a significant number of voters.
1
Tell you what Mr. Douthat, as soon as your party can decide whether or not it wants to be the party of white nationalism and ethnic cleansing, then you can lecture us Democrats on social policy. Until then, please stick to pretending you haven't enabled the current politics of the right.
1
Sex obsession is what got he Princes of the Church in so much trouble. Endless curiosity and diddling almost ruined the institution. That said, why not focus on the hundreds of thousands of lives taken in the Civil War, where our Bible Belt brethren killed to keep slavery, the hundreds of thousands of living African families torn asunder by slavers ripping them from Africa, or the ten of thousand lynched by Southerners refusing to admit loss and instead (re)constructing Jim Crow instead of a just society - to this day perpetuating disenfranchisement and violence?
Because there is no link to a prurient fascination with sex and body parts? Oh, to be a cultural conservative.
1
Agree with most of the others, the only reasonable pro choice is Bill Clinton's. I DO NOT WANT OTHER PEOPLE MAKING MY MOST PERSONAL DECISIONS FOR ME. End of life choices are next, as witness Jeb Bush's OUTRAGEOUS attempt to bring the state of Florida into the Teri Schiavo case (look it up!!!!!!). The decision around abortion belongs to the woman carrying the baby and God.
I suppose you could consider me a textbook “Blue State Bleeding Heart Liberal Snowflake”? (Not my choice of title, but let’s continue the theme..) I studied Women’s Studies in college, have lived in the PNW my entire life, worked down the street from Amazon, had a PFLAG sticker on my car in high school, and flew across the country last January to enthusiastically participate in the Women’s March on Washington. I even wore a pinkpussyhat. I am a fervent believer that all humans must be able to make decisions about their own bodies/lives for this to actually be a “land of the free.”
However, I have never, ever advocated for late term abortion, nor heard anyone in my classrooms/social circles/marches claim that babies should be killed “until they emerge blue and flailing from the womb.” Everrrrrr.
Come. On. Man.
I love babies! I love them enough to want them born into loving homes to responsible parents who are capable of actually caring for them.
This violent, exaggerated, charged rhetoric is a huge part of the problem, Ross. By casually spreading misinformation and framing the abortion debate as infanticide performed on full term infants - instead of embryonic pregnancies ended responsibly by women with agency and need - you are the perfect example of why Democrat’s aren’t winning the abortion debate:
Too much fake news.
2
Mr. Douthat, save your tears for the destruction of your own party - lead by Steve Bannon. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer pale by comparison as radicals to Bannon, who will likely get more "Roy Moores" elected.
Many Republicans probably read your articles, even though more now consider you suspect as a true Republican. So, you are helping elect more extremists like Roy Moore when you falsely charge Doug Jones with supporting infanticide - claiming he favors abortion "right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb". That is false and inflammatory. Doug Jones supports Roe vs. Wade and other Supreme Court decisions which say abortion is legal only until fetal viability and a woman has the right to make the decision about whether or not she will have an abortion up to that point. That is the law of the land and Doug Jones is just standing up for that.
So, please stick to your knitting and try to repair the shredding fabric of your party. We do need a functioning two party system.
1
Sir, YOU are either mistaken in your interpretation of the candidates words OR hoping that YOUR version of them is the take away. He was NOT suggesting very late term abortion as a contraceptive or as " baby killing".
He has stated the need for legal, later abortions when the Mother will probably die OR the fetus is dead or dying and WILL cause serious problems for the pregnant Woman. You know, like almost ALL the " later" abortions now done. But obviously, the Woman and her health, her very life, is insignificant. To the zealots, the power mad, the panderers.
Who would YOU choose to live , SIR? Your Wife, or her fetus? I'm really curious. And it's also MY business, right???? RIGHT?????
2
Conservatives have never been "pro-life." They claim to be "pro-fetus," but would institute Death Panels for would-be mothers as well as their newborns, not to mention to tens of millions of Americans with inadequate insurance coverage. Conservatives lack a conscience, morals, & an ethical compass. They are for themselves & no one else. They also want to injure those of us who work hard for a living while further rewarding those billionaires who are predators upon the rest of us. They would remove any & all regulations protecting us from the NRA-sponsored murderers, greedy corporate criminals who bilk the honest and pollute our food, water, air, and land. They claim that they are Christian, but their words, deeds, & hypocrisies would enrage Jesus to the point that his turning over the tables in the Temple would only be a mini-eruption compared to the eternal punishments that Conservatives have waiting for them in Hell.
Now, Conservatives, prove me wrong! Yes, I am talking to all of you who live in red states as well as blue ones. O, & those of you who are anti-choice: be so for yourself; don't you even dare to impose your religious belief upon those of us who will make our own personal, medical choices -- with or without your permission. That goes one thousandfold for every woman's right to have access to birth control medication. If men can get free Viagra, women will get free birth control. And recall that birth control meds are used for numerous medical conditions.
2
As a retired, Liberal Democrat with a net worth that puts me in the top 20% of affluent Americans, let me say that I know better than most people as to how we should govern ourselves. I'm right. Period. My morality is impeccable.
If the deplorable voters of America cannot understand this, then they are welcome to those they elect. I will not change and they will eventually have to come around to my way of thinking or suffer the consequences of their own stubbornness and ignorance. And stupidity! There!
7
Douthat takes a reasonable proposition articulated by a Democratic candidate - that abortion should not be categorically banned after 20 weeks of gestation - and spins it into support for infanticide. He should be ashamed.
Which party is truly opposed to the life of an infant? The GOP wants to defund or eliminate Head Start, CHIP, SNAP and doesn’t support extended parental leave. The GOP wants to reduce governmental support for public education. The GOP wants to allow toxic levels of certain chemicals known to interfere with healthy childhood development into the environment. The GOP is opposed to school lunch programs, and after school programs. And college loan programs.
I would say, if I were completely cynical, that the GOP presumes that the children who would benefit from such programs - the hope being that they grow up and become productive citizens - would become Democrats.
Somewhat less cynically, it’s likely that, given that the costs associated with being vigorously anti-abortion are virtually nil, it’s a more fiscally prudent position to adopt. Contraception, sex education programs, Planned Parenthood all require funding. Entitlements for the unworthy and undeserving.
What Douthat speciously describes as support for infanticide is actually a Democratic candidate’s support for the child after it comes into the world. And that is the overwhelmingly better position to take. That is the message that needs to be - and will be - clearly articulated.
15
Ross gets some of this right. Uncompromising pro-abortionist extremists and the architects of identity politics have done the Democratic Party unspeakable harm. But this has nothing to do with the Party being somehow too "leftist." As Ross could have learned by taking Bernie Sanders seriously, Democrats have settled on these issues precisely to the degree that they are reluctant to stand up to Big Money. The solution to their problems is not to push further to the right. Instead, they should be printing one very simple sign in literally hundreds of millions of copies: "Tax the Rich." They should distribute the signs, get people out on the streets of every city and town in America, and otherwise just shut up.
1
Joseph, how will taxing the rich assure the fundamental civil rights of women, people of color, non-Christians, LGBTQ and other minorities?
The easy answer: It won't.
It didn't in the 30's, it didn't in the 60's, and it won't in 2017. I am not willing "to shut up" about my civil rights, or yours, or anyone else's.
Bernie was right about income inequality. But he was wrong to speak as if it was the only problem that counted. He had it backwards. We will only achieve economic equality when men and women, people of all races, religions and orientations can unite as true equals, as the 99% vs. the 1%, with no one's rights or opportunities seen as disposable.
It's easy to tell other people to shut up about issues that don't affect you. It is harder to listen respectfully to others, and fight for their issues as hard as you fight for your own. But that is what it ei take to effect change.
I left the (now repugnant) party many years ago when it decided to bring evangelical Christians into their fold with social issues like extreme anti-abortion, anti-contraception, and prayer in the schools, etc. Now they prey on the uninformed with issues of racism. anti-immigration, anti-public schools, anti-environmentalism, anti-healthcare, and anti-assistance for the poor. The Democrats have many moderate stances to take against the Republicans in upcoming elections. I hope they can find the necessary upcoming moderate to left charismatic candidates to win over Trumpism. I would also note that Bernie Sanders needs to stop haranguing Democrats with his far-left issues. He has had his day. He is NOT a Democrat, but is a meddlesome Independent who contributed to Hillary's loss.
6
Many readers have mis-read Douthat's column. He is not attempting to convince the reader that limiting abortion rights is a good idea. Rather he is suggesting that in order to woo moderate voters necessary to win elections in certain races, a compromise on abortion is necessary. Compromise has become a dirty word in American politics today. Politicians who seek compromise are routinely accused of selling out. Yet, to govern a deeply divided nation, we need to elect politicians willing to reach a policy that few find totally satisfactory but most can live with. The alternative is gridlock and alienation, which is what we are experiencing today.
80
Absolutely. Which of YOUR civil rights would YOU like to compromise?
Perhaps your right to travel freely...or get paid for your work...or seek educational opportunities? No? How about your right to visit certain kinds of doctors...to refuse a risky medical treatment...or to accept a safe treatment for a risky condition? How about your right to make your own most personal decisions about your health, your family and your future?
Would you be willing to compromise on those? Because if your own answer is no, then don't expect half of us to compromise our basic rights for your political convenience. Reproductive rights are human rights.
That the Republicans have ran so far right on this issue and most others, returning to the "center" would still be an extreme right position. It's a negotiating strategy. Go to one extreme and then, in feigning to be reasonable, return to the new center, which is still an extreme position.
This is not how compromise works. It similar to offering $50.00 for an item someone has for sale for $300.00 (that is worth $300.00), and then increasing the offer to $150.00 to seem reasonable. This is what the Republicans do in politics. Accepting the $150.00 offer is not compromising or being reasonable, it is selling out. So yes, in the current political climate, compromise has become a pejorative, and rightly so.
1
"Rather he is suggesting that in order to woo moderate voters necessary to win elections in certain races, a compromise on abortion is necessary."
I'll bet you any amount of money that (a) if the Russians had done nothing to influence the election (even supposing Trump's gang didn't collude with them) by using Facebook and Twitter and other social media, and (b) if places like North Carolina and Wisconsin had not made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for voters to actually vote, Clinton would have won the electoral college to go with her 3 million popular vote margin. So the nonsense about having to kowtow and compromise with racists (the biggest statistical factor in whether someone voted for Trump was racism) is just that: nonsense.
Some things cannot be compromised, and abortion is at the top of that list. How do you compromise with someone who says that birth control and abortion are evil, because God told them so? How do you compromise with someone who believes in a 10,000 year old universe? How do you compromise with a racist or a Nazi? And you are right, there is alienation, because such beliefs as those above, whether for or against, don't have any common ground whatsoever. I'm certainly not going to compromise on any of those issues.
2
So many ways to slice and dice this. Would all the card carrying Republicans who voted for Trump last November, vote for him again today? Probably not. Ross suggests, however, that they will vote for Trump again unless Democrats pull to the center. For the sake of saving the nation, Democrats have to tack to the right, but otherwise sensible Republicans will be given a pass if they, once again, put party before country and vote for Trump. Sorry, Ross. If Trump is as bad as you say he is - and I agree one hundred percent - then your job is to convince otherwise sensible, country-loving Republicans, to wake from their irresponsible slumber and vote the other ticket. There is a hierarchy of needs here. The first is to get rid of Trump.
5
I fail to understand why abortion defines a Democrat these days. When faced with the elimination of medical care for millions, attacks on Medicare and Social Security in the wings, along with the repeal of the New Deal, how come one issue causes Democrats to lose? Why cannot some Democrats simply give up on the one issue which may be the cause of the losses?
2
Abortion has evolved into the red herring of modern American politics. Sound, fury, and... no change.
Meanwhile our pockets are being picked.
That's what socially conservative, fiscally libertarian gets you.
3
Ross continues to make wedge issues like a woman’s right to choose the Center of political discuss by promoting anti-Choice positions. History will not look favorably at the GOP’s brazen attempts to control the womb
2
Pretty much all ideas without considering their setting sound extreme. A well-balanced, sane, and outreaching candidate should be able to be elected regardless of party. However, money has distorted every single election. The pre-election reports give scorecards on how much money each competing candidate has won and draws a direct correlation between their money and their poll numbers (and ultimately their votes.) Until we take money out of our elections, we are selling our candidates to the highest bidder -- either party.
As we see now, the GOP is selling their tax cut policy as (1) a middle class tax reform plan which is an out-an-out lie, (2) the GOP party will die if this tax bill -- no matter how bad --does not pass, and now (3) the stock market will crash if this bill does not pass. In other words, two threats and one lie are the GOP's selling point. And the honest, upstanding GOP Congressmen standing against this plan? Right now you can count them on one hand mostly missing fingers.
Surely, we can find candidates to go against these elected officials who are legislating against our nation's electorate and for their personal donors?
1
"Abortion" seems to be THE" go to" issue for "cultural conservatives" seeking to eliminate the "middle." "Pro-life" after the child's born, to most people, means ensuring that the born child, and, I would hope, the child's mother, have access to food, medical care and shelter. Many self-described "pro-life" people are more than happy to abandon mother and child after the child is born, and/or happier yet to provide sustenance to the baby by taking the baby and funneling that child into another, often, right wing male headed family. Late term abortions are not now performed in clinics familiar to anti-choice and pro-choice people. The young Mr. Douthat was not alive when pregnant girls, some of them underage rape victims, were handled by Gilead- like authorities in ways which could ONLY have been intended to terrorize the girls and maybe kill two birds with one stone. There is a recent history of this in Ireland, Canada and here and there in the NE USA. I was raised Catholic and I was taught as early as the second grade that my body was an occasion of sin for which I had to suffer so I would know what NOT to do when the time came. Not all values education is valuable or educational. I suppose that if Mr. Douthat had been born and an adult back in the 1960's when I was tied flat on my back, barely able to breath in a cold dark religious institution, he'd be praying humbly over Sunday dinner that "God's will be done." "Imagine!"
1
On abortion, interestingly some Democrats sound more like libertarians--it's an agonizing decision, but a woman should have the right, almost up until birth, to abort a child. Rand Paul might like the purity of that argument, but polls have shown that most other people don't.
While Harry Blackmun's Roe v. Wade standard, which was based more or less on weeks of pregnancy, was likely a judicial overreach, it solved a problem and gave people some rough lines they could understand. "All or not all" arguments are fine for ideologues, but not for people who have to make these life-altering decisions.
Like the majority of Americans, I am sick and tired of ideologues controlling the debate and commandeering the messaging. Where are the pragmatists? Did Facebook and Twitter use gamma rays to destroy them?
1
His voters don't want to be wooed. We tried supporting healthcare for them and they can't wait until they don't have it. We tried "green" jobs to help them transition from coal and they laughed at that. We begged for middle class tax cuts and they support only tax cuts for the wealthy. We wanted to help them with cheaper prescription drugs and they only support big pharma, even as they become addicted to opioids. All we really asked is that they be nice to blacks, latinos and gay people, and that was out of the question. So the ball is in their court. The things they want are the things we want. They just can't stop hating us.
3
Jones responded to a question about legal status with an answer about legal status. He didn’t say he favored abortion and that right there is the problem. Lawyers answer questions like lawyers and Democratic candidates aren’t as good at manipulating the emotions of the electorate. If anything, Democrats are too rational. To really find out what he thinks about abortion, ask him how he would council a family member who came to him considering an abortion. Perhaps he believes it wrong personally, but doesn’t want to impose his views on others. Thus, he might simultaneously be anti-abortion and pro-choice. Such a discussion would require nuance, patience, dialogue, and the acceptance of nuance, but I guess it’s just easier to call him a proponent of infanticide and move on.
1
It really does not matter - american style democracy - has failed - and the fat lady has sung - we now live in a corporate welfare state ruled by and existing for the enrichment of the 1%. The 99% are canon fodder for the kleptocracy.
2
Ross,
It is not up to the Democrats to become the Republican Party for which you ache.
And, by the way, Obama managed to win
1
Well said Mr. Douthat. We liberals are doomed to more of what we have now if we can't move forward and outward from the current narrow vision toward compromise.
We need real leaders of the Democratic ticket who can actually set a clear vision and pull us forward rather just reacting to the tweets.
39
The last I checked, Democrats still need to win state houses in Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and other centrist states to take back the House of Representatives.
Do whatever you want in solidly liberal states like New York, California, and Washington, but centrism equals power. Don't forget those were the states that we lost to Trump that would have made all the difference.
2
It seems that ever since the Tom Eagleton debacle, Jimmy Carter's loss to an empty suit who is now the saintly sage, and Michael Dukakis's ride in a tank while Willy Horton menaced his way through a turnstile and into our living rooms, the Democrats have never had at least one solid foot to stand on that they couldn't shoot themselves in. Clinton, despite his many achievements, was far too Blue Dog for my tastes and ultimately self-destructed. Obama was my hero, often conflated rational discourse and political engagement. And now, most of his greatest achievements may be completely upended by a morally bankrupt sociopath. My parents never finished high school. My father, who barely finished 9th grade, spent most of his life as a laborer, yet was president of his local union for several decades. I was born into a Democratic family in an economically depressed county run by rich Republicans. And I still can't figure out why all of those poor Democrats kept voting for the very people that kept them poor and in their place. If Trump has taught us nothing, it is that it is long past the time for profound change in both parties. The Democrats need new leadership at the top as much as they need new elected officials in local government. It's time to rethink things, Bigly. Those who reject Mr. Douthat's argument will be looking down the same empty well for another generation, wondering why they are so thirsty.
2
Who are the Democrats?
Are they the far left progressive personified by Bernie Sanders? Are they middle of the road capitalists? Do they have their own purity tests? Who are their constituents? In the last election, it seemed as if they had decided that anyone who earned less than $100,000 need not apply, is that still true?
What do Democrats stand for? Who are their leaders? We are approaching 36 months to the next Presidential election. The fact that I can't answer these questions is a very bad sign. Winter Is Coming.
1
Ross, you have a good point here. The issue for both right wing and left wing seems to come down to a fear that if they give in a little bit the other side will rush in and move the line a little further to their side. It has certainly been true for anti abortionist. They get laws to cover late term abortions and then they start work to get it under 18 weeks. They can’t be happy with a compromise. They want a 100% win. The pro choice groups are not dumb and see theses folks have no real plan to compromise so they start pushing all out on any restrictions. Ross, the work needs to be to get the conservatives to actually get back to making compromises that stick and are not seen as ways to move the targets. This pertains to many issues not just abortion. The Tea Party types do not believe in Democracy that is the real issue. The adults have left the Republican Party in favor of school boy bullies.
What the Democrats lack is a couple of Machiavellian brothers with a hundred billion between them calling the shots of the party like politics is unlimited war with a narrow, single minded goal.
That is an army that is difficult to beat, when yours has no such coordination or unlimited funding or the willingness to win any way you can, even if it means actually creating movements and forming alliances with people who have no idea what you are trying to do.
The Ayn Rayndian army has chalked up the victories, even taken over Trumps cabinet and are holding the federal government as their prisoner. Now they have to figure out how to drown it without most of their soldiers really figuring out what they've done.
1
The Handmaid's Tale is on HULU not Netflix. And this is just one of the errors with this article. Democrats have not learned their lesson or do they have any concrete plans to actually win elections. The problem is not a left leaning Democrat party, the main problem is a Democrat party controlled by donors who could care less about anyone or any issue that does not benefit them. Perez, like many Clintonians, is about to remake the board of the DNC with lobbyists who will also be super delegates . How is this transforming the party system of neoliberalism ? It is not. The Democrats will never be bold and will continue to lose and cave into the GOP tantrums and then somehow spin it so it is not their fault instead of accepting responsibility and changing. Unfortunately, the Democrats still believe in conning the American voters with the lesser of two evils philosophy and Clinton's loss should have been a wake up call to abandon that thinking.
Coastal Democrats don't seem to realize that the majority in this country is center-right. For them to put up a candidate like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would ensure Trump's reelection. Eight years of wealth redistribution and limp growth under President Obama did not help the middle class. Pundits like Larry Sabato, who assumed that demographic changes would give Democrats power for eternity were dead wrong. To many moderates and conservatives, the immigration open-door policy of the Democratic party, was a cynical effort to import more votes. Every action brings an equal and opposite reaction.
4
In what way was Obama's immigration policy "open door"? He deported far more undocumented people than Bush did. The Deamers are, for all practical purposes, dual citizens who could process through our system and make valuable, practical contributions to our country as well as show we are hospitable to neighbors. Central American children are refugees fleeing gang violence and murderous, apolitical forces against whom they cannot contend, and our Central American policies and appetite for drugs causes their flight.
1
There is a larger structural issue here, and both parties demonstrate it. Our national leadership is so far removed from the electorate, by priviledge, wealth and culture, both Democrat and Republican, they no longer understand how to represent us. Their task is to support a vanishingly small donor class, and at the same time gull us into believing they are concerned about life in the bottom 99% of the barrel.
While I understand that Democrats may need to play politics in the South, how is it that the Republican can nominate screwballs and worse and their spokesmen act as if nothing bad has happened. We need a profiles in courage moment from those in office - not just from columnists.
Oh, and despite all that this writer fears, no late term abortions are tantamount to baby killing. The later term abortions occur when later pregnancy tests reveal a problem with the fetus that was not possible to detect earlier. Later term abortions are real tragedies.
I would caution my liberal friends not to disagree with this op-ed piece, but rather embrace its points that the Democratic Party if they actually want to leave the electoral morass they’ve found themselves in need to move more towards the center. Rabidly holding on to your “I hate all things Trump and therefore will maintain purity to the leftist of left” will only cause more shock and dismay the day after the next election. Those of us, the middle electorate, don’t scream like the far left or the far right, but we do vote and frankly we are tired of the screaming aloud about confederate statues, racist everything, and resist anything that the GOP looks at (the “threat” of tax cuts has moved the stock market to more record highs, which not only helps investors, but your sacred teacher unions and their retirement accounts also). In fact we are more tired of the left’s screaming bloody murder about everything than we are tired of Trump’s ridiculous tweeting. Ignore this at your own peril.
1
It wasn't people pulling levers who elected Trump it was the people who were prevented from pulling levers.
1
"Now I am a cultural conservative, so naturally issues like abortion and immigration are the places where I would like the Democratic Party to move closer to the center."
A lot of cultural conservatives favor granting personhood to every fertilized egg, outlawing birth control and criminalizing homosexuality. Those are extreme right wing views. Is Ross even aware of that?
1
Let me get this straight. In order for the Democrats to be competitive with Republican candidates in the Red States then they must become republicans. Never mention that despite an overwhelming Southern Republican presence in Washington it remains mired in the bottom quadrant of most if not all social indices which measure the well-being of the citizenry. Apparently they resent it to be reminded that their guns & god mantra makes them an outlier not only in the US but the civilized world. The Dems have been betrayed too many times by Blue Dog Democrats in the past. What makes you think they'd be any different today?
Oh, and Ross, it only becomes infanticide when it is an infant. There is no justification for the government to assume they have any rights to decisions a woman might make over her own body.
What a strange country it is when there are more legal restrictions on having a uterus than having a lethal weapon.
1
Except Douthat wasn't being honest here, but playing a cheap emotional game often used by conservatives to manipulate voters.
At the heart of his argument, he states that Doug Jones, the Ala. Senate candidate "favors legal abortion, without restriction, right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb". This is a blatant misrepresentation, as well as manipulative & sensationalistic.
When asked if he would support a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, Jones said “I am a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body, and I’m going to stand up for that".
Rather than print a direct quote from Jones, and acknowledge that most abortions after 20 weeks are due to fetal abnormality difficult to detect until that point of the pregnancy, Douthat sought to portray Jones (and Democrats) in a manner as lurid and exaggerated as possible. Very few abortions are performed after 20 weeks--1 to 1.5 %, and as mentioned, they usually occur in cases of genetic abnormality or other medical issues. These cases can be particularly tragic & traumatic for the women involved, and illustrate clearly why these decisions should be between women & their doctors.
Douthat would rather portray Democrats as eager baby killers than discuss the facts, because most people wouldn't agree with forcing a woman to carry a dying or deformed fetus to term.
Playing on the emotions of the misinformed is the modus operandi of conservatives, & Republican party.
2
Highly disingenuous. What the Republicans have is an all out war on women. First abortion and now birth control. Let's cut to the chase. This is about making it impossible for women to enjoy worry-free sex either within or outside of marriage. Moreover, making it exceedingly difficult for women to control their own bodies would limit their ability to fully participate in the economy thus depriving our nation of half of its potential brain power in a knowledge based world. Is it possible that this attack on the United States seeks to return us to the middle ages when the rigid male hierarchy Rome was the leading temporal power?
1
Ross, it's not just abortion and immigration where Democrats go off the rails-with middle class voters. It's everything--including their leaders...Pelosi, Schumer, Warren, Sanders, Wasserman-Schultz--and all the other Socialists they elect. Their primary process literally makes it impossible for them to elect moderate candidates. These days, JFK could never run as a Democrat.
Until Democrats start to elect more mainstream candidates, their destiny will be an also-ran party. Specifically...these are the positions which hurt them with normal folks:
Anti-family (unfettered abortion)
Anti-achievement (hatred of successful people)
Anti-military
Anti-religion, anti-traditional values
Anti-rural
Anti-blue collar
Anti-southern U.S.
Anti-development
Anti-capitialism
Anti-energy
Anti-law enforcement
Anti-White
Anti-drug enforcement
Anti-immigration enforcement
Anti-school choice
Anti-right to work
Anti-first amendment (especially universities)
Anti-second amendment (would ban all guns)
Anti-vote verification
It's as if Democrats do not understand that all of their positions are extreme--and if they do understand, they simply do not care the the country is still center-right.
It's going to take one of their own to point it out. Until then, they will will continue to smugly alienate mainstream voters--and wail, whine and gnash their teeth at every election loss. I suspect Ross is right--they'd rather stick to their elitist dogma--than win elections.
2
President Obama gave his supporters a mistaken view of their political ascendancy ... the arc of history... that left them hugely disappointed and doubling down on the next step in what would have been the progressive ladder with a Hillary win. But it was and is all vapourous, though they think tantalizingly close and thus the resistance etc. Meanwhile Trump is ripping out the roots of long established progressive policies and worse, looking to gut the core progressive administrative power centers beloved by both republicans and democrats as useful levers of patronage and power. Yikes! Now both establishments are running to the barricades or scheming with insiders to stop the barbarian while Trumps supporters smell fear in the air and desperation and see a Sherman style total destruction of the globalist crony capitalist progressive mess that is in DC within their reach.
2
The Christian religion and the concept of abortion in America?
Various images and concepts cross my mind. The ancient Greeks and practice of infanticide, what Christians today would call not only not pro-life action but outright murder, yet arguably infanticide made for a higher quality Greek population, just as it appears to do so in the animal world (other species), if we tote up the Greek accomplishments.
Christianity holding abortion to be against life, that Christianity is pro-life, is something of an irony: Sure Christianity says be fruitful and multiply (and this view was perhaps born of staggering loss of children due to disease or other means in the past) but on the other hand this "pro-life" action is outright contradicted when we reflect the history of religion period can be written as a horrifying march against the better minds in society, that it is most definitely anti-life when we reflect its pernicious doctrine outright kills, brands as evil any human thought and action which does not fall into its purview (Bruno, Galileo obviously).
So the question really what will become of abortion and the concept pro-life in America? My belief is science will bypass the problem of abortion/infanticide and with genetic science begin to produce better quality human beings. Religion will no longer be allowed to hijack the concept of "pro-life" when so obviously religion cuts into the better minds of society, works against splendid genius. Science will define pro-life.
Ross, why must the Democrat back off on his position of legal abortion when a majority of voters agree that voters should be legal? Shouldn't the Republican back away from his extreme position of making it illegal? Imagine that whenver a politician says, "Abortion should be illegal in nearly all circumstances," you hear "I think women don't have agency and shouldn't have control over their own bodies"? See how that works?
1
Doug Jones did not, in fact, tell an interviewer that he favors legal abortion, without restriction, "right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb." There's a simple reason for that: I'm positive he doesn't believe that. This is a grotesque mischaracterization of even the most ardently pro-choice position.
The Democratic Party has been singularly inept in communicating its policies and priorities, and has repeatedly allowed itself to be villainized by distortions and outright lies. That's a fair criticism; but, Ross, if you really want rule by somebody other than "a bigot hostile to the rule of law and entranced with authoritarianism", then lending your voice to those distortions and lies is not the way to go. Pragmatism and honesty can begin at home.
2
Most of the commenters miss the point. Douthat is arguing for more centrist positions, using abortion as an example. But even that argument misses an important point - Clinton lost because of poor turnout in key states, including several that Obama won. Why? There is no such thing as an organized Democratic party. Obama's organization was based on his charisma, skillfully encouraged and exploited by a handful of savvy operatives. It owed very little to the DNC. The same thing occurs at the state government level. Maybe Democrats, appalled by Trump and encouraged by the loosely organized groups that comprise the Resistance, might win enough seats in Congress to force some serious bipartisan governing. And for long term progress Democrats have to win enough seats in state legislatures and enough governorships to undo some of the Republican gerrymandering. If so, the useful activities of the DNC might expand beyond organizing the 2020 national convention.
78
When did Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, etc., join the deep South. A sense of reality is required to turn the tide from the Right. Making cases for "why" is a waste of time. It happened and it is more complex than just pointing to the South or anywhere else.
This hits the nail on the head. To be more clear and blunt, Obama let the DNC and the local party organizations wither on the vine. He turned over far less of his campaign cash to them than any other recent president. It was a historic blunder. He has admitted as much, in veiled language, and has founded an organization to rebuild the local parties, headed by his former attorney general, Eric Holder. Too little too late, but better late than never.
1
Pundits like Mr. Douthat only wish that states like Miss. and Alabama had "center-right" voters for Democrats to poach in a general election. Trouble is what few there are already vote Democratic. He grossly underestimates just how reactionary the electoral majority has become in those states. Partisanship is now so welded to a person's social and religious identity that the ordinary Anglo voter is as likely to vote Democratic as she is to convert to Islam.
I think Professor M is correct. I would add that Democrats might ask some tough questions on why it is that Democratic voters keep splitting their tickets. Democratic states like Mass. vote for Republican Senators and Governors, but Republican state voters never return the favor. It's not all gerrymandering. Seems to me that instead of tilting at windmills in the Ole South, Democrats would be better served putting their own electoral house in order.
1
Douthat is right to say that if the Democrats want to take back Congress and eventually the White House, they must articulate realistic positions on social and economic issues that most Americans, including sensible "Republicans," favor. Now is not the time to tack to the extreme left. Wooing back former Obama voters who supported Trump with realistic, achievable proposals that address their anxieties (job loss, unenforced immigration restrictions, respect for religious freedom) is crucial. The one thing Democrats MUST NOT do is make Trump their central issue. His unfitness for the presidency is making itself clearer by the day. Harping on that, to the exclusion of the issues that directly impinge on people's lives, will only play into Trump's and a large segment of the population's hands. Get smart, Democrats!
Mr. Douthat once again shows what a crafty foe Democrats are up against.
The leaders of the Republican Party are all men, President Trump, Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan, and they constantly evoke fetuses, suggest that Planned Parenthood is an evil organization that should have no funding for its work -- while they are taking away funding for contraceptives, but funding Viagra.
If you want to lower the possibility of fetuses being ripped from a womb, Mr. Douthat, you should be advocating for sex education in schools and contraceptives, which should be made inexpensive and accessible for everyone.
Somehow, you only argue against the very act and not policies that would have a positive affect.
I wonder why that is. Mr. Douthat?
5
A 20 week ban (conveniently) coincides with the date when most women get their first ultrasound. A 20 week ban means that a woman who learns from that ultrasound that the baby she is carrying has a severe deformity and will not survive birth has no options except to carry it through to full-term delivery 20 weeks later. Learn at 20 weeks gestation that your baby doesn't have a brain stem, and will die during delivery? Too bad, so sad. Carry it to term and deliver a stillbirth child. That's what the pro-life movement wants. Your emotional pain and the physical risks you face is a small price to pay for their reassurance that
6
Our political line-up is a result of the current primary process which rewards the efforts of ideologues on both sides. The few create the choices to be chosen from by the many. Either de-democratize candidate selection by putting it back into the hands of party officials (elected); or by constitutional amendment create one-day/same-day open primaries with limitation on the amount of money that can be spent. The latter is not likely to happen.
1
Ross why is it when Republicans make a mess of things rather than seek to reform their own they look to Democrats to make the necessary adjustments and changes to set things back on some path toward normalcy. Trumpism is a creation of the insurgent, incompetent hostiles that have taken over the GOP. Trump wants women to no longer have free access to birth control but I don't recall him putting a stop to free Viagra. Republicans want to shut down Planned Parenthood. Republicans want to put an end to all abortions. Ross wants everyone to make babies in an over populated world.
I could see myself supporting a Democratic candidate that advocated no abortions after twenty weeks provided that he or she insist that we have adequate sex education in schools, provide cheap or free birth control and adequate prenatal care.
I realize the Republican Party is a shambles. Trump is a train wreck. So start at home Ross with trying to fix your own. President Obama set out to try and fix the mess left behind by Bush-Cheney. Mitch McConnell did not interject conservative thinking into the policy discussions but chose to throw down the gauntlet and declare war. Republicans need to fix this.
4
What nonsense. In other words, compromise your beliefs, deceive voters on how you will actually behave once in office, and in essence compromise your integrity and forego any pretense to political courage. This doesn't make you a Democrat. It makes you a Republican. Go ahead, vote for Trump, who believes in nothing, stands for nothing, and values nothing. What a degraded sense of what it means to be a conservative in the 21st century. If the people of Alabama can't tell the difference between Roy Moore and a competent candidate for office, how does that reflect negatively on the competent candidate? This myth of the unelectable liberal is getting tiresome. Go with what you believe--this is the whole meaning of political integrity. Everything else belongs to Frank Lunz and his focus groups.
9
Lets start with reality. HRC won almost 3 million more votes that Trump. Republican win in the racist South and largely through gerrymandering and voter suppression. There is not a lot of evidence that a majority of Americans favor Republican ideas and a lot that millennials are even more tolerant. Democrats have to be tougher and more realistic. There is no reason for Democrats not to nominate anti-abortion candidates to Congress who are otherwise more progressive than their Republican opponents. Bernie Sanders maybe more to the left than America but the Democratic Party is not. Douthat is selling fiction.
156
" There is not a lot of evidence that a majority of Americans favor Republican ideas"
The Dems have lost so many seats since 2008 that they control almost nothing. I would call that evidence that is overwhelmingly in favor of conservative ideas. Only one poll counts and that is election day results.
1
Until the structural changes that allowed the Republicans to win legally (e.g. gerrymandering, clustering of liberals in urban districts, equal votes in the Senate for the smallest of states relative to California), there's nothing to be gained by going on and on about all this.
Acquire power and then possibly push through changes that would make such structural impediments a thing of the past. Then, maybe the next HRC can actually win the election as most Americans desire.
1
No, Douthat is not selling fiction, though like you I wish he was. The energy and wind in the sails are now with the hard left, and they no longer feel the need to mask their politics as another piece in this fine publication demonstrates.
I wish we did see a big tent Democratic party as we need to promptly oppose this existential threat to our democracy and basic decency. But, the hard left, with the zealotry of a medieval prelate or a little red book waver of the Chinese cultural revolution, will have none of it.
2
Nobody favors what you attribute to Mr. Jones, including I am sure, Mr. Jones. If you removed all restrictions on abortion, late term abortions of healthy fetuses would not occur. No sane mother would ask for one, and no responsible doctor would perform one. Late term abortions are tragedies: medical disasters in which the fetus is dead or dying or allowing the pregnancy to continue would kill the mother. I would bet that finding a healthy fetus aborted at 8 or more months is like finding that family farm lost to inheritance taxes--you won't. Now, what Democrats say about abortion is another question. Democrats need to develop a line: of course we oppose late term abortions of healthy fetuses when the mother's life is not threatened. Doctors are the best people to make those decisions. We favor reducing the number of abortions by making sex education and contraception more available--something Republicans oppose. Republicans are the people who are really preventing us from reducing the number of abortions even more than we already have. My proposal needs work, but it's a start.
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rawebb1's proposal offers a rational option that a majority of people could probably accept.
The obstacle to this approach is the HYPOCRISY of the GOP, the same doublethink/doublespeak we see in their opposition to gun control, climate change initiatives, rational immigration policies, and the list goes on.
The GOP has taken to heart, in all aspects of our lives that the needs of corporations have prior claim over the needs of human beings.
I actually think Roe vs. Wade is one of the obstacles to the kind of sound proposal you're making. By making abortion a judicial rather than legislative matter, it took it out of the real of compromise. I think the fall of Roe vs. Wade could be a positive development for America. It would not mean the end of legal abortion.
Well reasoned and well stated, too bad the Democratic Party can't figure out how to represent these types of ideas well. Once again I fear they will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by picking the wrong fights and not stating cogent, clear, reasoned polices to address real issues affecting real people in their daily lives.
Let's set the WABAC(tm) to 2013. Democrats in Congress were trying to negotiate with their Republican counterparts. The GOP insisted that the Democrats had to make the first move, inevitably to the right. They then moved the goalpost further to the right; lather, rinse, repeat. You can only deal with people who negotiate in bad faith so many times before you throw up your hands and walk away. Long story short: that's how the 2013 government shutdown happened.
Arguing that the Democrats have to make all of the concessions, starting with abortion, isn't going to cut it, especially when people are starting to realize just what kind of a bill of goods the Republicans have been selling and are still selling (tax cuts for the rich, homicidal deregulation, lip service to the middle class, all seasoned with volatile social issues). It can't, and won't, go on forever.
4
Apparently, according to Mr. Douthat, a message based on truth and facts rather then ignorance, lies, hate, and hypcricy is not good enough for the American people.
For example, as far as those voters he talks about are concerned, its okay to kill people who are living, including children, as well as the unborn through lack of healthcare and adequate resources but not for a woman to make a choice about what is going on in her own body.
7
Let me see if I get this:
Declaring that life begins at conception is not extreme but allowing abortions to protect the mother's life, or in cases of rape or incest is.
Allowing unlimited access to any number of military-grade weapons to anyone who wants them with no restrictions is not extreme but asking for background checks is.
Refusing to allow families from war-torn countries into the U.S., and branding them all as terrorists, murderers and rapists is not extreme but carefully vetting them and offering them a safe homeland is.
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You're not wrong on any point, but allowing the Republicans to paint you as extreme (when you're clearly not) is the mistake you make when you cannot concede even the slightest bit.
Like it or not, but this country's politics are largely confined to the center. Whoever wins it wins.
Thanks Ross. Unfortunately Dems seem intent on killing the messengers who remind them that, gerrrymandering or no gerrymandering, (1) the U.S. Senate is comprised from two Senator from each state; (2) North Dakota, Georgia, Iowa and Oklahoma are all states, and not likely to secede any time soon. This is such a simple proposition but the Dems various self-righteous constituencies (including the Bernie wing among many others far worse than the Bernie wing) can't seem to get it through their heads.
4
An excellent piece of analysis. Couldn't have put it better. Kudos.
2
I agree that Democrats should attempt to "woo" Trump supporters, mainly by behaving well and moving toward the middle, but no one should try this with any sort of optimism. Recently I have had several conversations with Trump supporter neighbors here in the rural hinterlands of a very blue state and they all hate, hate, hate President Obama and the "liberal media". Hate with the "white hot passion of a thousand suns". This so-called core of supporters are a group of extremists if I've ever seen one. Until something changes to cool them a bit, I don't know what anyone, besides their man-child leader, can say to coax them toward moderation. Perhaps the successful destruction of every last facet of the Obama legacy will bring them the solace they need.
One thing I do know, if Democrats hope to have a chance at penetrating this fog, they have to drop gun control as a policy issue. The extremists aren't impressed by mass shootings in the tens and hundreds . Sadly, as a nation, we will have to wait for the individual events of violence to impact thousands before any bipartisan gun control talk can happen.
"..and a man who told an interviewer after his nomination that he favors legal abortion, without restriction, right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb."
Where is your integrity, Douthat? Your own link shows that Doug Jones did NOT say this. He said that he would not support a 20 week ban on abortions. Nothing about "when the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb." This is your interpretation, not what the candidate said.
And by the way, what is it with pro-lifers and "the womb"? Babies don't "emerge" from "the womb," they are delivered by a woman in labor or by an MD who performs a C-section. A uterus is an internal organ, not some sort of magic shoebox that a woman carries around until the baby "emerges" from it, through no effort or risk on the woman's part.
12
Well said and thank you.
1
The Democrats do not need advice from social and cultural conservatives like Ross, what they need is to move left on economic issues and speak directly to the people who the Republicans are about to deliberately harm. Fight the class warfare for real that they are always being accused of fighting. Go after the Kochs, the Mercers, the liars on Fox News and the forces they have unleashed.
Show some spine. Show some principle. Leave the culture wars to others.
8
And perhaps conservative "Gilead-ish" efforts to restrict to access birth control might change? If the goal is to reduce abortion, then why aren't birth control and science-based sex education a priority for conservatives? But the opposite is true.
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So true. The GOP party is now the party acting for increased abortion (albeit illegal and unsafe) by restricting birth control, prenatal care, postnatal care, medical care, and child care.
(Not to mention, Kansas which previewed the top hits of the present GOP tax plan also had to cut their school year short due to their budgetary crisis.)
You're not wrong, but you have to focus on what you see in the mirror. Hoping to change the opinions of culture warriors on the right is going to get you nowhere.
Which just goes to show that reproductive rights issues are issues of power, and not moral issues at all. Let's keep those women barefoot and pregnant and stop them for being so uppity.
Hmmm.... It seems to me that when the Democratic party puts aside its ideals in an attempt to appeal to moderate Republicans it doesn't work. See Jon Ossoff in the GA 6th special election. He didn't advocate for gun control or freedom of choice or voice concerns about Trump. He tended to avoid those issues and look where it got him. Republicans vote republican. Period. Most polls show the Democrats are in sync with most Americans on most issues - they just can't turn people out to vote (in large part due to gerrymandered districts and the ridiculous electoral college system).
2
The electoral college system only matters for presidential elections, so please explain why the Democrats also lost both houses of Congress and almost every state government recently
1
The pro-abortion litmus test filters out many able moderates at the primary/caucus level.
We have to turn to one of the Bush Twins, (Barbara), in Bruni's interview today, to get the wise nuance that moderate voters are looking for:
“I am very for women having everything they need to live healthy, dignified lives,” she told me.
“Is that a yes?” I asked.
“I think women should be able to make the right decision that would allow them to live — truly allow them to live,” she said.
Until then, Trump knows his 32 percent base of bigotry, combined with the single-issue pro-life middle class, will enable him to give away billions in tax cuts to his .01 percent cronies, even while increasing taxes on the college-educated, 85-95 percent crowd who voted against him.
And we don't need Medicare for All, we only need to expand Medicare to allow those with pre-existing conditions to buy into, at any age, a Medicare plan, with means-adjusted premiums and deductibles. This would actually bring more stability and lower premiums to the private insurance markets, with means-based subsidies given directly to the individual, not the insurers.
Finally, any municipality ought to have the right to ban semi-automatic (which are easily bumped to fully automatic) weapons from their city limits.
1
Democrats are not in a labyrinth. The republicans under Trump are self immolating. This is becoming clearer and clearer. Social issues like abortion will be soon eclipsed by existential issues because we are returning to the bad old days of unaffordable and inaccessible healthcare, environmental degradation, capture of our government by the elites, and corrupt leadership. All of these things are tearing our social compact. So the question isn't what democrats will do,it's what will we all do to save our selves.
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The GOP may be collapsing, but they are still winning votes and in doing so are trying as hard as they can to restrict competing votes.
Even now, the GOP attempt to craft all legislation by needing only GOP votes is disenfranchising the MAJORITY of the electorate. Not only are our delegates not allowed to participate in crafting legislation, they are shut out of even knowing what the legislation will be until the rammed-through voting happens. (As are we, the electorate.)
MaryAnne
The problem is that Democrats are REACTING to events, and not very coherently at that. They are not LEADING events. The country may very well reject Trump in the next election, but that does not mean they will vote for Democrats. Who would they vote for? The very fact that I have to ask this question is a bad, bad sign.
Unfortunately for us progressives, the "existential" issue facing Democrats is trade and jobs rather than the horrors of racism, misogyny and other "social" issues. It's what Steve Bannon calls "economic nationalism" and while he's a disgusting figure whose former wife had to call the cops on him, his central argument -- that China is taking the USA to the cleaners economically and soon militarily -- is not being answered by mainstream Democrats.
As long as Democrats in office fail to take a frankly protectionist stance they will fail to counter the false accusations of "self-righteousness" by conservatives like Douthat. Until the economic outrage is adequately expressed, the moral outrage (over racism, sexism, etc.) will continue sounding like sanctimony whenever it comes from people who (1) have the money and means to live nice places where there are no factories that got shut down and (2) are merely envious, not economically dispossessed, by the plutocrats who fund the GOP.
2
It is interesting that Mr. Douthat agrees with the arc of history hypothesis, when he opines that today's democratic agenda would be the mainstream agenda in 2030 and that Democrats in 2004 had an agenda well suited to the electorate in 2016. Who keeps this trend going? Certainly not believers in "blood and soil" nationalism. Democrats must be doing some things right, since they seem to be able to keep this arc of history pointing in the right direction. Believe me, the republicans may be the party under the thumb of an erratic reality television star as Mr. Douthat bemoans, but what they are truly enraged about is this direction of the arc of history. They find that they can win elections, but they cannot bring back serfdom and lynching, Roy Moore notwithstanding. .
1
There has been a lot of reporting coming out of Wisconsin in the last week about how voter disenfranchisement, such as their heinous voter ID law, played a larger role in Clinton's 2016 loss than anyone previously imagined. It therefore comes across as very disingenuous for Douthat and other Times columnists' to continue to push this narrative that the only way forward for Democrats is to woo Trump voters to their side (as if they're going to vote for Democrats anyway), when the truth is that they really need to fight against the barriers preventing their own voters from going to the polls.
Voter ID laws, eliminating absentee ballots and same-day voter registration, closing of polling places, shortening the hours in which polls are open, gerrymandering. There are too many institutional barriers to Democrat votes being accurately represented at the polls for anyone, including Douthat, to argue in good faith that Democrats must abandon their principles in order to win. No, Ross, what needs to happen is that we need to allow all the voters who agree with Democrats to actually be able to vote and have their voices heard.
6
I admit it. Both fiscally and culturally, I lean conservative. Like most Americans, however, I am open to compromise in pursuit of the greater good. Like most reasonably intelligent human beings, I want to learn by listening. Sadly, I find myself getting angry and defensive - and losing my ability to listen - when those with more liberal opinions assume moral authority. Liberalism is not, by definition, more virtuous than conservatism and the human beings who espouse it are definitely not, by default, morally superior. Both liberals and conservatives would benefit from giving each other the benefit of the doubt when it comes to virtue.
2
Democrats shouldn’t bother with rural Southern and Midwestern voters. We’ll never get them because like rural voters everywhere, they’ve small minded. Thanks for the advice anyway, Ross. The suburbs are the real battleground.
2
Both parties need to move toward the center on most issues. Then, it won't matter who is in power, and things might actually get done for the benefit of the country.
To answer your question, yes. The best way to insure a Trump second term is to nominate another identity obsessed, never met a war I did not like, let Wall Street run wild poor candidate like Hillary.
Your column is well written.
The electorate was wrong electing the ego maniac, demagogue Trump but had the right idea, somebody instead of demagoguing the issue like Trump do something about good paying blue collar jobs going to slave labor countries, reeling in Wall Street, getting out of no win wars etc.
1
Great! You have begun to state the obvious problem, that we need to think hard about our democracy. We face many serious problems as a nation that are not the reasons our citizens vote. We are all wrapped up in symbolic issues, like abortion, gun control and immigration, instead of issues that affect our future. Our severe political division is our number one problem because while we fiddle, the nation burns. Our changing economy towards automation with fewer workers and income disparity is a huge issue. Our cultural hegemony is a third; a culture war with upstart China is inevitable unless we learn to meld cultures. Your party and conservatism, whatever that means, has blocked problem solving in favor of tax cuts for businesses, while getting votes on culture issues. We should be business friendly and tax reform may help, but business is not forward thinking about our social benefit. Now culture wars have dominated the Republican party, leading to Trump the dictator. We need a new conversation.
Sorry, no, Democrats can't win. The rules have been bent sufficiently in the Conservatives favor that the US *must* become a third world country. Have a nice day, Ross!
1
Democrats may win but America is not a normal country. It is special in too many ways. It is a country where less well off people vote to reduce taxes on the super rich, and sick people vote for a party which promises to deny them essential health care, and potential victims of gun violence overwhelmingly vote for more guns and more gun rights. A man with a gun in the US has more laws protecting his rights to use it than a man who is unarmed and may have the gun used on him. What does it matter if Democrats can win.
3
A very simple way to promote Democrats who would do what you like: Abolish Plurality Voting.
Consider two choices among Democrats, both with standard Democratic views on fiscal policy and the welfare state, but one who supports no restrictions on abortion or immigration whatsoever while the second supports a ban on most late-term abortions and limits (higher than current, but still limits) on immigration. Further, suppose that Democratic voters prefer the former by 3-to-2 while Republican voters prefer the latter (while preferring Republicans over both) by 4-to-1.
Under the present plurality voting system, the two Democrats have to go through a primary in which only Democratic voters have a say. The former will win because the Republicans' preferences are ignored. This includes open primaries, because they would be unable to vote for their preferred Republican and express a preference among the Democrats.
Now consider a system in which all voters rate all candidates. Such a system would allow a one-stage cycle. More Democrats would rate the former higher than the latter. But, Republicans would be able to give their top ratings to a Republican and rate the two Democrats relative to each other. Their preference for the latter would more than compensate for the Democrats' preference for the former allowing the latter to outperform the former.
" if the alternative requires wooing Americans who voted for him."
The Dems don't need Trump voters. First, they are beyond repair. Mostly, it's the third party nihilists and non-voters who enabled Trump is barely squeak in.
1
If, even Republicans, have finally come to see that their leadership does not work on their behalf , and yet, they would still rather vote for an obvious conman who contradicts all of their previously, some would say, religiously held beliefs rather than vote for a Democrat, I don't see our party benefiting from debating and wooing these willfully blind constituents. If they're going to stick to their guns literally and figuratively, I say we stick with our's.
The democrats aren't pursing the Trump voters, because they can't figure out a strategy to attract those voters. Trump supporters are still blindly following him even though his actions on healthcare, taxes, environmental and diplomacy are against their best interests. The republican healthcare proposals would all have had devastatingly negative impact on those rural, Southern and Midwestern republican voters and Trump was chomping at a chance to sign them into law. The tax cuts for millionaires that they are so anxious to pass will not help any of these working and middle class voters, yet he describes it as a "beautiful tax reform for the Middle class". His ineptitude in dealing with North Korea and Iran imperils the safety of our soldiers abroad and people at home and he has destroyed our reputation around the world. He is a coward who lied his way out of the Vietnam draft and now tells grieving families death is what they should have expected and they should respect the fact he had to give up his precious tee times to console them. How do you convince voters willing to tolerate a Donald Trump to think rationally about anything!
I agree with Mr Douthat. The number one priority of Democrats right now should to save our democracy and do whatever it takes to include Bush Republicans in a coalition that will solidly challenge the nativist Trumpist takeover of our government. But i do not see this happening at all. I do not blame or criticize other Democrats that disagree with me. You are not wrong. But these are weird times. This is no longer about whether Democrats should become centrists. It is about how to return our government to proper order with as many allies we can bring together.
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The modern GOP's electoral success is squarely founded on fear, prejudice, cowardice, and hate. The Democrats cannot possibly recruit any of the bigots it lost after LBJ got the Civil Rights Laws passed unless the Democrats revert to their Party's 19th racism.
Americans need to stop pretending that our nation is divided by substantive principles - we are divided by hate.
The victor will win control of a nation that has devastated itself socially, politically, economically, militarily and diplomatically.
American democracy has fallen into the history books and the cover is closing.
1
The point is not to compromise with people who are wrong on issues of morality, rights, and freedom for all. There is no need to move away from protection of a woman's right to control her own body, or moving towards a rational and humane immigration policy in order to woo a few voters at the margins. The point isn't to appeal to the intolerant and those who would limit the rights and prospects of others, the point is to defeat them.
What Mr. Douthat ignores is that Democrats already get more votes in elections, for the presidency, the House, and the Senate than the Republicans do. They've outpolled the GOP in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections. What's needed for the Democrats is better organization against the Republicans and their deeply anti-American and exclusionary agenda. Organization that is concentrated on better turning out voters in key states, fighting against partisan gerrymandering that robs voters of fair representation, and stopping the GOP's openly racist and xenophobic campaign of voter suppression.
And if that means that the Democrats keep losing Alabama, oh well, we'll just have to live with that I guess.
Since the only thing that drives public policy in the U.S. is huge amounts of money (read as the wealthy class), Democrats, traditionally working class people, are an endangered political species.
Unfortunately, Douthat's use of the word labyrinth describes exactly why the Democrats will continue to lose power and likely disintegrate: they no longer have a powerful story to tell and are endlessly chasing through a maze of issues while Republicans merely have to promise lower taxes and the end to a legal abortion.
It would be interesting for commentators on this thread to list the reasons why someone in Alabama (or in any state) should vote for a democratic candidate other than "they're nicer?"
I generally do not agree with Mr. Douthat but I can certainly align with him here. Since moving to this rural part of Texas I have been arguing that while people in the cities and the coasts bemoan Trump people in rural America continue to support him. A chance encounter earlier this week showed me that my perception is somewhat wrong. They are not necessarily “for” Trump as they are “against” the positions that seem to be the driving forces of the current Democratic Party when it comes to abortion and immigration as Mr. Douthat argues here. On abortion, the thinking is not as rigid as I thought: abortion may not be favored but may be tolerated under certain circumstances. On immigration, people want to have more control over who comes in and they are afraid, mostly, of the potential for terrorists entering their midst. Therefore, as Mr. Douthat argues, so long as Democrats continue to nominate candidates that do not even attempt to understand the thinking in these parts, rural voters may continue to vote for even worse GOP candidates. At the end, Democrats will be able to claim they held fast to their pure orthodoxy while looking from the outside as the GOP continues to grab more power.
Mr Dothat exhibits the usual pundit bias: if only the country would be more like me, everything would be so much better. And if only the other party would agree with me more, they would do so much better in elections.
He also exhibits the usual establishment view on both sides that a smart politician always agrees with whatever the consensus view is on any subject, and avoids taking any position that doesn't have majority polling. Leadership, trying to persuade the public to change their views, is anathema.
But mostly he's saying, Why can't everybody just be more like me?!
3
Yes, we must have room in the Democratic party for the far left, the left and the center; just as we need more right and center right in the Republican's camp. Democrats must run people who can be elected in the districts they represent. So we have Bernie Sanders, who represents a state-full of gun owners.
We'd do best if we could jettison litmus tests - if voters could allow candidates on both sides with complex views on abortion, or middle ground on gun control. so that we don't only have the choice between people who'd abolish abortion or allow it up until water breaks; or we cold have Republicans admitting that maybe personal bazookas are too much, and Democrats publicly stating that they understand why some might need a rifle.
But the reason we have no center, Ross, no Democrats who come more to your side, or Republicans that come to mine? Because the entrenched base voters won't let them. And because the parties use those entrenched bases, and the ease of getting their votes to reduce the cost of running candidates. The base is where the flying mud lands successfully.
Personally? I think it is too late for your dream - social media, voting analytics, professional marketing and messaging will keep that divide going forever.
Couldn't agree more. As a liberally minded voter I have found myself in too many echo-chamber conversations about the failings of the GOP, and I stand by a lot of it, particularly as it relates to the incompetence of Trump. But the nation needs a real convesation and real compromise.
I accept that my party needs to look harder for the common humanity of many of those on the right who are truly fearful about their economic prospects and who see a culture shift that makes them uncomfortable. Who are we to label them biggots and uneducated because they have a different perspective. Stricter immigration policy does not have to be racist and can absoluely be compassionate; that's the middle ground and it might even make good pragmatic policy sense.
What Ross doesn't discuss is the lack of trust. The parties, and indeed many of the people, don't trust one another and that isn't going to change when our leaders and our media have so much selfish interest in maintaining the division. It is well past time for domestic diplomacy, for responsible, good-faith dialogue, and yes, for pragmatic leadership.
I hope that Ross also believes that the members of his party need to listen to the majority of their constiuents, stop legislating primarily for the rich and uncompassionate, and show willingness to come to the middle as well. I certainly see where liberals should move left on immigration, and even abortion, the same is certainly true for the right and gun control, to say the least.
Mr. Douthat, it might be fair to say that as long as The Economy holds strong, with promises for prosperity and work for those willing, capable and fit, America may rest assured of another Republican Administration.
Some of us pulled the lever twice for The Honorable Barack Obama with a lift in our hearts and step, and would not hesitate to elect him again with a feeling of relief and hope.
This American remembers going to the Polls with an Iraqi and Austrian friend, the latter both citizens of our Country, and we had a small celebration afterwards where 'Iraq' told us that Dr. Kissinger introduced himself to her in the long line of voters. Did you ask him for his thoughts on the war, I teased.
How much damage The Trump Empire and a weak Congress has caused is to be determined. America, as a rule, leads the way for other civilized nations across the border. Europe appears to be in a state of fragmenting where White Supremacy is on the rise. The Middle East, well, farewell to Syria and we will let historians dwell on the graveyards.
A great opportunity for Russia to nibble away at other neighboring republics, India is biding its time to take sides, and America is so feeble that we cannot even help Puerto Rico which remains at 80%, without electricity for its people, make that Our People, and we will think about this tomorrow.
Mr. Trump to keep tweeting and taunting North Korea, toying with Iran, and China remains pro-active.
America where Angels fear to tread.
2
Growing up, the democrats I knew had a wide range of thoughts from economics to social issues - no more. Doug Jones is part of that syndrome.
And while Ross is right that we have two main political parties, lest we forget that the Libertarians have managed 50 state ballot access, have a general appeal to both left and right and are prime vehicle for a self-funded candidate for President to rause the party to a different level.
Doug Jones view of abortion happens to be my own. I recognize that such a view is far beyond the mainstream and that, at a fundamental level, it disrespects the profound feelings of the many people who sincerely believe abortion is murder. Let me go a step further and say that even as I believe the right public policy is to allow choice up to the final day of term, I also privately question whether or not Roe was correctly decided by the Supreme Court.
My bottom line is that I never question the sincerity of people who oppose abortion and believe that even as we should maintain and expand abortion access, we should strive to understand and respect the perspective of those who oppose it.
When George W. Bush took office Karl Rove envisioned a permanent Republic majority. After Obama's re-election everyone thought the Republican Party faced an existential crisis and the famous "autopsy" promoted outreach to minorities and a more moderate immigration stance. And now, despite Trump's popular vote loss and perfect-storm electoral win white flouting those very recommendations, every pundit proclaims the Democratic Party is dead if it doesn't re-fashion itself. Chill. The electorate eventually corrects for the excesses of the party in power, and there are plenty of excesses for this one already.
2
Instead of making a huge ruckus about abortion, make contraception the top sexual issue. Most Catholics use it (haven't seen polling date on evangelicals) and, of course, most Americans, North and South. The Catholic hierarchy's position is notably unscientific, likely to be changed if not soon, in the next several decades as happened with Galileo's discoveries and, recently, with evolution.
By trying to restrict contraception, the Trump administration put itself on the wrong side of the "establishment clause. If the administration succeeds in punishing contraception, it will enable more abortions and, in the end, promote the establishment of an "official" religion based on the sexual beliefs of company owners who won't permit health insurance pay for contraception.
As far as immigration is concerned, Homeland Security's position is hopelessly unchristian and runs athwart of the teachings of Jesus. Open borders is not the Democrats position, nor should it be.
Certainly, it is preferable to make illegal entry more difficult than fight tooth and nail for open borders, lose and thereby imperil the Dreamers, their families and other illegal immigrants who, if they have not committed felonies, deserve a path to citizenship.
Finally, run on Medicare for All, free tuition in public universities and paring our currently over active military presence in remote corners of the earth.
1
Oh Ross! I suppose if we follow your logic to a compromise on the abortion issue cultural conservatives would be willing to support a massive-government investment to promote the well being of the moms and babies at the margins of our society. Not.
4
Dems don't need the south to win if they this time spend time, straight-talking time, in Michigan, Wisconsin, and fight harder in Pennsylvania and Florida.
But both parties, especially the GOP, love money, and power, alone. The people are a persistent annoyance to them.
Since we are told they are too far left, of course, its no surprise they can only offer a better deal.
The bigger problem they have is to overturn gerrymandering, as they aren't about to move to the midwest or south very much.
Its more fun to stand on top of Fort Knox to watch an eclipse and jet together with corporate and bank execs around the world, mindful of their clothing labels.
Corporate and banking America are stronger and richer than ever so they now own the Congress even more, as income inequality grows alarmingly apace.
Welcome to the age of citizen-consumers slaving in a plutocratic oligarchy. Notice how state universities are in serious trouble? Waiting for the infrastructure to strike back taking many more lives than it does at the moment? Waiting for public libraries to fold? Know what your chances are of dying in a hospital today, not from what you went in there to treat? Know what the gig economy is signaling to your children and grandchildren?
Waiting for the bottom 40 percent to grow more docile or is it that the bottom 80 percent will go to the
streets?
Mr. Douthat is wrong about who Trump is attacking, Trump is attacking the population that represents the bottom half of the income distribution or households with less that 50K in income. Mr. Douthat should be cheering as this has been the very essence of right wing politics since Goldwater, but more particularly, Reagan. On top of that, Trump, after a very brief flirtation with isolationism, has turned pure neocon.
Now that the American right has exactly what they want they seem dismayed the Democrats can't save them from themselves.
Sad
1
Why yes, Ross, I think that Democrats should become more like Republicans. They should tell their voters they will give them exactly what they want and then enact legislation, drafted in secret that does the exact opposite. Because, in reality, the voters want to believe they are being heard even when they are not. They will walk away from this Republican dominated period with no more money in their pockets, less healthcare, fewer abortions, less birth control, more out of wedlock children, more mass murders, and a wider chasm in income. But football players will stand, the Puerto Rican people will wallow in their storm damage, the Mexican people will beg at the wall for a few table scraps, and Narcan will be as available as Tylenol. I'd call that being listened to, wouldn't you. And when Trump, Ryan, and McConnell ride off into the sunset making millions off the industries that kept them in power, the faithful can rest assured. The people's business was in good hands. And their wishes were fulfilled.
I disagree with most of the comments to this column. While I do believe that a woman has a right to choose and if third term abortions are necessary, they should be allowed, I think Ross makes a valid point.
If you look at most of the comments, a majority of them focus on abortion. Yet, the main intent of the column was to state that Democrats need to demonstrate more flexibility on issues that are tantamount to their being elected. This by itself, depicts how one issue can overwhelm all others. It also shows how the far right can focus on one issue and use it as a battering ram. Is it truly necessary to set oneself up to be slammed to win an election?
Maybe there is a reason why nominees for the supreme court are coached in ambiguity.
1
I will vote for Doug Jones for Senate in December because I believe he is an honest man of integrity. He will promote improvements in health care, civil justice, education and jobs. Alabama needs someone who will work for the people in this economically poor state. Doug Jones will work to use scientific data to improve the environment.
The focus of this article on abortion reflects a very narrow view of what this Alabama Senate race is about.
2
The Democrats need to address the economy for the working and middle class. Everything else is a distant 2nd if they want to become relevant again. The reason s many voters abandoned them for Trump is because by nominating Hilary, the DNC signaled its continued tone deafness to the concerns of their former base. They need to abandon Bill Clinton's Third Way and get back to the FDR roots. They will not convince anyone that they're pro-gun rights, or anti-abortion, or anti-immigration - these are long held positions, and no one will believe any Democratic candidate who says otherwise.
They really need to get out of their myopic tower and get in touch with average Americans...unless they want to become the 21st century Whigs.
2
It's not the banning of abortion after 20 weeks, Mr. Douthat, it is all the other road blocks, restrictions, and harassing that is so troubling. It seems as if the Republican position is pro life right up to the time that a baby is born and then not one cent to help the family.
Ross makes a common error in equating a labyrinth to a maze. One gets lost in a maze, but the path of a labyrinth leads to a center and you exit by the same path you entered. The labyrinth is basically a centering device, where walking it leads to a better understanding of self. If the Democrats are indeed walking the labyrinth, they will emerge with a better understanding of who they are, who they ought to be, and how they will achieve this goal.
2
Mr. Doubtat is absolutely right that Democrats are foolish not to take their case to Repiblican voters and work hard to earn their votes.
He is absolutely wrong that Democrats should betray two (or any) of their own core principles to do so.
Instead, Democrats should bring their stands and their arguments on protecting a woman's right to choose, the value of welcoming immigrants to our country, as well as other democratic principles, to Republican voters with the commitment and passion necessary to break the grip of right wing propaganda and change people's minds, thereby earning their their votes.
Too long have Democrats slunk away from their own programs, beliefs, and principles. Now is the time for them to stand up and fight.
I'm sure that the anti-abortion crowd would just love for Democrats to abandon their commitment to women's rights; then they could make abortion illegal and force women to give birth without any opposition.
Not going to happen.
1
Mr. Douthat there can be medical reasons for having an abortion after 20 weeks gestation. Sometimes a woman's life will depend upon it. If all abortions are banned after 20 weeks, then there will be no options for those women whose lives are threatened by continuing the pregnancy. Sometimes horrific fetal abnormalities are not discoverable until after 20 weeks of pregnancy. A woman should have the right to choose whether or not she brings a child into the world to suffer for all its life.
I escort at a clinic which provides abortions. Recently a woman with small children came to the clinic because her doctor highly recommended she terminate the pregnancy for medical reasons. She was broken hearted, and we who escort were for her. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion, it means that we who are pro-choice support the right of a woman to make decisions about her own health. Mr. Jones (if you had quoted him correctly), is backing the right of a woman to do just that. He is not pro-abortion, he is pro-choice. There is a big difference. Roy Moore is a disaster of a human being whose draconian, racist, homophobic, misogynistic views are straight out of 1950's Alabama at its worst.
Mr. Jones has been honest about his views concerning the right of a woman to choose. You are asking Democrats to compromise their principles for votes. The Republicans did that a very long time ago, and the result has been that we now have an amoral vulgarian occupying the White House.
3
One can be 100% pro-choice, but also committed to other changes in society that help reduce the number of women who need or want to make that choice.
1
There you go again. If a voter opposes abortion in all cases and at all times in the pregnancy, a candidate's position on abortion is paramount. However, if the voter is okay with abortion before 20 weeks but not okay after 20 weeks, I suspect their passion on the subject is less controlling, and your alarm at Doug Jones's statements may not be shared by such a person
Religious foes of women's reproductive rights have been calling women who have safe legal abortions "baby killers" for decades. After decades of demonizing Democratic leadership, an anti-choice Democrat running against an anti-choice Republican is going to get hammered anyway, as the candidate who is going to make Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi leader of a majority party. In this Alabama election, a Democrat winning is an unlikely dream. But if it happens it will be a reaction to an extremist Republican candidate by reasonable people, and reasonable people don't share your obsession with denying woman their rights.
I do not know how Baldwin connects to the people of Wisconsin, but I do know how the campaign connects to donors. It is Koch this and Koch that. While meaningful to partisans, it will fail in a general election. Focus on what is meaningful for the electorate. It is bread and butter, jobs, healthcare, futures for children, community. Connect with that.
1
The Democrats don’t even seem overly eager to win back the easiest group of voters imaginable—the former Sanders supporters who either stayed home or voted third party.
1
Since, in the US, money is speech and speech is power and power channels money, the Democrats should focus on the money. For all of Trump's noise about upending the status quo, he's focused on it, too. He may not reliably believe in much -- but, you can be sure, he does believe that the estate tax must go. Don J, Eric and Ivanka need billions build a large enough pyramid to care for him in the afterlife.
Trump didn't win on policy. There's something else going on. It's not about where a politician stands on any issue, but whether or not they're crazy enough to wave a gun at a rally or call their enemies the nastiest names. The MAGA crowd want to "drain the swamp" and by that they mean break things.
1
My proposal: allow states to ban abortion, but establish a federal law that forces bans to apply to all state residents at all times, even when they're out of state. In other words, don't allow Texas to ban abortion but turn a blind eye to the young wealthy women flying to New York or California for abortions. I suspect that if the well-to-do can't get around a law they want to impose on everyone else, they'll be less inclined to support it in the first place.
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Unfortunately, that would have the effect of making all citizens of a state prisoners of the ideological convictions of the most rabidly rightwing.
And then the wealthy will just fly to another country where a safe abortion is available. The main problem with all these restrictions is that they mainly affect the poor who can not afford to have more children.
No one can convince me that the people backing these laws are pro-life when they simultaneously want to ban contraception, slash poor children's health insurance and decimate most welfare.
Good idea, Matt, with the caveat that it may be unconstitutional (impeding travel between the states) and, if it were constitutional, the wealthy would just hop a plane for Mexico, where doctors to the rich and famous will have set up shop. If you have enough money, there is a way around anything.
This is the best article on the state of the Democratic party that I have read. ... but how to persuade with balanced points of view when the general discussion (now clamorous outcries, extreme protests) doesn't lend itself to moderation? I can imagine a man or woman of great strength and fortitude - like Lincoln - who could get people to sit down and listen. She is out there.
2
Where are the pragmatic democrats? Any democrat in a red state is tarred with the brush of coastal democrats (think Pelosi), so no matter what the actual candidate states as his or her own beliefs are called fake news by the electorate. It doesn't matter if the democratic candidate is an NRA member, pro second amendment, believes abortion after 20 weeks should only be done for the health of the mother or rape or incest, believes in spending cuts and tax reform, and is a deacon in their local church. That democrat will not get elected.
7
If that's what they believe, why would they be a democrat in the first place?
Dino I can tell you are from DC and not from around here. The Republicans around here are NRA members but believe in any gun anytime anywhere, all abortion should be illegal and family planning should not be funded but left to families, spending cuts should start with all social programs first, tax reform proposals benefit only the wealthy and business and the middle class doesn't need a tax cut because tax cuts to business will help the middle class. They believe the 10 commandments should be in every school and public place. See the difference now?
I agree very much with the thrust of this article. Let's examine abortion. I believe strongly that abortion should be available based on a woman's choice, but I recognize that some do not. But they agree with me on many other issues. So how to work together?
It seems to me that the facts of abortion should allow an effective muddle -- currently almost all abortions, more than 98%, occur before 20 weeks of gestational age. So it seems that there is no significant issue as long as one has sympathetic choice-based rather than punitive motivations for regulating abortion. It is also important to note that the abortion rate in the US has fallen by almost 50% since abortion was legalized. And that has to be due to better access to and education about birth control.
Think about Catholic Joe Biden. I have no idea about his personal feelings/choices, but as a political leader he recognized others may have different choices. And he chooses to support their freedom to choose.
So I agree with Mr. Douthat that actual governing takes working within broad coalitions where individuals differ on specific issues. It seems to me that the Democrats have the opportunity to isolate the folks that both adamantly oppose both abortion and effective access to reproductive healthcare including birth control. But to do so would require that they accept a range of opinion within their ranks. Same with a host of other issues.
12
One of the most liberal I know became a conservative several years ago. His soon to be ex wife displays her pink knit hat in the living room.
According to him, things had just gone "too far." Transgender bathrooms, open borders, etc.
His wife thinks things have not gone far enough.
To me, that's the Democrats, and the problem we face, in a nutshell.
15
Ultimately, as simple as it sounds, elections are about being elected. One can admirably hew to strongly held philosophical convictions, but if doing so costs them the win, then it is all for naught.
Similarly, leadership is about successfully guiding and shaping the beliefs and actions of others. Having leadership capabilities means more than simply following the crowd or popular opinion at any point in time.
The paradox here is that the pendulum of beliefs and convictions swings back and forth over time, and successfully threading the needle between winning and leadership is often a daunting proposition. Without threading that needle, one's ability to stitch together a fabric of consensus that translates into a win can produce not whole cloth, but a candidacy, or incumbency, left in tatters.
4
I, unlike many Democrats, would like to see us walk away from debates about abortion, guns, and gay rights to concentrate on other policy matters. These issues are too emotional to resolve on a national basis at this moment in time but it's a problem when people like Mr. Douthat make it into an us vs. them proposition. The next great President needs to motivate people to put aside these types of issues for the greater good of the nation. I'm convinced he or she is out there and I pray that person will arrive soon.
24
I would generally agree that it would be nice not to focus so much on these hot button issues, but the Democratic Party is a coalition of groups some of whom are vitally impacted by these issues. It is nearly impossible for the Party to ignore them.
The Republican Party needs to move further to the left in order to govern, although it is able to win elections by not doing so. But it is unable to do so because the impetus to move further left is found in rational argument, facts, tolerance, compassion, and other snowflake habits, and the Republican Party has spent decades inoculating its followers against such soft-headedness. So to save the country from what the Republicans have become, Democrats should become Republican-lite triangulators, forget about principled opposition to Republican dogma, and sell themselves as kinder and gentler implementers of the desires of the swamp denizens who now rule both parties.
Democrats are not just claiming to be standing alone against an existential threat to the republic. That is what they are doing. The existential threat menaces both the left establishment represented by Hillary and the right establishment represented by Mitch McConnell, and is replacing both establishments with chaos. The right establishment wants the left establishment to save it from the monster it has unleashed so it can get back to fighting the left establishment and winning. But, from different perspectives, many people distrust the establishment and want its power broken. Those who attack the establishment from the left have some idea about what could limit its current power; those who attack from the right live in their own reality.
12
For once I agree with Ross.
The other problem is: can the Democrats primary process actually elect a moderate who the party will be behind?
I predict that if the Democrats nominate a moderate, there will be a more left wing Democrat running as a third party candidate for President in 2020, and that candidate will ensure the re-election of President Trump.
21
DH: It was NOT the third party candidate that cost the Democrats the election. It was the unpopularity of the Democratic candidate and her lack of an agenda that promoted change which was clearly what the voters in both parties wanted.
DH, I assume you're talking about Bernie Sanders and his obsessive supporters, people I refer to as "Berniacs." In my opinion Mr. Sanders is one of the main reasons Donald Trump is in the White House, and unless he steps aside and refuses to run for the presidency again he guarantees a Republican victory in 2020.
2
It did, and she won more votes than her opponent, but she is not in the Oval Office, he is.
1
Sustainable progress is usually achieved in increments rather than a single leap. Democrats need to focus on the next incremental step in moving toward a governing majority, led by a leadership team many of whom should have solid actuarial prospects of serving through the several election cycles that will be needed to undo Republican gains at all levels since 2010.
With polls showing 10%-15%-20% rejection rates of Trump by the people who voted him into office a year ago, widening the appeal of the Democratic party to those Trump rejectors is a required next step. To borrow from Donald Rumsfeld, "You go to the polling booth with the electorate you have, not the electorate you wish you had."
16
"and a man who told an interviewer after his nomination that he favors legal abortion, without restriction, right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb."....So my question is, did you just make that up, or is there actually a reliable report that he said that? If so, lease provide it. Other wise I will assume it is just an example of yet another smear campaign.
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Ross links to the source of his remarks. Jones doesn't use those exact words, but does say he is opposed to any legislation that restricts a woman's right to choose.
Mr. Douthat's source, which he linked, was hotair.com. It provides Jones' quote and some snarky hyperbole to go with it. But, as you surmise, Jones did not say that, it is just a reflection of right wing spin and fear mongering that made its way to a tiny corner of The Times.
Basically, Jones said said he would let Roe v. Wade continue to guide us and not put additional impediments in place as a legislator. Which, in conservatopia, means Jones wants to rip babies out of the womb and eat them for breakfast. This is the modest perspective Douthat believes Democrats should move toward. There may be some complications with that plan.
3
You can use the link provided in the article.
The "moderate" position on abortion is the Bill Clinton one: Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. To make it rare, of course, you have to encourage birth control. One way to encourage it is to pay for it.
The extremist position on abortion is "No, never, but we'll allow it before 20 weeks until we get the votes to ban it." Or, to put it another way, "Women aren't human beings whose needs and judgment are worthy of respect, but a fertilized egg is."
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The extremist position on abortion is that it should be illegal for all those who cannot afford to visit somewhere where it is obtainable. This means that for the wives, daughters, and mistresses of political and opinion leaders it will continue to be an option, since those sorts of people can afford short vacations to other areas or countries. The poor and young will be the only ones who have to be moral.
34
"No, never" is only one of two extremes on the abortion issue. The other extreme is, as Douthat puts it (and falsely attributes to Doug Jones), "at any time right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb." Anyone who is pro-choice (including me) but doesn't adopt the latter extreme view must consider where to draw the line. When, on the continuum from a fertilized egg to a born human, does the form of life developing in a womb become entitled to protection from abortion? Is it 20 weeks, 24, 28 (subject to exception, e.g., for the life of the mother)?
That's a hard question, philosophically, medically, and politically, but it's one pro-choice advocates (unlike the "no, never" crowd) must answer to establish a firmer policy position than most presently have. Clinton's "position" -- safe, legal and rare, qualities that even the most extreme pro-choice advocate would endorse -- is no position at all because it fails to answer this question: what concrete limits would non-extremist pro-choice advocates approve and support? Addressing this question directly won't win Dems any votes from one-issue, "no, never" voters, but it might help them garner support from more centrist voters.
Unfortunately, that coherent Democratic vision consists of divisive racial identity politics. At its least harmful, this turns everything into a spoils system; at worst, it divides the country irrevocably. Disagreements about money can be compromised; tension about race cannot be because you cannot divide identity 50-50.
This vision (rather, the reaction to it) gave us President Trump. Do the Democrats want more of the same? Do they not realize that, to most Americans, "diversity" means "not you"?
29
The whole civil rights movement was divisive racial identity politics, and the reaction to it gave the South to the Republicans. The programs of the New Deal were popular in the South because they were structured to be administered by the states, who saw to it that white people and not black people got most of the benefits. The racial identity politics are divisive because they try to change a status of blacks that many whites see as natural and deserved.
14
Nothing the Democrats do is more divisive than right wing identity politics, which have demonized liberals for decades, practiced overt racism and sexism, and scapegoated immigrants.
Like class wars, identity politics only become divisive when people fight back.
Prior to that, they're just oppression by whichever group has power over the others.
2
If you are right, what does that say about our country, its heritage, and our values? Does e pluribus unum mean out of many one, only if it applies to one kind of person, or ignores the variety of peoples that makes ours a unique society? What would it profit us to return to the mythical 1950s with its Jim Crow, limited options for women, and restrictive immigration laws?
Jones actually said he supports a woman's right to choose. If Republicans were honest, maybe they wouldn't have Trump for a leader.
98
I completely agree that the Democrats have to open up on the abortion issue if they hope to compete again anytime soon. Without question,many Catholics would be voting Democratic if not for pro-choice in the extreme being a litmus test for Democratic candidates. I am more depressed than ever to see that the Democrat Party Senate candidate in Alabama fits into this mold. Without question,the Democrats will always fall short with the Hispanic vote if they do not move on this critical issue to many voters. It is an illusion to think that a better economic message(whatever that means)and being anti-Trump will be enough. Just showing respect for voters who are pro-life would go along way.
15
It has been a disaster that the abortion debate has been shaped by 2 absolutist positions. Most people do not see all abortion as murder, but neither do they think society has no valid interest in what pregnant women do with their babies.
The community is comfortable with 20 weeks. We need candidates on both sides who accept that and disown the extremist pro-life and pro-choice positions.
No, the Democrats need to get more people to vote. They aren't going to woo bigots or hard-nosed religious zealots. I know plenty of liberal Catholics, moderate Catholics who believe in and practice birth control as well as the right to choose. The issue that Douthat brings up is bogus. There is no such thing as "late term abortion" -- it is called giving birth, even if the baby is dead inside. The woman is either induced or there is a cesarian performed. No doctor would do what the false narrative suggests is an abortion. And no woman is going to do it either unless it is medically necessary, or if that fetus is not going to live if it goes full term. That is the most difficult decision a woman could make but I can't imagine forcing a woman to carry a dead baby to term or one that would surely die shortly after birth or would have no chance at a conscious/functional life.
1
Why must Catholics vote along religious lines? I am personally Pro Life and live my life accordingly but I am also in favor of Roe v Wade, undiluted, being the law of the land. Why do Catholics believe they have the right to tell others how to live their lives. What if atheists became a strong voting block and wanted to eliminate people's right to go to Church or whatever, or maybe more realistically the tax exempt status of all religious groups. What then? Catholics should not have abortions if they believe them wrong, just as I do, not vote to curtail or eliminate Roe v. Wade and SAFE abortion. Wonder if they would like their daughter in desperation and fear to go to a back alley practitioner and then die of sepsis?
Oh it's always the other guy that needs to compromise.
And even when he does, he has to compromise from that position too.
Ross - try reading Roe vs Wade which was then, and is still, a compromise; show good faith in accepting it.
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You missed his point.
1
Exactly. The pigs on the democratic side want to throw women's health under the bus to appease the disgusting ignorant Trump voters who use might vote for them. Well guess what, women will not stand by by for that. I will never give a dime to the Democrats again if they embrace this woman-hating, hypocrisy based, bronze-age, religion mongering stance.
1
The "recent developments in the state of Alabama" illustrates why it's pretty much hopeless for Democrats to try and woo Trump voters. That they would vote in "a Senate candidate manifestly unfit for office, a bigot hostile to the rule of law and entranced with authoritarianism" over "an accomplished former prosecutor" who favor women having control over their body tells me those voters are a lost cause.
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Thank you. I would rather support a political party that is out of power than one which enables and uplifts people like Donald Trump and Roy Moore. Ross knows that he ought to feel the same way, but honestly he prefers the naked exercise of power to upholding any sort of moral standard, so we get his frequent columns projecting all of his self-loathing on the Democrats and their supporters.
1
I believe there are issues, outside of abortion or immigration that Democrats could be running on and winning on. When Democrats come out against Congress forcing Americans to pay more for pharmaceutical drugs than all of the other advanced countries and vow to reverse that. When Democrats come out against the healthcare system, which Congress has built and maintained, that charges Americans a trillion dollars a year more than a system competitive with the other advanced countries. When Congress pledges to take back the trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich, which Republicans are poised to hand out. Get America back in the race to be the greatest force in the growing renewable energy industry. Swear to actually invest a trillion dollars in infrastructure, including the building of an integrated, interstate energy transmission system. Throw in some reasonably worded language about immigration and abortion rights. Voila.
26
You're completely missing Douthat's point. Some voters won't listen to any of those arguments if they are made by someone who won't budge on abortion and/or immigration.
To simplify, I'll just deal with abortion. Some of those voters won't listen to the economic case from anyone who will not ban abortions starting at conception. Those voters are unreachable, but their numbers might be small enough that that does not matter.
Some voters will not listen to the economic case from someone who will not support any abortion restrictions whatsoever, such as late-term abortions. There are a lot more of those voters. Try making the minimum concession on abortion that will entice enough of those voters to listen to your economic agenda so that some of those votes can be peeled off.
So, you're recommending that Democrats run on a platform of more government? No thanks.
Sorry, that will not sway the bigots and they are legion. The only way for dems to win in Alabama is to call for the deportation of all minorities. Should they do that?
1
Thank you Ross,
History buffs will remember the steps leading up to the American Revolution and the Intolerable Acts. The fifth and final Intolerable Act was the Quebec Act.
The Quebec Act was intolerable because it demanded Catholics be given an equal role in government. I will let Americans decide if granting Catholics an equal say and opportunity in government was right or wrong let us just say the colonist's thought full rights for Catholics was an abomination.
In 1776 the fear of giving Catholics equal voice was the call to arms.
The colonists rebellion was a Pyrrhic victory as the constitution paved the way for an evolving liberal democracy which in 1964 culminated with the Civil Rights Act.
The men who framed the constitution were made of different stuff. They were children of the enlightenment and they wrote documents that would carry through to 1964 when all men are created equal meant what it said. There was a reason for separation of church and state.
Doug Jones will not win because he is an American running in an unAmerican State. In 1964 American democracy started running in reverse. The speech Karl Hess wrote for Barry Goldwater was as much an antiAmerican Manifesto as it was a nomination acceptance speech. The Democratic party thinks they are fighting a loyal opposition when they are in a struggle against a group that hates America and all it stands for. It is 1776 all over again but the children of the enlightenment have been sentenced to obscurity.
78
Are you sure about what the Quebec Act did for Catholics? How was the British government of Quebec (i.e., Canada) a representative one? It was appointed by the king. The colonists feared that was what the British had in store for them, too. Yes, they hated the Catholics, but the Quebec Act did not produce a Catholic government; it produced a royal government.
John,
It was the 1770s it was God's government.
The men who wrote the American founding documents were truly revolutionary. Government of the people , by the people and for the people did not take the power over our lives away from the King it took the power away from God.
Deism is a belief system that says mankind and mankind alone is the architect of man's future. That is what America is all about even members of the mainstream churches like Washington did not believe in a God that oversaw the affairs of men.
The phrase "they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights" is the most revolutionary concept in the history of human governance. America made its people responsible for its success or failure.
1
John,
Upon reflection I will allow the leading conservative intellectual of the 18th century answer your question. Dr Samuel Johnson in addition to creating the language we use wrote an essay in 1775 called Taxation No Tyranny about what taxes are all about and warned the rebellious colonists about how the Catholics would take over if they forsook the protection of the Crown and almighty God.
http://www.samueljohnson.com/tnt.html
1
Imagine for a moment that with Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and one of the aging women retired and replaced by Republicans, Roe v. Wade would be overturned and all abortions prohibited. How would Republicans win any elections after that? What do they really have for the average working family? Will mandatory "Merry Christmas" from Walmart clerks be enough to keep "the base" in their column while they repeal the estate tax for Donald Trump's heirs and slash Medicare and Medicaid? BTW As a pro-choice Democratic woman I consider the restrictions in Roe v. Wade an acceptable compromise but the anti-abortion forces will never accept a compromise because they do not recognize women's reproductive rights. The 20-week limit is just a signpost on the road to total ban not only of abortion but of birth control.
150
Overturning Roe v Wade would result in a mish-mash of states having different laws concerning. I doubt states like New York, California, or Massachusetts would prohibit abortions just because the Supreme Court says they can. That's not an argument against Roe, which I support, but an argument against unrealistic claims like believing abortion would suddenly become uniformly illegal across the country.
"Overturning Roe v Wade would result in a mish-mash of states having different laws"
You don't know that, Peter. If a ruling that overturns Roe found that fetuses have a Constitutional right to gestation, then abortion would indeed become illegal nationwide, overnight. Even if it doesn't do that, overturning Roe could give Congress an opening to outlaw abortion nationwide. It's naïve to think that, after 40 years of declaiming that "abortion is murder," the pro-life movement would simply retire while individual states set whatever laws they wanted.
While such a ruling is a theoretical possibility, I don't see it as a likely or even plausible outcome. Have any sitting Justices publicly supported such an extreme position? (Perhaps Thomas has made such statements, I don't know.) I doubt Roberts would sign such a decision, and I have my doubts about Gorsuch as well. Justices tend to be institutionalists, and a decision granting fetuses full Constitutional rights would, I believe, be too radical even for some of the Court's more conservative members. Such a case would involve reams of testimony, scientific evidence, and years of appeals up the chain of lower courts. The opposition to such a case would be enormous and vocal. I'm sure the Justices will notice that, just like Roberts did with his "Solomonic" decision on the ACA that left the structure of the law intact.
Every time Democrats have moved right in order to find common ground, the Republicans have simply moved that much farther to the right. Give them an inch and they take a yard. That's how we've gotten where we are today. So no, sorry Ross, but I think we should be going the opposite way -- holding our ground and making the GOP come to us.
175
Only, why should the GOP do that? They're doing just fine being ever more far right. That they don't actually seem to manage to pass legislation at the national level is of little concern to their voters. I'm sure Bannon and his acolytes are quite happy with the situation. Even if the country were to erupt in sporadic violence, they wouldn't care. So, hold your ground, and see what happens.
The Democratic party has always been my party. I have voted on every level for Democrats with few exceptions(a few moderate Republicans when the Democratic candidate was weak in local races) I could never support Trump, or the radical agenda of the modern Republican party. They are not conservative, they are extreme radicals of the right wing, and should be called that. However, I get angry with the extreme self-righteous attitude of the left wing of the Democratic party. Their superior, no compromise position would cause as much trouble in power, as the Trump radicals. President Obama followed a moderately left of center policy, which was the best for the nation, and I rewarded him with my vote and money. Extremes on either side are bad for America. I like Bernie just fine, but not for President. I hope for someone like Sen. Klobuchar or Sen. Brown to lead us into the future.
40
What are the extremes on the left?
I pretty much completely agree with you this time Ross - which is a first. I'm off to search for four-leaf clovers in my local park - and to buy a lottery ticket. Wish me luck. Kudos to you.
7
I think Mr Douthat is suggesting that in order for Democrats to starting winning seats, all they need to do is become Republicans, or at the very least they must hide what they belief in and think is important.
67
I wonder if the commenters with their treatises on abortion and the many who have recommended them realize that their answer to Douthat's question is that "No, we are not willing to compromise in any way". It doesn't matter if you can offer a logical argument in favor of abortion with no restrictions; this is an emotional issue, and always has been. Most Americans favor abortion, but with some restrictions. If Democrats can only nominate candidates with no restriction platforms, even in Alabama, abortion becomes a losing issue for them. Is the self-righteous smugness really worth all of the losing?
18
Tom,
Doug Jones believes in America, Roy Moore does not. How many people have died for America and its goals of equality before the law and freedom from religion?
I remember ultraconservative Quebec and its economic, political and religious hierarchies where the government could come and seize your home because you might be a communist, a Bolshevik or a Jehovah's Witness. It was only 60 years ago that the Supreme Court of Canada outlawed the padlock law. Sacrificing America to win elections seems a fool's bargain.
What is your line in the sand?
1
Or they could just do what most Republicans do--hide what their views really are, and wave the flag a lot.
1
If only Tom, a man, understood that Roe v Wade has restrictions, which Democrats are willing to live with but Republicans are not. Perhaps you could try to understand the other side's position before lecturing us about it.
1
Nonsense. The Supreme Court and the country at large should be guided by the best medical and legal thinking in terms of abortion, and we have repeatedly opted for leaving the decision up to a woman and a doctor, guided by conscience and facts, not distorted rhetoric -thus ensuring freedom and safety. Nobody is forced to have an abortion in this country, and nobody is coerced to pay for it since the Hyde Amendment remains in force. All of the energy and money churches and anti-abortion advocates expend in trying to change the laws would be better spent in focusing on improving services to pregnant women, providing contraceptives, and ensuring that our social safety net doesn't become so tattered that people are practically abandoned. I would not be so certain that the message of Warren and Sanders has such little resonance with Americans. It seems to be gaining rather than losing popularity, and their positions are quite mainstream with many thoughtful voters and particularly appeal to the youth who will soon be in charge. By the way, Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote, and if Trump doesn't blow up the world, the left- liberal mainstream can be relied on to restore sane, responsible governance.
37
The idea that it should be legal for a healthy baby to be aborted at 9 months when there is no threat to the health of the mother is crazy land. Such an abortion is indistinguishable from infanticide. There is no significant difference between a baby pre- and post-birth in that scenario. Indeed, births are often induced, indicating that the precise date of birth is essentially arbitrary.
In practice, the abortion of healthy babies at 9 months when there is no threat to the health of the mother doesn't happen (or happens so rarely that it is hard to come up with examples). This means that some legal restrictions can be placed on late term abortion with almost no practical consequences, while at the same time providing reassurance to voters worried about such things. Late term abortions should be permitted if there is a threat to the mother's life and in some other cases, but there shouldn't be a complete absence of any restriction. It is fanaticism of the sort that would make most religious zealots blush to insist on absolutely no restrictions whatsoever on abortion.
But people do use the best medical and ethical thinking when deciding this issue-whether pro or con.
I still have the picture of my son from our ultrasound at five months. And you can see a baby. We knew by then he was a boy, had fingers and toes, and could hear. He was already the size of a lemon.
I suggest to you that pretending that people who are against abortion don't understand and apply science and ethics to the debate is quite dangerous. I can assure you they do. And pictures like our ultrasound are powerful images.
I am pro-choice but I don't fool myself. Abortion is ugly and there comes a time when it is quite legitimate to wonder if it is murder-especially with the advances in preemie care we have today.
I agree with Mr. Douthat here. The defining, enduring struggle of our time is between hard right Republicans, who want to gut the New Deal safety net and further destroy unions, and cut taxes on the rich, thus returning America to Gilded Age inequality and plutocrat control, and Democrats who do not. That's where the true struggle lies.
Other issues, like guns, immigration, and late term abortions are areas where the Dems need to compromise in marginal or red-leaning states if they want to win the big struggle. Put it this way: It took Joe Donnelly, an anti-choice Dem senator in Indiana, to stave off the Obamacare repeal attempt. Better to have that seat in Dem hands so the big struggle can be won, than to let Republicans take seats in places like Alabama, Indiana, and West Virginia, which will, in the long term, allow the Koch brothers to accomplish their goal of reversing the New Deal.
17
This is an excellent analysis, Patrick.
However, I do not believe until the lower half of the income spectrum is actually exposed to the results of the destruction of the safety net, will they change.
The Boomers who elected Trump are certain their SS and Medicare benefits are safe.
That seat in Indiana might not belong to Donnelly much longer. The super PAC Americans For Prosperity, which I believe is funded by the Kochs, in part, at least, is already attacking Donnelly with television and online ads.
Agreed. The two Dem senate seats that are most a risk next year are Donnelly in Indiana and McCaskill in Missouri. Trump's unpopularity will help them, but even so, they are only 50/50 to hang on. The others red state Dems will probably survive. On the other hand, Republican senate seats are at risk in Nevada, Arizona, and possibly Texas.
Appreciate the common sense analysis. Rare for an opinion piece in the NYT. From the majority of comments in response, such perspectives fall on deaf ears. Oh, I did follow the link. Douthat's description of the candidate's position, expressed in his opinion piece, is fine. How else would a fetus exit the womb--the pregnancy be aborted---at 33 to 39 weeks? I'm not a physician but hopefully the soon to be dead child would be sedated and not experience pain as its biological existence is ended. The fact that late abortions are not the dominant cases of abortions is irrelevant because the candidate made it irrelevant when presenting his position. In fact, he was quite clear: “I am a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body, and I’m going to stand up for that and I’m going to make sure that that continues to happen,” Jones said. “You wouldn’t be in favor of legislation that said ban abortion after 20 weeks, or something like that?” Todd asked. “No, I’m not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose,” Jones said. “That’s just the position that I’ve had for many years, it’s the position I continue to have.” I think the candidate is very clear and though a progressive he would not get my vote. I'll throw in that abortions should only ever occur under circumstances in which the father is identified and legally signs away his rights to take full responsibility for and raise the child.
5
I interpret your position on abortion to be that the “father” of an embryo gets to decide whether a pregnant woman has a right to an abortion. And if he says he will support the child, she should be forced to carry out a pregnancy that she doesn’t want. Likewise if she refuses to name the “father.”
And you call yourself a progressive? In my book, your thinking is very regressive and oppressive.
1
Thanks for the follow-up.
The Democratic Party has allied itself with everything anti-bourgeois, anti-traditional for so long, they think a Hubert Humphrey is a mixed drink. The Republicans are plenty happy to smash the American family on the rocks of extreme inequality, even if they paint themselves as "values" oriented. The American Family is failing because it is beset on both sides by the uniquities of an unfettered culture of social disruption and a capitalism that eats democracy and equality for breakfast.
4
Well. So is Douthat advocating better PR and manipulation? Is there really a dearth of that in American politics? As a progressive who believes in abortion rights under the law, who believes the anti-abortion position is at the root a religious conviction, though one that deserves respect, I cringe at how much that statement might cost Jones. But, if that's what he believes, he gets marks for courage. In Alabama that's enough to get you death threats (I mean, more death threats than he's already getting as a, you know, Democrat), but the legality of third trimester abortions is neither a medically nor morally indefensible position. And a case can always be made, hopefully even to conservatives, that voting on one issue alone can get you in a world of hurt; well, can get the whole world in a world of hurt, actually. Exhibit A is Donald Trump. For some voters the one issue was just immigration; for some it was Hillary Clinton and just one tall-tale too many told about her ("they can't all be lies, can they?" yes, they can); for some it was just needing a mean bully to punch their perceived enemies in the face for them. My fundamentalist Baptist friend told me that before the election her daughter reminded her, referencing abortion, "mom, there's more than just one issue that impacts life and death." Here's to such daughters around the country, and the moms who have the grace to hear that truth from them.
14
The Democrats need to stop nominating "brave" candidates who are prepared to defy their constituents (i.e. losers) and instead choose candidates who represent the liberal side of their constituency while still in the local mainstream, and accept that some of those candidates will not satisfy all of the Progressive litmus tests. There are not enough progressive states and districts to form a majority with only the ideologically pure.
Democrats should not follow the playbook of GOP. We will not win on the issues of "convenient morality". On Immigration, Democrats should be clear. Of course we are for national security and secured borders. In fact, we should be for less Immigration. Uncontrolled population growth has huge consequences. Urban sprawling is a direct consequence. We should save more habitats and preserve more farm land for our future generations. Instead of open more doors, we should work hard to integrate people already here. We are far from a color-blind society and more new comers can only make things more complicated. On abortion, of course we are not pro-abortion. Every life (human and non-human; before birth and after birth) is sacred. But we also realize that some pregnancies are unplanned. We want to provide more educations and offer more birth controls to prevent the loss of innoncent unborn life.
6
Colorado Professor Philip Cafaro has made the progressive case for less immigration, as did Colorado's Governor Dick Lamm before him, as did long-time Democrat and Harvard Law Professor Samuel Huntington. They have all been attacked as being a bunch of Pat Buchanan apologists and supposed "racists," just as France's Prime Minister, Macron, was this summer for daring to suggest that high birth rates do not help the stability of 3rd world countries. Democrats have shown zero leadership on this issue since Bill Clinton betrayed and abandoned the Barbara Jordan Democrats in mid-1990's.
1
I can find no poll showing that a majority of Americans favor banning abortion after 20 weeks. There is one with that result for "swing states." NYT readers expect, I believe, that even columnists report facts accurately, unless their intention is clearly humor. Since Mr Douthat displays about as much humor as Torquemada, he owes readers a link to the poll - now conspicuous by its absence.
Further, Alabama restricts abortion after 22 weeks. Douthat apparently presumes with his frantic purple prose that the former prosecutor running in Alabama and his local interlocutor don't know that. They do. The candidate is not against limitations, he is against an outright ban. Even the 20 week ban passed by the federal House of Representatives allows abortion if the woman's life or health are in danger. Only nine states place no restrictions on abortion based on gestational period - among them the "blue" States of West Virginia and Mississippi. Excuse the sarcasm, but the NYT has published a table reviewing state laws limiting abortion based on gestation. It took me 2 minutes to find it. To much for Douthat to consult it?
Finally, many Democrats, including Senator Durbin (D-IL), have stated clearly that they oppose illegal immigration and agree that the US must get control of our border with Mexico. What they oppose is a wall. If Douthat thinks a wall is the only way, let him deign to say so. Otherwise, let him reflect the facts of what the Democratic Party leadership has said.
136
You didn't look very hard for polling data. This took me about 10 seconds:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/abortion-poll_n_3575551
"The candidate is not against limitations, he is against an outright ban."
If you go to the web site that Ross linked to, you will see that the candidate is against any and all limitations.
Most Americans do not favor forcing a woman to carry to term a baby who will die right after it is born, or live an extremely short and extremely painful life, or to severely amplify unexpected hardship. Listen to some interviews with women who had late abortions. Banning abortions after 20 weeks only serves to make a terrible time for a pregnant woman even more terrible. This needs to be a decision by a woman and her doctor, not a propaganda tool to garner political support from the uninformed.
65
Dems have a marketing/communications problem and have not yet discovered how to solve it. They will continue to lose or squeak by in elections until they do. Most likely it will take a strong candidate to get Dems to implement the solution. The future will be dark until Dems stop trying to sell sushi as "raw fish."
4
Or perhaps point out that it is sashimi and that those calling raw fish: suchi, should not be trusted.
". . .a man who told an interviewer after his nomination that he favors legal abortion, without restriction, right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb."
But that's not quite what he actually said was it? He said he didn't want to legislate away a woman's right to choose. That's something religious conservatives have been chipping away at for the last 40 years. And banning abortion at 20 weeks would be a huge win for them, and they would continue to chip away at the constitutional right to choose.
And here's the thing - despite what Ross Douthat might want you to think, there are not a bunch of baby hating women out there just waiting to get pregnant and then kill their child 8 months into the pregnancy. In fact, the rates of unwanted pregnancies are far higher in those same states that want neither abortion nor contraception widely available to women, despite the fact that the latter has clearly been shown to reduce abortions.
This argument basically boils down to Democrats should be religious conservatives if they want to win the south and midwest. But then they wouldn't be Democrats, would they?
38
What he actually said was that he was opposed to ANY restriction on a woman's right to have an abortion. There is nothing stopping Democrats from accepting late term abortions when there is a good reason for them, while stopping short of a total absence of any restrictions on such abortions. The number of women affected would be close to zero, if not actually zero, but it would make the Democrats more reasonable both in fact and appearance.
Given all of the serious issues facing our country -- threats from North Korea, access to affordable health care, finding a reasonable immigration policy, to name but a few -- I wish that people from both sides would just take abortion off the table and let women work it out in consultation with their doctors and partners.
The notion that this would lead to an outbreak of infanticide is patently absurd.
27
In Canada there is NO law regarding abortion. The Supreme Court ruled that state has no right to infringe on a woman's control over her own body. However, birth control is readily available, sex education is offered in schools, the "morning after" pill is readily available. There is considerable governmental support for children, extended remunerated maternal leave legislation and subsidized child care. The actual rates of abortion are extremely low. Who knew?
If the Dem's want to win again they will abandon their Republican lite, neo-liberal corporatism and promote a bold, progressive agenda.
And new, youthful leadership would be welcome as well.
11
I’m a lifelong Democrat. I cannot, and I look hard, tell what my political party represents. That isn’t the case with the GOP. They may not know how to govern but they have stands and I know what they are. Unless Democrats, as Mr. Douthat intimates, can create a robust policy platform that represents a new coalition, Democrats could lose again. Dems need new blood. Ah, if only a Robert Kennedy type was in the chutes and ready to ride.
6
Where is the bigger-than-life Democrat who is capable of focusing the variety of progressives on a pathway to political success? The progressive ideas are sound, but the salesmanship of those ideas has a long way to go. Democrats are motivated by a sense of fairness, a caring for fellow human beings, and an excitement about what the goodness in people can deliver- certainly worthwhile values. How can they effectively bring others on board?
4
Mr. Douthat has mischaracterized Robert Jones' views on abortion, which amount to giving mothers choice with nothing about specifically allowing late term abortion.
But that said, I certainly agree with Douthat's observation that Democrats are not running effective campaigns, and they are not supporting good candidates who do run, nor effectively countering right-wing smear tactics.
We have a school board race in Edina, Minnesota. A local right-wing group, The Center of the American Experiment, blanketed the city with a slick magazine-like publication warning against school board members who support teaching children "leftist" ideas, like racial equality.
This is bad, but the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (the Democratic Party in Minnesota) has done nothing to counter this. Nor does the National Party care about low-level elections.
This kind of shameless alt-Right propaganda needs to be fought everywhere. But this is still not enough! Democrats must have strong counter-ideas and concrete plans to better society or the nation will sink into the swamp of bigotry and ignorance.
11
Robert Jones' view is that mothers should have unfettered choice, including the choice of late term abortions. This is perfectly plain.
Actually, the Democrats in conservative states should just dodge and weave if their views on abortion and immigration don't completely jibe with those of many socially conservative voters. But they should be blindingly clear on economic issues: free medical care for all, four years of free university for all who qualify, higher taxes on the wealthy. And also advocate universal conscription of all 18 year-olds, male and female, for military service. Then Democrats will start to win back those voters.
3
"a leadership that isn’t under the thumb of an erratic reality television star, and a worldview that implies a policy agenda rather than just a litany of grievances"
Democrats seem unable to comment on anything without making some (negative) mention of that erratic reality television star in every comment.
The Democratic program has reduced itself to "defeat Trump." Anyway, if they get more specific as with health care (as to be single payer or not) they start tearing at each other with insults that the other is a fool or worse.
They've let Trump capture them too. He is the conversation on everything.
And that is how he won last time, despite half the ad buys and some blatantly loony ideas. Nobody talked about anything else but him.
It is long past time to stop that. Talk about what Democrats will do, not how much they hate Trump. That's been said. That horse is dead.
11
I love Douthat's analysis. It is always honest and logical. Giving the liberal NYT readers a chance to think and see the light.
But therein lies the problem. This is about politics and not reaching a higher truth. Liberals have made up their minds. They do not want honest and logical. They want their own ideology. Liberals want to control people's minds. They want to tell them how to think.
Thank you, Douthat. See you next week.
16
Yes, when I think honest and logical, I always look to the side that gave us Donald Trump.......s/
2
Hi, "From Outside the Echo Chamber" -
You are talking through your hat. Liberals "do not want honest and logical", according to you. Hello - we're the ones who believe in Science. We're the ones who don't tell you what to do in your bedroom with another consenting adult. We're NOT the ones who read "fake news", and then drive across state lines armed to the teeth to shoot up a harmless neighborhood pizza restaurant to rescue non-existent children from an equally non-existent sex ring.
We don't tell you how to think - we just wish you would.
2
I read his columns and consider his arguments. If I still disagree does that make me illogical? What you put forth here is that disagreeing is always being narrow-minded. I disagree with that (but I did think about what you wrote). And liberals have no desire to control peoples' minds, I have no idea where this sort of thinking comes from (Rush? Sean?).
3
Two Ponts:
1. Bannon is right.
As long as Democrats are lured into talking about cultural issues and not economic issues, they will lose.
And Republicans from Bannon to Douthat cleverly lead them into trat trap.
Case in point: what is Mr. Douthat talking about one Democratic Candidate’s Views on abortion, when Republicans are proposing an economic agenda which includes Medicare cuts?
2. Republicans (and Russians) win by dividing the opposition. Democrats need to focus on pulling together on the big ideas and focus on the means for achieving those ideas. Example: the big goal is good health care for allat affordable costs. Single payer is one means to that end.
Democrats need to focus on economic and social justice. And stop letting Trump and the media boxthem into narrow fights.
17
Well put, Rita.
And Democrats should be reacting to the mooted parts if “tax reform,” not just elimination of State and Local Tax Deduction, but the appalling idea floated to reduce the deductibility of 401K deductions from $18K (up tp age 50) and $24K for folks over 50. That is a middle class deduction, and for those who will get the Social Security rug pulled out from under them by Ayn Ryan, it is a 90% cut in deductibility.
7
Democrats don't need to talk about cultural issues in order for them to have an effect on voting. The Republicans can make them an issue all by themselves.
1
The Democratic Party needs to find leadership that is less tethered to the political past, able to articulate a coherent message, and sufficiently likable so as to convince The People that they are sincere and worthy of the The People's trust.
At this juncture, Bill and Hillary Clinton are not the people that will turn the public's head, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer represent all of that which has cost the Democrats more than 900 seats at the political table. And, Barack Obama? He need to leave the stage to a younger generation that is far more in tune with the politics of winning elections.
The Democrats need a message that is believable, one that provides hope to a political majority. The Democrats also need leaders who aren'y the same faces and the same voices that have dominated the party for decades.
It is ever more apparent that the Democrats will not be successful in 2018, and there has yet to emerge leadership that will build support for 2020.
The Democrats need to get started if they want no longer to be irrelevant in our state and national governance. If they lose in 2020, the consequences may see them struggling for power until 2030 or later.
They can choose success or continued failure. And both will be their responsibility and theirs alone.
14
Republicans could stop cheating to win but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Obama is not too OLD -- he's only 56 -- in any other party, he would be an ideal candidate.
But in the US, you only get two terms. It's the law. Everyone knows this.
In any same party, they would have groomed Obama -- let him mature in the Senate -- then run him for VICE President, and let him learn the ropes of negotiating with Congress -- THEN ran him for POTUS.
But Democrats have stars in their eyes, and love glamorous candidates, and they dumped HIllary like a hot potato in 2008, for the "new hot thing" which was young Mr. Obama. I am sure some internal polling told them that every single black voter in the US would vote for "the first Black POTUS" and they did.
So instead of developing a TEAM -- instead of grooming a variety of capable young candidates and letting them learn & mature -- the Dems jumped the gun and used their best shot too early. They won two terms -- but at what cost? at what cost?
1
Elyse: when you lose...the other guy cheated.
When you win....you did NOT cheat, but were completely honest and won because of the voice of the people.
That is the moral universe of a small child.
Both parties "cheat" to a degree -- tell half truths -- have a "public position and then a private position" -- but no one party is on the side of the angels.
1
The abortion "debate" is a textbook example of how the right distorts social and cultural issues to its own advantage.
I challenge Douthat or any of his conservative pals to show me an example of a woman who willingly undergoes a late-term abortion (however you define that) for any but medical reasons relating to herself or the fetus. If there are exceptions, they are because of politically inspired impediments in the way of having it done earlier.
Douthat makes it sound like a reasonable compromise to ban abortions after 20 or 22 weeks; but it's the later ones that are the most agonizing personal decisions, which are not taken lightly. They should be left to the women, their families and their doctors. They are only a small fraction of the total abortions, but to ban them could cause untold anguish.
Unfortunately, this kind of argument that can't easily be made on a bumper sticker or a tweet, and Douthat and his fellow-travelers are too ideologically committed against it to concede the point.
678
Your problem comes with the issue that you are unwilling to face:
When does abortion, a legally permissible procedure, turn to murder, a felony in all jurisdiction in the nation?
When you are willing to answer this question, a rational dialog can ensue. But until then, you are trying to defend something that is both legally and ethically wrong.
1
@mancuroc
It is, indeed, an argument that cannot be made on a bumper sticker. That is exactly Douthat's point. But for a Liberal to say that anguish lies in the details unleashes the fury of the pro-abortion crowd. I find it strange that Liberals are unable to concede that many of their core positions are deeply conflicted and carry long-term consequences for our values as human beings.
I am an outlier here, but I could not abort a late-term fetus for any of the supposedly logical reasons cited. I think I am entitled to that view as well as the right to vote for candidates who share that view without being called a name. We have lost late-term pregnancies and also adopted the children given up by others. Passing through those two very different life experiences has enlightened in a way that is both unshakable and probably not fully appreciated by the "choice" advocate.
1
Thank you mancuroc. I was struggling to find the words that you have written so well about the issue of late term abortion.
It seems to me that the argument against late term abortions is steeped in the assumption that the woman (where is the man, by the way?) is just cavalierly deciding at the last minute that she can't be bothered to have the child for purely selfish, irresponsible reasons.
Such a caricature of our selfish, irresponsible female population.
You are so right. These decisions are without a doubt the most painful and heartbreaking for the people involved. I can only imagine their agony, their exhaustion and their hopelessness.
We should be most compassionate for these people. But no, we as a society would prefer to punish them, to make them sleep in the bed that they made, to teach them a lesson.
We are never there to see the life they are forced to live after the child is born. No, we don't even want to see it. We just want to walk away and find someone else we can crucify.
3
Ross, your reference to late-term abortion speaks more to Republicans' emotional manipulation than to Democrats' weakness.
As a candidate, Donald Trump made a gory reference to the procedure as a baby being ripped out of his mother. Physicians immediately disputed Trump's words, but the damage was done. That is the Republican tactic, going for the visceral, not for the facts.
In truth, late-term abortion is a rare procedure which doctors are hesitant to undergo without immediate health risks to the pregnant woman or knowledge of fetal abnormalities. It is not as simple as early-term abortion. Like all medical procedures, it is for doctors, not politicians, to weigh in on, and for patients to make their own determination. Democrats' position is not 'playing doctor,' it is letting the MDs do their own job.
But it is easier to make a quick, macabre talking point than to articulate all that.
392
Goldwater ran for president on his principles and was soundly defeated. But the conservatives who backed Goldwater took over the party and after a long trek in the wilderness came back and succeeded.
You may be right about what the Democratic Party must do to win in 2018 and 2020. But if they follow your advise, which Democratic Party will take power? Surely we all remember Bill Clinton and triangulation. Surely we remember the DLC. Clinton did what he had to do to win and he was successful. But what was the price of his success? He moved the Democratic Party into the Luntz Republican framework by accepting the core principals of Reaganism and allowed the center of American politics to drift ineluctably to the right. What we have now, including Donald Trump and the Freedom Caucus are the heritage Clinton and yes, unfortunately Obama have left us. What conservatives taught us is that if you want to create a world that resembles your vision, you need a vision, principles and a willingness to state and stick to them. Otherwise, you wind up with a world that is ever slipping away toward the other end of the political spectrum.
11
@NM
Excellent. I was just about to post similarly but you beat me to it : ) The issue with late term abortion is not because liberals support "infanticide" or that this is an operation that doctors and women would engage in casually, but because it is almost always done out of legitimate medical need and therefore needs to remain between patients and doctors. I would somewhat support legislation that would indicate as much: freeing up abortion up to 20 weeks with no medical reason, but after requiring signed physician indication..
7
Your position is perfectly reasonable, but opposed by people like Jones, who will countenance no requirements whatsoever in regards to late term abortion.
It’s no fairy tale: once upon a time the Democratic Party, on a national basis, knew how to win. They won by being the party of the working class. This was their bedrock constituency. And the addition of civil rights supporters in the 1960s should have broadened their base even more- despite Vietnam, despite racist backlash. However, by competing for contributions from the same funding sources as the Republicans they have compromised their message and policies.
The Democratic party needs to gear-shift out of the neoliberal mindset in order to travel on the ground where people live. Only then can the economic realm be subordinated to the sphere of the citizen and the local community. An integrated global family is a fantasy without this foundation. And it will not happen where financial capital can run amok, in total disregard of a community’s stability and values. Financial liberalization is not a force of nature. It’s current iteration is not inevitable.....
A transformation is necessary. It will require carful crafting. And an acknowledgment of failure.
This reorientation may not be possible with the current party leadership. It will need to come “from below”- perhaps from a new party, and maybe in an alliance of what is now “left” and “right”.
25
@Joseph Dibello
It's not a 'neo-liberal mindset' to play the electoral game by the same rules as everyone else is playing. What good is it to be morally superior but a perennial loser because one insists on playing by different rules?
And, when you get right down to it, is that even the morally superior position, to sacrifice one's voice in the exercise of public debate because the current rules are found to be distasteful?
No, playing by existing rules is no vice, even if we can acknowledge that those rules are distasteful. Unilaterally changing the rules, moving the goalposts, as the GOP does in order to avoid addressing issues and topics it prefers not to, certainly is. And that's what the modern GOP is doing on a daily basis now, in an attempt to keep a 'winning' streak going...without engaging their political opponents on ideas, or process, or policy.
So, I agree, we should finance our elections differently. But until we achieve some kind of consensus for change, there's no good reason to unilaterally disarm Democrats and leave the nation to the GOP wolves.
9
The "party" of the working class is called communism. The Dems began their push toward communism with the programs of FDR and the New Deal. It has moved us further left through LBJ and the trillions wasted in pursuit of a "Great Society", capped by Obama's end run to inevitable socialized medicine. At that point were sufficiently left as to make a turn around virtually impossible. The fact is we DO need Bannon's deconstruction.
2
Amen. To continue with Douthat's tag line, "But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need..." The Democratic Party quit trying to be democratic after the McGovern debacle, when the centrists took over and sold their souls to Wall Street in a desperate quest to "win." As one example, funny thing, the party's stance on antitrust then disappeared. And we've had Rockefeller Republicans in charge of the Party ever since. Even today, with Perez reneging on the Ellison power-sharing and purging like crazy.
And the populism of the Party shifted after the '60's to being a populism for oppressed interest groups - that is not a bad thing in and of itself, but the Party left its big tent and the blue collar, rural and more traditional folks behind. The Party's abdication of economic populism - it's main reason for being, imo - went hand-in-hand with the Southern Strategy, enabled it even, certainly gave it an assist. Same with Main Street economics, authentic labor progress - the Party's cravenness to big money meant it had to leave labor behind, had to leave economic equality behind, had to leave a reasonable approach to globalism behind.
The "Democrats" went for the money. And the Party's still struggling today with learning the lessons of the Hillary crowning gone awry; that the sclerotic leadership sinecure of Pelosi, Hoyer, Shumer, Murray et. al. - feckless, all of them - is an indicator that the Party is very resistant to change. The money's too good...
5
The writer says he's a "cultural conservative" who just wants more centrist positions from the Democratic Party but the vast majority of US therefore presumably the 'center', want abortion to stay legal and favor no more restrictions than Roe v. Wade prescribes, so the so-called-center he wants is in fact further right than Americans want. Look how far sticking with 'BillClintonian' economics has gotten the country never mind the Democrats: increasing inequality, shrinking middle class and fewer civil rights. Meanwhile given the choice Americans vote for higher minimum wages and legalizing marijuana in referendum after referendum which neither 'major' party. The people are more liberal than their politicians dare be because of their need for Big Money. That's clearly a need injustice roy moore shares. Alabamians are desperate for their needs to begin to figure in politicians calculations and so are in fact more ready than the conservative in no way centrist writer wants to admit. BTW "Orthodoxy" on social issues by definition can be in no way progressive, since orthodoxy is a synonym for conservatism: the exact opposite of progressive.
21
Too many progressives seem to think that if a Democrat is close the center they are no better than Republicans. With this line of thinking you can forget 2018 and probably 2020 as well.
48
Which "center?" The one that moves to the right chasing the Republicans?
8
I tend to think the other way. The dems have been much too close to the centre, for a long time, and have lost touch with the pulse of the nation, thus allowing atrocities like Trump and a return of voodoo economics.
They need to get back to the heart of the matter, progressive policies such as single payer and championing the working guys, not the 1%.
6
I agree. This country needs both conservative democrats and also some liberal republicans willing to buck their respective parties and get something done.
1
Isn't it hard to beat Bill Clinton's formulation: "abortion should be legal and rare"? Regarding the "rare" part of the equation, democrats should emphasize common sense things like federally funded sex-ed and removing all restrictions on insurance payments for birth-control (both points anathema to many conservatives, making it clear that issue for many of them is exerting control over women's sexuality rather than abortion per se).
I somewhat agree with Ross on the other points, though, in particular I think going for single-payer is folly. Obama care needs to be strengthened: it is a good compromise between liberal and conservative thinking (circa 1990s, e.g. Romney), but once this is done democrats need to move on to other issues that have greater importance in improving the middle and working class. Are we going to spend the next half-century arguing over health care?
16
"Single-payer is folly" because Americans aren't Western? Modern? Human? Which is it? I think you don't reckon enough with the number of Americans who don't tend to vote, but might if Democrats backed Medicare for all wholeheartedly.
11
Hillary Clinton said that
1
"democrats should emphasize common sense things like federally funded sex-ed and removing all restrictions on insurance payments for birth-control"
Uh, maybe I've been hiding under a rock, but isn't that exactly what Democrats have been doing?
"Are we going to spend the next half-century arguing over health care?"
Who, exactly, is it that is arguing? Since the ACA was passed--in reality, while it was still being worked on--the Republicans have been trying to either prevent its passage or to "repeal and maybe, kinda, replace it". I think most Democrats (I may be going out on a limb here) support single payer (at least in the abstract) but would have been willing to work on strengthening and improving Obamacare if they didn't have to keep fighting the universal health care battle that's been going on since the Truman administration. Unfortunately, some of the Democrats, instead of coming together to work on the strengthening and improving, were more concerned with purity than they were with building on the gains that had been so painfully won. I wonder how many Democrats didn't vote for Hillary because of the belief that it was single payer or bust.
Democrats do indeed often campaign with a death wish, partly because so many are ideological purists. The larger problem, though, is the split in party ranks between corporate Democrats and Berniecrats. When Bernie Sanders attacked Hillary Clinton's cozy relationship with corporate America, he tapped into voter anger in both parties.
Trump managed to bamboozle voters into thinking he would rein in corporate power, but by now most everyone has forgotten his campaign and is waiting for his next tweet about kneeling athletes. Trump claimed during the campaign, "I know how to win," and proved it. Democrats now need candidates who know how to win, and you're right Ross, we don't always get what we need. But now "we" means an entire nation needs enlightened leadership, and we need it soon.
28
Eric Caine:
Democrats are ideological purists? Ideological purity sure seems to have worked for the republicans. Take a look at their media outlets. There is no talk of compromising their core beliefs to win over “snowflakes”.
You don't always get what you want.
But sometimes, you get what you need.
1
Are you referring to the 70,000 or so voters from a handful of states who gave the election to Trump in the last election? Is that the Sisyphean hill that the Democrats need to push the stone over? My sense is that, after two years of the Trump/Republican train wreck, it may not be that great of a task to find their way out of the labyrinth in 2018.
124
This is why Democrats continue losing.....they've lost the House, Senate, 27 state chambers, almost 1000 state seats, 12 governorships, and then the White House, and as a result of everything the Supreme Court. But it is still Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.....
1
Hulu, not Netflix, adapted The Handmaid's Tale.
24
Exactly! And on my laptop screen at least, the dresses appeared green. Not blue.
1
In case you need a little reminder of the facts published in medical journals and the New York Times: A tiny percentage of abortions happen after 20 weeks (just over 1% of all abortions), and the vast majority of them are for severe fetal abnormalities that could not be detected earlier. The laws already prevent abortions after viability. Can't Republicans be asked to use some common sense on this issue as well as Democrats? Is the 20-week ban really being called for out of compassion for children? It hardly seems so. Mr. Douthat, can you perhaps consider that the real reason for the Republican challenge to the current law is that they are trying to prove to those in their base that they will do anything to appease them? This is politically, not scientifically based. In fact, it sounds like some of the other stances the Republican party has taken that Democrats will not submit to. Climate change anyone? I say RESIST.
215
So if such abortions are only "just over 1% of all abortions" why not say so when campaigning, rather than alienate a great many people by saying you are for abortion without restriction as a matter of principle? I think you need to read Ross's article again.
NOPE -- that's what I was taught as a young woman. That is what was in "Our Bodies, Ourselves" and countless articles, books, etc.
It has been debunked and by no less than Planned Parenthood themselves.
Late term abortions ARE NOT RARE, neither are they only 1% of all abortions. And most are NOT for fetal deformities (nor the life of mother) -- most late term abortions occur because the woman is ambivalent....refuses to acknowledge she is pregnant....her family maybe in denial as well...she may have hoped for months for a miscarriage....and often, it is because a boyfriend who was initially supportive, backed out at the last minute.
The 20 week STANDARD is almost universal in Europe -- and don't liberals worship and adore everything in "Europe"? aren't they held up as an absolute role model?
(BTW: the statistic you have misunderstood says that ONLY 1% of all abortions are done for rape, incest, health of the mother OR fetal abnormalities. That means very few are done because of these horrific conditions -- it does not translate therefore, that all late term abortions are done for these reasons. 99% of late term abortions are done on healthy, normal women with healthy, normal pregnancies.)
1
The late great Ann Richards used to say that Democrats had just as much of a litmus test as Republicans (and, at the time she said that, the early 90s, would append it to say “and Republicans are happy with an elected official who votes their way 51 percent of the time”...ha...how times have changed).
I agree with much of what Ross says here. Democrats are too worried about purity (and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are exactly what’s wrong with the Democratic Party). A Democratic Gilead isn’t that much of a stretch either — political correctness run amok with enforced nap times for all.
Democrats appear to be drifting from a party of freedom to think and be to a conscripted “anti whatever the other side is”. To be a Democrat, I have to be pro-choice, pro-union, pro-gay, anti-gun, anti-death penalty and also question whether or not I should attend church. I’m gay and pro-choice, but have questions about what meaning unions still bring to the conversation. That’s viewed as apostasy.
If Mitt Rommey hadn’t gone all right wing in the ‘12 election, I would have voted for him. I voted for Hillary, not because she was a woman or wasn’t Trump, but because she brought a reasonable, rational perspective to national politics. Most Democrats thought me “a moderate Republican voter”. SAD indeed.
20
The fact that unions have been castrated by successive administrations is the main cause of the gross inequality that has been developing for years. Unionisation is probably the last best hope that we have as a civilised society.
I question the claim of "most Democrats". There are quite likely many of us who think much as you do.
I can't believe it, but I actually agree with you, Ross. Let's leave aside the issue of abortion (I had no idea the Alabama candidate was that extreme), but on other issues related to immigration and to a certain extent, economic fairness, I think they'd do well to to shoot for the possible and pragmatic over the "nice but, ain't gonna happen, maybe never" approach that the farther left is clamoring for.
Unfortunately, running so hard against Trump when so many of his supporters would literally lay down their lives for him, isn't the answer--and yet, they're already falling into that trap.
My thinking of late is that they'd do well to keep the focus on policy and what the impact of GOP (not just Trump but the whole lot of them) will do for the bottom lines of middle class families.
And the way things are going, that really shouldn't be too hard: junk health policies if indeed there are any policies at all; a tax package that will raise their taxes once deductions are eliminated, Medicare/Medicaid gutted, and maximum 401(k) contributions slashed; and deregulation that is threatens the their health and potentially their entire life savings if another financial crisis hits.
If I were a Democratic candidate, I'd focus less on the president and more on his party: that's where the money is, quite literally.
36
Click the link. Douthat misrepresents what the Democrat said. The whole article is built on a misrepresentation of the Democrat's position. It's no better or more honest than a Donald Trump tweet. The NYT's editors should be embarrassed.
2
Christine - Did you fact check on just how "extreme" Jones is? If you follow the link in Douthat's column you'll find that he simply said he's not in favor of restrictions. Is that "extreme"?
2
The Democrats need someone who can actually talk. It is pathetic to see Schumer read from old cliches written on 3x5 cards. The Democrats need someone who can think and express new thoughts. Why not present your own tax idea and post it on the internet for all to try and see what happens to their current return? Why not speak with passion now owned by Bernie declaring free ice cream for all and we will make the rich guy pay. The Democrats are pathetic-spineless. The Republicans are proving evil - soulless.
25
BOTH parties have betrayed us.
That's why Trump won. Now...he is not governing as an outsider...but that IS why he WON.
We need two new political parties. Or three or four. But the old Democrats and GOP are absolutely corrupt and worthless.
1
Labyrinths can be effectively navigated to eventual escapes. The real problem is a labyrinth in the midst of a wilderness. Even if you manage to escape the labyrinth, you’re still in the wilderness.
Ross’s sense of disillusion mirrors my own. For our politics to heal, Republicans need to amble left and Democrats need to amble right. And, while there seem to be some indications that Republicans may hold up their side of the bargain, notably in a willingness to compromise on “Bump stocks” (even though Paul Ryan for now seems to have scotched that) and for some sense on ACA subsidies, there appears to be NO similar evolution on the left.
Ross clearly has lost any sense of politically-correct patience on the issue, so let’s get right down to it on abortion. I favor Roe as it currently stands, which confers on a woman the right to abort a fetus throughout a pregnancy but sets up conditions by which states can regulate access to abortion in the second and third trimesters. I favor it primarily because it strikes what to me is an eminently sensible balance between the legitimate rights of women to determine their own fates and the rights of states to minister to the interests of the communities they represent; and secondarily because I don’t want a holy war fought on our soil. To me, Roe was a brilliant compromise that satisfied few but with which most could just barely live – the perfect definition of a workable compromise on a highly contentious issue.
17
However, a tide seems to be rising to further clarify those limitations to access in the second and third trimesters, to limit abortion to twenty weeks into the term. Democrats should be dickering with Republicans over this, because the notion that a baking life isn’t more human the more it approaches nine months just isn’t selling. And if there remain serious questions that could be put before THIS U.S. Supreme Court, we run the risk of having Roe vacated in its entirety and return to the mess we had prior to 1973, when every state set its own standards and women had fundamentally different “rights”, state to state. That ain’t no way to run a cathouse or a nation.
Maybe it doesn’t turn out to be twenty weeks, maybe twenty-two. But this is an opportunity for Democrats to co-opt votes in the center and on the right, while deferring an Armageddon that doesn’t need to be fought, thereby rendering an invaluable service to the nation – and to women specifically.
Ross’s emphasis on immigration, I think, needs to await real proposals from both sides. But, clearly, open-borders is a concept rejected by most Americans and simply not a practical basis for seeking renewed electoral relevancy.
Ross makes very practical arguments in his column that Democrats should heed. If liberals succeed at unifying their base yet still can’t elect their people, they’ve emerged from a labyrinth … only to starve in the wilderness.
And our politics will never heal.
8
Richard would have us believe that their is some type of bargain in the works, I see no evidence of that. He further advances the laughable position that Republican possible willingness to regulate gun stocks is evidence of the Republican willingness to compromise ignoring the latest attempts by Republicans to eliminate any discussin or debate on tax reform, health care, the budget, trade or just about every significant issue in government. Mitch McConnell has shown no signs of wanting a bargain since the election of Obama.
"Unfortunately for the Democrats, their vision and leaders and agenda also sometimes leave the impression that they never want to win another tossup Senate seat."
Republicans seem to excel at winning tossup races. In 2010, the Republicans' national vote share was small compared to the number of House seats won. With 300 safe seats they won an unprecedented 128 of the remaining 135 seats. They won all the close races even though they should break about even. This has been the pattern since we moved to computerized voting.
In 2007, Cornell Belcher, the pollster for the DNC, said at a media conference in Nashville that in races where the Democrat was ahead by 10 points they considered the race even, a tossup. Exit poll discrepancies in election after election indicate that official counts have been shifted to the right. Republican Stephen Spoonamoore in the interview below explains that large exit poll discrepancies are statistically impossible.
Stephen Spoonamore, Computer Security Guru, Election Theft with Voter Machines
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BX6vcoIZdA4
"I am a Republican, I've been a life-long member of the party, This is not a Democrat/Republican issue. This is not a partisan issue. This is a democracy issue. If you actually care about a constitutional democracy where every person actually votes, that vote is validated, and the people who end up in office are reflected on the basis of the way people voted you care about this issue."
(cont'd below)
18
(2 of 2)
"If you don't want people to vote, and if you don't want people's vote to count, you want to rule without owning it by a mandate, then you are very supportive of Diebold."
No computer system will ever be secure enough. Spoonamoore. explains that the credit card industry has a 2-1/2 percent fraud rate despite the large amount of money they spend on security. He pointed out that there is more security with the dispensing of a $20 bill from a Diebold ATM machine. And if you don't get that $20 there is more of an audit system set up. And he said he considered the Diebold system 'IT junk' because it did "not allow the code any kind of validation or check that allows for a local auditor to confirm that it is in a configuration pattern appropriate for voting."
The Ossoff/Handel race, 2016 election, and Democratic primary are the latest examples of elections with red flags.
Jonathan Simon: Laughing Their Ossoff: Did Computer-Aided Fraud Play A Role In Georgia's Special Election Upset?
https://www.mintpressnews.com/laughing-their-ossoff-did-computer-aided-f...
Search "Donald Trump Warned of a 'Rigged' Election, Was He Right?" (there is a limit on links).
I was glad to see conservative Michael Barone call for a return to hand-counted ballots:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/michael-barone-lets-go-back-to-paper-b...
#DemocracyDemandsTransparentVoteCounting
42
When you lose...it's rigged voting machines.
When you win...it's "the voice of the people".
So tell me, sir: why did the same hackers who rigged the 2000 and 2004 elections....suddenly forget how to do this in 2008 and 2012...and then REMEMBER how to rig voting machines again in 2016????
1
Concerned Citizen,
The 2008 and 2012 elections were manipulated but It was not enough to overcome the large margins Obama actually won by. It came down to Ohio in 2012. Experimental patches were placed in about thirty counties before that election. Someone from the Secretary of State's office blew the whisubecause patches are experimental and are only allowed in one county. Here's an article about it.
Did an Election Day Lawsuit Stop Karl Rove’s Vote-Rigging Scheme in Ohio?
https://washingtonspectator.org/did-an-election-day-lawsuit-stop-karl-ro...
Remember the meltdown Karl Rove had on Fox on election night in 2012? You can watch it on YouTube if you haven't seen it. The plan was to send the vote totals to another computer before they were sent to the Secretary of State's office. That's what happened in Ohio in 2004 when the computers went down at 11:00 PM and came back up at 12:20 AM. Someone from Anonymous infiltrated Karl Rove's tech team in 2012. On election night he changed the passwords and prevented the manipulation. That's why Rove had a meltdown when Fox called Ohio for Obama.
Election integrity is not about ensuring that your candidate wins. That's what Stephen Spoonamoore says in the quote I posted above. I applaud Spoonamoore and Michael Barone, both conservatives, for standing up for democracy. Putting the evidence aside, democracies must count their votes in an observable manner, not in secret.
2
Douthat would have had the Republican party reach a compromise over slavery (say just women can be slaves) just to win votes in the states of the Confederacy.
252
Actually Lincoln did approve a compromise over slavery after he was elected but before inauguration. It was a constitutional amendment to protect slavery where it existed.
1
Absolutely spot on.
1
The Democrats have no candidates that could beat Trump in 2020. Period.
6
The Democrats have no candidates, not yet. It is more than three years away,. Anointing now a presumptive candidate would be a bad idea, and is not in prospect.
10
Which is odd. I mean, it's a huge political party -- much larger and MUCH wealthier than the GOP. They have buckets and buckets of money, influence -- Big Wall Street -- Big Hollywood -- Big Tech -- and yet they can't find any decent candidates.
Worse even than Hillary in 2016 was the sense that "this is all there is". That you guys ran Hillary because you HAD NOBODY ELSE TO RUN -- no bright young upstarts. No heirs apparent groomed for greatness. No new young Hispanic or Asian "Barack Obama Jr".
You had nothing. You had two old, white rich people from New York. That's all. Both in their dotage, on SS and Medicare. THAT WAS ALL YOU HAD.
And now it is a year later....and you still got nothing. Goose eggs. Zero. The big empty. NADA.
1
Mark, I was not talking about "anointing any one person" (as Hillary was anointed from the get-go).
I am talking about cultivating young talent -- young by the standards of "no more 70 year old geezers" -- a political party can't simply wait for the next "hero savior" to appear from nowhere. You get good candidates by nuturing them along in their 20s-30s, giving them more responsibility as they get older and finally by around age 50 or 55, you have a worthy competitor with good negotiating and public speaking skills.
1
The last time a majority of white Americans voted for a Democrat for president was in 1964.
I agree to a point with Ross that the Democrats need to offer a coherent economic philosophy for citizens not residing in big cities and should moderate their positions on social issues.
The problem, however, is that, for over five decades, the GOP has done an excellent job of scamming enough people into thinking that the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt really gives a damn about them by using economic anxiety and racial dog whistles to dominate the South and rural areas in general.
In spite of electronic vote fraud, gerrymandering, and foreign government subversion of our electoral process; in spite of an archaic Electoral College best sent into the dustbin of history to join slavery, the poll tax, and the 3/5 rule; if the Democrats cannot unite behind a generic decent candidate regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity and defeat Trump in 2020, then our oldest political party should join the Whigs.
113
Archaic election system?
Pathetic election system. No other Western nation is so backdated .
1
Anti-anglo racism, John? That would make sense as a complaint if both our private and public sectors were not controlled almost entirely by white men.
Unless you consider it "racism" that during my lifetime it went from exclusively white men in charge to almost exclusively white men in charge. I am white, and have no fear at all of "non-Anglos" nor of "anti-Anglo racism." I do remember a time when my own people were not considered "Anglos" -- and so should you, unless your ancestors were purely English Protestants.
Readers who don’t follow the link to the Doug Jones interview may gasp at Mr. Douthat’s characterization of the Alabama Senate candidate’s view on abortion. But those who do will find that when he was asked if he would support a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, Mr. Jones actually said “No, I’m not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose.”
No full-term fetuses are being pulled “blue and flailing from the womb.” Those are Mr. Douthat’s words. Neither I nor anyone I know who is in favor of abortion rights would agree with such an extreme exaggeration of reality. It’s disgusting for anyone to make such a statement, and it indicates why there is so much distance between medical professionals and religious zealots who would demand that every pregnant woman bring a fetus to term, even if it had serious genetic abnormalities or if the woman knew she couldn’t take care of it.
Today’s attack on liberals is disguised as an appeal to right-thinking Democrats not to undermine their chances for victory by supporting baby killers. The Republicans are so damaged by decades of self-serving greed and attacks on the poor and the sick that Mr. Douthat thinks we’ll think twice about voting for the likes of Doug Jones if we want to ensure Democratic victories in 2018.
Maybe this ploy would work on conservative Republicans, but Democrats would be harder to convince, because they’re not stupid.
619
@gemli
I don't think there is any question that Democrats are the smartest and most intellectual creatures on the planet.
Douthat is simply challenging the smartest and most intellectual creatures on the planet to run candidates who can attract voters from the Center where most peoples' political interests actually lie.
Most of the issues Liberals die for (e.g., abortion without restriction, transgender bathrooms, more female CEOs, open borders) just don't resonate with average Americans.
Americans just aren't smart enough to be Democrats, because they are stupid.
All of us.
2
You're not wrong. That's not what Doug Jones said. That is, however, the message that spreads throughout the Alabama, a state that leans strongly right. Democrats don't have the luxury of sticking to their words in such states. They have to know how their words will be twisted and manipulated to turn voters off in such states.
Politics, sadly, is a game. If you don't know the rules of the game, you lose.
Mr. Gemli. Such a bunker mentality as it pertains to bending instead of breaking will only get us more Federalist Society judges, that will make our agenda more and more unachievable. For years and years to come.
"America has two political parties, but only one of them has a reasonably coherent political vision..."
Au contraire, Monsieur Douthat, au contraire.
We have two political parties that are closer in ideology than the mainstream parties in Europe. To Westerners looking at the American political system, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are minor when comparing European right and left ideologies.
In most of Europe, abortion is rooted in science and a woman's human rights. In America, both parties, for the most part, still argue women's issues on emotion and religion. It is refreshing to see a Democrat argue it on the merits of the law, as it was decided by the Supreme Court. Many among the leadership of the rest of the Democratic party may be wincing, but this is the right approach. Abortion remains an issue between a woman and her doctor. The village has no business sticking its nose in a woman's lady parts or investing emotion where none are needed or welcome.
But this is what we have devolved to and the Democrats have played into the hand of Republicans for far too long by both proclaiming support of women and limiting it in deference to religion, all the while touting separation between church and state. On this, and many other issues, Democrats need to abide by their voters, pick their side and stick to it.
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/09/04/triangulation-when-neoliberalism-is...
54
Countries in the EU do limit abortion.
Hillary Clinton did in fact abide by the majority of Democratic voters and she soundly defeated the more progressive Democratic candidate.
The majority of voters also chose Hillary over the Republican candidate. She didn't lose because of her politics, the election was stolen. Yet she is still blamed for the rise of Trump.
Democrats may not be far enough to the left for Progressives but they are definitely not Republicans.
26
Mr. Daley,
Abortion is accessible to women who need one. Yes, there are limits but no one is stuck like the 17 year old young lady from Mexico whom Texas authorities are trying to force to continue her pregnancy, even with the court order in place.
Winning the election was predicated upon winning enough electoral college votes. Those were the rules in place. Clinton failed to win according to the rules. The popular vote has no legal bearing. Had she shown her face in the midwest, we would be looking at an entirely different trajectory.
There is zero proof the election was stolen. Neither the intelligence community nor Democratic party officials have come out and said that. You seem to be influenced by alt-left news.
As for overwhelmingly winning the primary, the answer to that is no. The Democratic party is very divided. Senator Sanders had secured, fair and square, new rules regarding the use of superdelegates. This week, the new DNC chair got rid of progressive superdelegates and invited a very large number of corporate operatives and lobbyists as voting superdelegates. Not a smart move. This will further ensure the party remains divided and may even cause more of a flight of voters than the DNC convention did.
There are more independent voters than there are voters of either party. Candidates win with their voters and independents.
https://www.rimaregas.com/2016/11/27/silent-class-revolt-most-democrats-...
5
Mr. Daley,
Since you seem to have an alternative recollection... Here is a link to Bloomberg News' reporting on the changes in the DNC. Hopefully, you still remember the negotiations that went on during the primary on changes to the platform and superdelegate system...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-18/democrats-plan-to-nam...
2
First off, there's nothing that a senator can do insofar as the issue of reproductive rights is concerned apart from voting in support- or in opposition to- a Supreme Court justice who'll vote to overturn Roe v Wade. Is that where a self-acknowledged social conservative like Mr. Douthat wants the nation to go? If so, who's the extremist here (most Americans are in favor of retaining Roe)? Second, what exactly would Douthat do to curtail abortions after the 20-week mark? Restrict them to rape cases? Incest? Life of the mother? How about health of the mother, which could change dramatically after 20 weeks of pregnancy? How about health of the fetus? Death of the father? Extreme and abrupt change in finances? Gee, Ross, how about just letting the mother make the decision- i.e., keeping government the heck out of it? Even if we're to assume that you'd be in favor of restricting abortions after 20 weeks to life of the mother, who's to make THAT determination if not the mother and her own gynecologist? Would you like to do that, Ross? How about the mother's congressional representative? Judge Goresuch? Judge Ginsburg? Or do we get Judge Kennedy to break the inevitable tie? Or send her for a second opinion- assuming there's enough time for that!! Or do we just hand her a coat-hanger and compel her to do the job herself? I don't believe that anyone on the left is in favor of "open borders," Ross, but reproductive rights? Sorry, non-negotiable.
294
Well, Stu, I'm not sure you're correct about the precise meaning of Roe v Wade. I thought it left the door open to restrictions on late term abortions. That no such restrictions have been passed because the anti-abortion zealots wouldn't support them because it would undermine their crusade against all abortions.
We could have a compromise that a majority of Americans would probably support: no restrictions at all on abortion up to a certain point and after that a requirement for an actual medical diagnosis detailing the likely death or major incapacitation of the mother.
Such a compromise would remove abortion as a significant political issue. It would be opposed by both extremes. A lot of folks would need to find new careers. It would be a very good thing indeed but any politician who proposed it would likely see their career end.
If you really believe that an extremely late term abortion is justified by an "abrupt change in finances" why couldn't such an event justify killing a six day old baby? Why do you fetishisize birth? A fetus one day away from birth versus a baby born six days ago? That's one week!
And the notion that we have to have a bunch of judges make such a call!?! Only medical issues could justify an extremely late term abortion and only doctors are competent to make an official medical diagnosis.
8
@Jack Toner: Whose doctors: the mother's or the government's? Needless to say, a sensitive and/or compliant doctor can write up any diagnosis he/she wants, especially if the patient is, say, the daughter of an affluent conservative. In any case, only the mother can be fully aware of her own circumstances. The rest of us should butt out of her decision-making process on this issue. In any event, no one is talking about killing babies once they've emerged from the womb, so it sounds as though you're the one who's fetishizing birth- or fetishizing fetuses at any rate.
13
Jack - Roe v. Wade left "the door open" for bans on abortions in the third trimester, as well as regulations in the 2nd trimester to protect women's health. It's not correct that "no such restrictions have been passed." In fact, 43 states do exactly what you suggest: ban abortions after a certain period, with various exceptions (mothers life, mothers physical health, rape, incest).
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws
1