Trump and Abortion
The following are true statements.
- Trump is directly responsible, via SCOTUS appointments, for overturning Roe v. Wade and handing the anti-abortion movement their greatest victory in a half-century. It was the Holy Grail of a segment of Republican politics since 1973.
- Trump clearly has no real convictions on the issue.*
- Like a dog who has caught the car, he is not quite sure what to do about it, because while killing Roe satisfied a huge part of his coalition, abortion rights have majority support in the United States.
- Abortion is far more complicated a subject than most pro-life Evangelicals make it out to be. It is both a powerful narrative on the right and also a complex and confounding reality that simplistic policy fails to address.
All of this is context for the following from the BBC: Trump to vote against Florida abortion measure after backlash.
Donald Trump has said he will vote against a ballot measure in his home state of Florida that would protect abortion rights after facing backlash from conservative supporters.
The former president’s announcement came one day after an NBC News interview in which he appeared to support the measure – a statement that caused anti-abortion activists to openly criticise him.
On Friday, Trump told Fox News that he still thinks Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks is too strict.
However he said would still vote “no” on a measure that would amend the state’s constitution to protect abortion rights.
“You need more time than six weeks,” Trump said. “I’ve disagreed with that right from the early primaries when I heard about it.”
He is currently trying to navigate a position wherein he claims the mantle of being the Roe-slayer, while also supporting the notion that the states should be able to make their own policies but at the same time criticizing certain restriction levels (such as the above).
His position on Friday is different from his position on Thursday:
The Republican presidential nominee’s decision to vote against the Florida abortion measure comes just one day after he was asked by NBC News how he would vote.
“I think the six week is too short,” Trump said in the interview on Thursday. “It has to be more time. I told them that I want more weeks.”
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he said when pressed.
The change in position was clearly in response to backlash.
“If Donald Trump loses, today is the day he lost,” conservative pundit Erick Erickson wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The committed pro-life community could turn a blind eye, in part, to national abortion issues. But for Trump to weigh in on Florida as he did will be a bridge too far for too many.”
Albert Mohler Jr, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote on X that Trump’s comments on reproductive rights, including on the six-week ban, “seem almost calculated to alienate prolife voters”.
“Pro-life Christian voters are going to have to think clearly, honestly, and soberly about our challenge in this election – starting at the top of the ticket,” he said.
But, of course, where are Erikson and Mohler going to go? Not to Harris, who wants a national right to abortion. This is a case wherein there is saliency to the median voter heuristic. Harris is closer to the median national view on the subject. And Trump is attempting, via his “let the states decide” approach to move more in that direction. Voters to his right on the subject may object to that stance, but they really have nowhere to go (save abstaining from voting for president or just staying home altogether).
Trump is stuck having to keep his base excited enough to show up to vote as the pro-life Evangelicals are a key component of that base. Indeed, I would argue that abortion is a topic that allows a whole lot of people to rationalize away a lot of Trump’s terrible behavior. Take that away and some number of them may stay home. As such, contrary to the median voter model, Trump is likely better off not cleaving to the median position on this topic. However, it is also clear that he knows that abortion is a vulnerability hence his attempts at moderating via the federalism approach.
And since he clearly has no strong beliefs on the subject, that makes saying whatever he thinks he needs to say on a given day to whomever it is that he is talking to whenever he happens to be talking to them.
As the NYT put it: Trump Contorts Himself on Abortion in Search of Political Gain with the sub-heading as follows, “The former president is willing to make as many rhetorical and policy shifts as he deems necessary to win in November, vexing some social conservatives.”
Of course, at the end of the day, pro-lifers have every reason to hope that Trump would sign a national abortion ban if it reached his desk. More importantly, perhaps, is that certainty true that Trump-appointed judges would be far more sympathetic to the pro-life cause than otherwise is more than enough to motivate those voters regardless of how mealy-mouthed Trump may be on the subject. Indeed, this certainly is one of the key ways in which many Republicans rationalize their way to supporting the man in the first place.
As I have noted before, if abortion is a key issue for a given voter, it is rational to prefer Trump and to rationalize away his obvious downsides.
I would pause to underscore the judicial nomination issue. There is zero doubt that if I am a Republican, I know that I am going to like Trump judicial appointees more than Harris’ selections. And even if I am a serious person who worries quite a bit about Trump himself, rationalizing away those problems as minor in trade for lifetime appointments to the federal bench is not crazy (even if morally problematic, in my view). This is not, to be clear, justification; it is explanation. For while I think (hope?) that a serious person should also see the threat that Trump poses, but again, the human capacity for rationalization is massive.
*His convictions are in New York state.
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To paraphrase another OTB commenter:
As pointed out, much of it is expedience. And to paraphase Trump’s book, “It’s the art of the deal”
Trump’s values seem to have a moral flexibility to the point of being untrustworthy
(This is mainly a sarcastic post).
Hecklers to the left of him
Hecklers to the right of him
His not to reason why
His but to doze and lie
With many apologies to Tennyson.
Bottomline: It does not matter what Trump says regarding his faux waffling on abortion. It can safely be ignored.
We’re far beyond hypotheticals now – Trump nominated and his Senate confirmed 3 new conservative Christian Justices that tipped the balance and resulted in overturning Roe – it’s real, we know what he does and what the effect has been and will be. If he has a Republican House and a near 60 seat Republican Senate he will certainly sign a bill that calls for a Federal abortion ban.
Frankly, the only people who take his recent faux waffling on abortion serously are so-called main stream media journalists and opinionista. The same people who have normalized him and still hold out an irrational belief that he may yet ‘act presidential’ and after 78 years somehow stop being who he is.
Something like 95% of abortions occur within the first trimester. The pro-life fixation on viability was a ruse, because the other abortions are related to health or extreme circumstances, and barely register. What they don’t like are the routine abortions any normal law in a place with real access to health care would allow.
Trump has to thread the needle. The real solution for him is a council of theocrats who weighs on every abortion, and decides if a woman is a slut or not. That’s what most pro-lifers really want regarding women. Give Erick Erickson a chance to volunteer with his lard-ass face for a month a year and he would go for legalized abortion for up to 12 weeks, as long as he gets to ask a few questions.
@Matt Bernius: Sarcasm not withstanding…
I think this is more a case of political myopia than moral flexibility. (And I say this believing that Trump is more amoral than morally flexible. It is all transactional to him. Morality is completely foreign to his worldview.)
But Trump could easily be politically consistent if he were to restate his professed position that states should decide on the abortion issue. Then he could claim that he would prefer the state where he lives to allow more than 6 weeks before banning the procedure. He could acknowledge that the residents of other states could reach different conclusions and this variability between states is what returning abortion requirements to the states looks like.
But, alas, this would give up the game. Abortion restrictions at the state level do not accomplish what pro-lifers clearly want which is the end of ALL abortions (and IVF to boot). And admitting that would make evident that Trump’s contribution to the end of Roe v Wade didn’t deliver the Holy Grail for pro-lifers he celebrates. He simply changed where the debates take place.
I think Trump has been entirely consistent on the issue of abortion — he doesn’t care and is perfectly willing to take credit for whatever happens or doesn’t happen, claiming it is what everyone wanted and only he was able to deliver.
I think Harris has a slightly similar position on fracking, except without the self-aggrandizement. It’s just that fracking isn’t a massive defining issue for her party, so very few people care. Even in environmental circles, fracking is not considered good, but is generally viewed as just one aspect of a larger decarbonization goal.
I don’t mind a candidate being squishy on some issues, and deferring to the party or whatever is politically convenient. But maybe not the defining trait of the party.
@Gustopher:
And you can substitute pretty much any issue for “abortion”. He wants the prestige, he wants the perks, he wants the emoluments, and mostly he wants out from under his legal woes. That’s his agenda.