Abortion, the Ohio vote and the Great Reversal

09 August 2023

The big news this morning comes out of Ohio, where voters in a special election rejected a proposal that would have made it harder to change the state’s constitution by popular vote. Supporters had hoped to stop a measure in the fall that aims to constitutionally enshrine abortion rights.

It backfired.

Here’s the AP: “Voter opposition to the proposal was widespread, even spreading into traditionally Republican territory. In fact, in early returns, support for the measure fell far short of former President Donald Trump’s performance during the 2020 election in nearly every county.”

The Republicans and business groups who had pushed for the referendum said that it would “protect the state’s foundational document from outside interest groups,” according to the AP. That might have been a convincing argument a year ago, but in the context of Dobbs, which overturned Roe, that argument sank out of sight. Fifty-seven percent of voters said nuh-uh.

The referendum’s critics say the vote is another example of the Great Reversal that has happened since a rightwing supermajority on the United States Supreme Court decided to immiserate the social standing of half the country, by repealing the national right to abortion, privacy and autonomy.

“The Ohio win again suggests that much of the grassroots energy on cultural issues right now is on the liberal side,” wrote the Post’s Greg Sargeant. “The politics are clear: Roe v Wade got Republicans out to vote. Dobbs is getting Democrats out to vote,” wrote anti-Trump Republican and podcaster Joe Walsh. “Trying to ban abortion is every bit as disastrous for Republicans as they wanted us to believe that supporting trans rights is for Democrats,” wrote Ari Drennen, a contributor to Media Matters. “Since Dobbs in June of 2022, Democrats keep overperforming expectations again and again, and Republicans keep underperforming. One side is fired up, governing well, working hard, winning, and the other side keeps losing and will have Trump as their nominee,” wrote Simon Rosenberg, a strategist.

I want to add some points that overlap the above.

1. The Republicans still seem to think that the “grassroots energy on cultural issues” remains on their side. That’s why we’re seeing, over and over, repeated efforts to completely ban abortion in states like Ohio. If they weren’t so busy suckling the teat of rightwing media, they might consider modulating their objectives. They can’t won’t stop suckling, though. The result is serial elections, linked to abortion, that hand them their asses.

2. The Republicans still seem to misunderstand the public’s complex view on abortion, because complexity is whitewashed by a rightwing media that the Republicans can’t stop won’t stop suckling. I’m generalizing here, but I’d guess that most people most of the time probably don’t like abortion, but they nevertheless want it to be safe and legal. Of those who hate it, at least some don’t want the state involved in private affairs. To these folk, Dobbs did not represent a restoration of the rights of states to determine abortion matters on their own. It represents an upheaval of the existing order.

3. The Republicans still seem to deny that two streams of political energy have converged. On the one hand are their obvious opponents, activists who are working to present pro-abortion ballot measures (like in Ohio) to the public. It’s the other hand that the Republicans seem oblivious to – respectable white people who just want things to go back to “normal.”

Though decided by justices who are said to be conservative, Dobbs was anything but conservative. It revoked a constitutional right that, since 1973, most people most of the time had come to take for granted. These streams of political energy are coming together in ways they have not in decades.

4. The Republicans still can’t believe, because they can’t stop won’t stop suckling the teat of rightwing media, that anyone would want things to go back to “normal.” They cannot see this: the more they try to completely ban abortion, the more agitated respectable white people are going to get. They cannot see the subliminal link between Dobbs and Donald Trump, the man most responsible for enabling the Supreme Court to launch its revolution. Both represent social strife. Both represent disorder. It’s not hard to imagine some Ohioans going to the polls to defend the status quo.

There is no going back to the pre-Dobbs era, but that fact does not make the argument for going back any less appealing. And that argument will continue grow in appeal to most Democrats and some Republicans, I think, as long as Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, thus overshadowing even the most “reasonable” arguments in favor of “the sanctity of life.”

We are seeing people who are fighting the new normal (Dobbs) joining forces with people who want to go back to “normal.” This merger has the making of a major reaction against 50 years of conservative dominance.

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