Since Roe was struck down, I've had conversations with Really Smart Men who insist that the effect of Roe was "baked into" anticipated election results and we'd lose in 2022 and 2023. Yet here we are. At some point, folks are going to learn about Really Angry Women.
FAFO. https://t.co/uA4FSggrDD
— HawaiiDelilah™ ?? #MauiStrong ???????????? (@HawaiiDelilah) November 8, 2023
Didn’t get a chance to post this last week, but it’s still relevant. Alexandra Petri, national treasure, at the Washington Post — “Having rights still bewilderingly popular”:
Tuesday’s election results suggest that the Republican legislative strategy of “taking people’s rights away for no clear reason” was not an overwhelming success at the ballot box. Potential Childbearing Vessels on Legs contumaciously insist on continuing to see themselves as fully realized people deserving of the protection of the law, and, unfortunately, they can still vote, and some of them even have friends who vote with them.
Given the options of “people have constitutionally protected rights over their own bodies and the course of their own lives” or “people can potentially see those rights whisked away at any time without warning,” Ohio voters overwhelmingly preferred the first thing. Given the option of creating a Republican majority in their state legislature that could permit their governor to sign a 15-week abortion ban into law, Virginia voters refused, apparently indifferent to the fact that the governor would be wearing a fleece vest and speaking in soft tones when he did so!…
It has been suggested that this is why voting is such a flawed method for determining what ought to happen, and some people are working so hard to do away with it. “Let Dave decide everything on everyone else’s behalf,” while popular with Dave, tends not to be popular with everyone else. And the thing is, as Justice Samuel Alito noted in his Dobbs decision, “Women are not without electoral or political power.”
Tuesday’s election suggests that people being treated like people, rather than not, is still inexplicably popular. Who can say how long this fad will last? If through 2024, there might be more problems!
Speaking of the soothing power of sweater vests:
Youngkin pioneered the GOP's use of transphobia as a political weapon. It just may be a dud. https://t.co/TP9nQWT17i
— davidrlurie (@davidrlurie) November 8, 2023
Monday Evening Open Thread: <em>‘Having Rights, Still Popular!</em>Post + Comments (72)