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.
