Trump can’t outrun the consequences of Roe’s fall

The Trump campaign is reportedly angry, annoyed and scrambling for damage control after the Times ran a frontpage story about Donald Trump’s new position on abortion. Privately, he has said he “likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother,” the paper reported.

This was a leak, according to Rolling Stone’s reporting on the Trump campaign’s reaction to the Times story. The former president has carefully avoided taking a firm position on abortion, in the belief that Republican-controlled states have gone too far in restricting it or banning it outright. He believes a backlash is “overwhelmingly responsible” for a series of GOP defeats since Roe’s fall in 2022.

The Times said Trump is trying to satisfy “social conservatives who want to further restrict access to abortions and Republican and independent voters who want more modest limits on the procedure.”

Though he often takes credit for the Supreme Court striking down Roe, in 2022, Trump had wanted to wait until after the Republican primaries to talk publicly about his new stance for fear of “alienating social conservatives before he has secured the nomination.” Rolling Stone seems to corroborate that fear. It said the Times report inflamed “some of the anti-abortion movement’s most uncompromising figures, who lashed out at Trump for being insufficiently ‘pro-life.’”

Let’s all take a breath.

First, forget about the idea that Trump is going to alienate “social conservatives who want to further restrict access to abortions.” That’s not going to happen, because, to them, abortion isn’t about abortion. It’s about a woman’s place in society relative to a man’s. It’s about amassing enough power to enforce a rigid social hierarchy, according to which white Christian men are on top, dominating and controlling.

Second, the “anti-abortion movement’s most uncompromising figures, who lashed out at Trump for being insufficiently ‘pro-life’” are not lashing out because he’s gone soft. Abortion isn’t about abortion. It’s not about babies and life. They understand what must be done.

Megachurch pastor Robert Jeffries, a “most uncompromising figure,” told Rolling Stone that when he and Trump last spoke, they agreed a six-week ban, no exceptions, won’t “fly in America today, because the overwhelming majority of Americans are against something that is that ‘extreme.’ But [Trump] also said they are against the ‘extreme’ abortion-on-demand. So he’s clearly trying to get to a position that is staunchly pro-life, but also realistic, given where most Americans are.”

(By the way, “extreme abortion on-demand” is a meaningless term used to create an imaginary middle ground. Abortion happens because people who get them choose them. So, yeah, it’s “abortion on-demand.” The point, however, is making a reasonable position seem extreme.)

To be sure, some “social conservatives” have lashed out against Trump. For instance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, before dropping out of the GOP primary, said: “I don’t know how you can even make the claim that you’re pro-life if you’re criticizing states for enacting protections for babies that have heartbeats. If he’s going into this saying he’s going to make the Democrats happy with respect to right to life, I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out.”

But are they lashing out about Trump going soft on abortion? Or are they lashing out about the risk they are about to take? If they stick with Trump, and they will, because abortion isn’t about abortion, and if he goes with a policy that promises less than “enacting protections for babies that have heartbeats,” then Trump will reveal to the world that abortion is not about abortion. It’s about amassing enough power.

The Times reported on Trump liking the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban as if it were a middle ground between two factions. But there’s no chance of him losing “social conservatives.” They are getting what they want and there is no comparable candidate. Roe’s fall opened a new space in rightwing politics, after which Republican state officials have invented new and tyrannical ways (I mean that) of using the government to police individual liberty and enforce conformity.

For instance, the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that embryos produced in vitro (IVF) are children, according to state law, and that parents can sue for the wrongful death of their “children.” The court’s opinion was written in ultra-conservative Christian terms, with virtually no concern for separation of church and state. Fertility clinics around the state have suspended procedures for fear of lawsuits.

Writers like Amanda Marcotte have been saying for years that abortion isn’t about abortion. It’s about power. “They want women to be second class,” she wrote after the ruling. “Forced childbirth is one weapon. So is denying motherhood to others.” But now normal people are starting to see the connection. CNN’s Abby Phillip interviewed an Alabama couple that’s using IVF. “It never occurred to me that people would take the overturning of Roe v. Wade and link it to IVF,” Kelly Belmont said. “At its very core, IVF is trying to create life and build families.”

Trump’s real problem isn’t “social conservatives.” It’s swing voters, respectable white people, who have been siding with Democratic candidates in virtually every election since Roe’s fall. Not only must he convince them that a national ban is reasonable, whatever its details, but also that abortion is about abortion, about babies and life, and not a woman’s place in society relative to man’s. But the toothpaste is already out of that tube, as they said. There’s no putting it back in.