Posted on 07/01/2022 5:45:05 AM PDT by DoodleBob
In overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court delivered the right’s biggest single victory ever, and it may spell the end of the conservative movement as we’ve known it.
It was Ronald Reagan who popularized the notion that the conservative movement rested on a fusionist “three-legged stool.” In theory, the three legs were free market economics, national defense and social conservatism. In practice, free market economics meant low taxes and pro-business policies. National defense meant anticommunism and, briefly, the war on terror. Social conservatism covered a lot of territory but the enduring core was opposition to Roe and abortion.
Like anticommunism, “pro-life” was a big tent all its own, including constitutionalists, religious activists, advocates of states’ rights et al. While nearly everyone invoked the “sanctity of life,” as a policy matter, many argued merely for overturning Roe either to fix a jurisprudential error or to send the issue back to the states, to let the democratic process find a social compromise on abortion.
For other abortion opponents, however, overturning Roe was a first step on the road to enshrining a “culture of life” that protected the unborn from conception onward.
Think of it this way: If the court had banned abortion outright based on the “right to life” found in the 14th Amendment, the once-united opponents of Roe would be divided. Some would cheer a huge win for life, but others would see the same sort of judicial activism they decried in Roe. Well, the fallout from Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has opened a similar rift between opponents of Roe and opponents of abortion. And it’s a mystery where these factions will go next, ideologically or politically.
While a lot attention is on states where abortion will be banned, it’s telling that two of the GOP’s most popular governors, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, have stopped short of outlawing abortion, preferring a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp stands behind a 6-week limit, while New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu says abortion will remain legal in his state.
Meanwhile, some House Republicans have called for a federal abortion ban. “The Life at Conception Act” has 160 co-sponsors, though one wonders how many it will lose now that it has a chance, however slim, of passage.
All of this political positioning surely has a lot to do with the role the GOP base plays in congressional elections compared with statewide races, where winning the more moderate middle is necessary.
One of the arguments for repealing Roe was that it fueled polarization by removing accountability on abortion policy. Politicians could take base-pleasing absolutist positions knowing that Roe barred any meaningful changes that reflected the more nuanced views of voters. For instance, while it’s true that large numbers of Americans were against repealing Roe, support for Roe’s actual guidelines was mixed. As of April, more Americans favored a ban on abortions after 15 weeks than opposed one, though the same survey also found a majority of voters say abortion should be legal in all or most cases (obviously, it’s complicated). Republicans generally benefited from polarization on abortion both financially and electorally. But they also benefited from the unity of purpose conservatives enjoyed pre-Dobbs. In the post-Roe era that unity is gone, at least for the foreseeable future.
Which brings me back to that three-legged stool.
The end of the Cold War spelled the end of anticommunism’s role in galvanizing conservatives around a specific foreign and defense policy. Pat Buchanan, for instance, considered Cold War anticommunism the great exception to conservatism’s natural tendency to isolationism, which he returned to in the 1990s. Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric was a delayed victory for Buchananism.
As for economics, most on the right still reject tax hikes, but the war on “woke capitalism” is the hot new thing, and protectionism has lost its bad odor. Indeed, while traditional conservative opposition to a more generous welfare state has been eroding for some time, the Dobbs decision may hasten the process. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, hailed the court’s decision. “But,” he added, “we must not only continue to take steps to protect the unborn, we must also do more to support mothers and their babies.”
He promised to “soon introduce a bill to ensure we do everything we can to give every child the opportunity to fully access the promise of America.”
I think the Supreme Court decided Dobbs correctly. But those who insist the majority acted out of partisan loyalty to the GOP or to the broader conservative movement miss the fact that neither may benefit over the long haul. The conservative justices ruled on principle, letting the chips fall where they may. It’s going to be raining chips for quite a while.
Goldberg is a conservative like Jeffery Dahmer was a haute chef.
Jonah Goldberg - but I liked losing so much!
This guy is a true idiot, in the classical sense of the word.
It was Ronald Reagan who popularized the notion that the conservative movement rested on a fusionist “three-legged stool.”
That was very true when Reagan said it. That was the Conservative Movement that Buckley out together during the Cold War. The world kept going; National Review did not. I await their sure to be in the works “The Conservative Case for Transgenderism.”
.
Jonah = Brett Baier’s sex partner
They unite to wish John Kasich or Mike Pence to lose with grace.
Conservatives should never win, because then we’ll lose.
We have to just keep losing instead.
Jonah gets it wrong…again
But will earnestly impress Bill Kristol, and other never-Trumper Republican party goers in the Hamptons over the long holiday weekend
I present this as Exhibit A as to why the Republican apparatus is not happy about overturning Roe.
Anybody hear G W MORON come out of the woodwork to praise the overturn of Roe v. Wade? Or does he only come out to bash Trump? “He hurt Jeb’s feelings!”
Roe v. Wade was used by RINOs to get your votes and your money for decades, and now the RINOs are not happy for your success in ending this mass murder.
Bush family was happy to nominate 1 conservative / moderate for every liberal like Souter they put on the Court. That way they could keep their base happy and not have to worry about making any actual progress on overturning Roe.
Anyone who doesn’t support Trump in 2024 is an absolute fool!
Truly amazing when these watershed moments happen, how many so-called “conservatives” out themselves as nothing more than low-IQ “journalists”. This happened with Trumps election, faxu impeachments, COVID, Jan 6th unselect committee, etc...
As if the culture war is over,
I assume that with a lot of the establishment “conservatives”, they would rather lose as attacking is much easier than defending and they can probably sell more magazines. As much as I loved President Reagan, he was in power 34 years ago and times have changed.
The opinion of Jonah Goldberg represents the majority of establishment Republicans, who paid lip service to being prolife, they would throw the Prolife movement a bone every so often, but never seriously thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned, it wasn’t until Trump actually carried thru with his promise and got 3 prolifers on the Supreme Court that it really happened.
It’s like the analogy of the dog chasing the car and once he catches it doesn’t know what to do.
Instead of celebrating a massive win, Jonah Goldberg is worried about the ramifications of winning.
Continues his return to his previous socialist life!
I think most of the pro-abortion libertarians have already left the Republicans (did so around the fall of the Berlin Wall).
Just another squishy neo-con attempting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They truly are a miserable and self-loathing lot.
This article is a complete waste of the pixels and bytes used to create it. Typical Goldberg: narcissistic pontificating to come to an underwhelming pointless conclusion.
People like this don’t get it. They think that reversing Roe v Wade ends conservatism. Just the opposite, it ends polarization of Government at least at the SCOTUS level. Now it’s a State problem, a Representative state problem, for people to make decisions about locally. Roe v Wade divided the country, not on abortion, but on the powers of Federal Government and corrupt Federal government versus the voters. Let the people decide, that’s democracy.
No surprise why even the National Review dumped Jonah
Yes, it was actually shameful to be a communist in America back in the 80s. Now it is praised and normalized by leftist extremists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.