Is former president and 2024 Republican party presidential nominee Donald J. Trump going soft on abortion?
The very notion of Trump waffling on the conservative social agenda must send shivers up the spines of cultural conservatives, those regularly religious folks who don’t pay all that much attention to politics – and government policy – until it encroaches on sacred, God-given rights that just shouldn’t be trifled with by any man or woman, much less the supposed leader of the free world. The American president, in a perfect universe, stands up for human life from the womb to the tomb – as firm a belief as Democrats who rely on hiding behind “women’s rights” and “minority women’s rights” (the same thing? Liberals don’t seem to think so) whenever challenged to state when life actually begins.
Ever since the thrice-married and twice divorced career long real estate developer and tabloid celebrity and reality TV star Trump first appeared on the political scene, social conservatives have been (somewhat) suspicious of his actual motives, questioning his potential dedication to causes that he’d never paid much mind to in the past. Without a complete rehash of Trump’s former associations and statements, he’s been both for and against abortion, lukewarm at best on same-sex marriage and seemingly ambivalent towards the downward slide of culture in the country in some ways.
The public portion of the dispute caused but a minor ripple in the overall campaign, but no doubt the conservative coalition who values and honors traditions weren’t real keen on Trump’s waffling. If there was one area where George W. Bush excelled, after all, it was in keeping the pro-lifers and traditional marriage folks engaged.
And religious freedom advocates continued to keep a close eye on Trump well into the process until the candidate himself addressed a gathering of leaders to assure them that the issue would remain a top agenda item for the new president should he win the office. To shore up his right flank, so to speak, Trump introduced a short list of The Federalist Society-assembled potential Supreme Court Justice picks (to immediately replace the departed Justice Antonin Scalia) to assure social conservatives that the top of the federal courts would give originalism a fair hearing.
(Note: Fiscal conservatives were much less happy with Trump’s less-than-stellar adherence to keeping the federal budget purse strings pulled tight.)
Now would not be a great time for Trump to perhaps turn the tables on his most enthusiastic supporters by hinting that abortion would make a comeback under a Trump 2.0 administration. Is that the case? Or is Trump taking a more practical long-range view towards preserving all human lives?
“[President Trump commented recently], ‘We’re going to find out and pretty soon I’m going to be making a decision. And I would like to see if we could do that at all, I would like to see if we could make both sides happy.’ The Democrats ‘are the radicals on this issue because [they think] it’s okay to have an abortion in seven, eight, nine months, and even after birth’ …
“The former president said that his stance on abortions hasn’t hurt him ‘from the standpoint of elections.’ However, many other Republicans have been ‘hurt a lot’ by speaking on the issue. He suggested this was because GOP members were taking an extreme side on the matter…
“In January, President Trump said that while he was opposed to abortion, he is against the so-called ‘heartbeat bills’ which seek to prevent pregnant women from getting an abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat is detected. ‘A lot of people … talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks,’ he said. ‘I want to get something when people are happy. This has been tearing our country apart for 50 years.’”
And, based on the furious reaction from the political left to the Dobbs decision (overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the individual states), abortion will continue causing many a fight in divided households, primarily because the reactionary side (leftists) don’t comprehend what Dobbs truly meant – and also because they’ve used abortion as a weapon against Republican candidates, to rouse their slumbering (and dwindling) base voters.
Then, some well-meaning but not so smart Republicans (Lindsey Graham?) tried introducing a federal “ban” into the American vernacular, and the mistake was probably worth millions of screeching angry abortion-loving feminist Democrat votes in 2022.
No wonder Trump hopes to avoid all of this.
At the same time, it’s certainly possible, if not likely, that Trump hasn’t changed his views one iota on abortion since 2016, since he still professes a belief in the Pro-Life cause – which is definitely played out by his actions on the topic – and, in “moderating” his stance, Trump is merely trying to tunnel into the deep reservoir of Democrat demographic support on the issue.
Everyone knows that single women (of all ages and races) constitute the most solid base of Democrat voters. Appealing to females to perhaps win a percentage point or two from them is a very smart political strategy. Ever since officially entering politics, Trump has earnestly attempted to pitch to minorities (primarily African-Americans and Hispanics) and white working-class voters to loosen the liberal party’s once strong grip on them.
Pundits often pontificate over Trump’s apparent limitations with college-educated suburban voters and white women, but they usually neglect to mention that Democrats, years ago launched a proverbial full-court press on the types to paint Republicans as “extreme” and “out of touch” and heartless, as though the GOP is bent on starving people, having dirty air and water and forcing the elderly and infirm to derive their meals from cans of Alpo and Friskies.
It’s utter nonsense, but the political game isn’t contested in normalcy and truth, at least for one half of the ideological spectrum. If you doubt this, merely reference Senate Majority Leader “Chucky” Schumer’s floor speech last week when he lectured that Israel must curtail its efforts to defend itself in the name of “humanitarian” aid to de facto terrorists. Schumer is Jewish, by the way.
Both parties’ candidates realize this year’s election will be close and a few thousand votes in the right places could make all the difference. Trump understands the political ground better than anyone and the softening of his abortion approach is clearly intended to shed doubt in single women’s minds that he intends to make them return to so-called back-alley abortions and rusty coat hangers.
Which we also know is a lie. But the stereotype persists, and here’s thinking now Trump has secured his base that he will devote a major part of his message towards poaching some otherwise solid Democrat votes. Let’s not forget that senile Joe Biden’s administration has been a horrible disaster for the middle class – women and men and families – and Americans who haven’t already firmly committed to the Democrats could easily be swayed with the right messaging.
In his recent statements on the topic, Trump appears to have taken a page from Nikki Haley’s platform on the abortion subject, namely pointing out that there is no political consensus for a “ban” and that he hopes, instead, to possibly try and find a gestation point where Democrats would be forced into agreeing to a federal cutoff point for a life ending procedure. The baby-squelching leftists would never think of curtailing themselves on their own, so they need public opinion to move before they’ll do anything.
Many in the Pro-Life movement are disappointed with Trump’s lack of leadership on the issue, but the former president is essentially approaching abortion the only politically palatable way he can at this stage. Trump is doing so by getting rid of the “ban” concept altogether, knowing full well that such talk stirs up the liberals’ hornet’s nest and gets them jabbering and gesturing like ridiculous kooks in an insane asylum.
Why else do you think Democrats gave the task to Kamala Harris to champion? Harris gets black women off the fence, and that’s the Democrats’ most loyal constituency. Senile Joe says the right things, too, but do leftist radicals really want to hear about their precious signature issue from an 81-year-old senile white dude?
Trump is doing what he can to further the Pro-Life mission. He understands that first, he has to win the election in order to appoint more originalist judges and begin using the president’s bully pulpit to expose the Democrats’ extreme (not supported by the polls) position of abortion on demand up until – and sometimes after, see Northam, Ralph – birth of a baby.
Change will occur incrementally. For those who are ardently Pro-Life, the cause will not be furthered by settling only for a total ban on abortion. The people just aren’t there yet. Hopefully this will change in the years to come. And Trump can help bring about the evolution.
Some conservatives question whether Donald Trump has the willingness to fight on the Pro-Life cause, but such fears are unfounded. Trump himself hasn’t changed much in his articulated positions, and practical reality suggests that the Republican would be leaps and bounds better than another four years of senile Joe Biden on the issue. It’s time for those who value life at all stages to step up, not snipe from afar.
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2024 presidential election