So, as you may have heard, Roe was overturned yesterday, and as you may have guessed, people on the right have a lot to say about this.
Here’s a Faux News reporter in DC for the protests:
REPORTER: It’s interesting. If you had been here earlier in the day you would’ve seen a very, very different crowd. We’re talking about primarily female. I’m-a step out of the way so you, you can see it was mostly female, mostly young, very peaceful. But as is often the case, in circumstances like this, Sean, as the day goes on, the crowd begins to change just a bit. More young men show up, more people in tactical gear and masks and glasses, dark glasses, shades and that sort of thing. And, and somehow it changes the tone of what you’re seeing. But thus far, all day long, it has been, it has been peaceful.
I’m trying to figure out what young men dressed in tactical gear he’s talking about. Maybe they’re invisible?
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): …about what this ruling is actually about.
STEPHEN MILLER: Today was a remarkable victory for democracy.
Me: Um, wut? To paraphrase an oft-repeated argument the RW uses: 9 unelected people decided to overturn legal precedent and accepted law. How is that in any way a victory for democracy?
STEPHEN MILLER, SATAN-LITE: What Joe Biden is campaigning against in the midterms is democracy itself!
Me… um. Still having a hard time figuring out how this is democracy itself. Also, in case you weren’t aware, Steve, Biden isn’t up for reelection this year…
Now we know what’s driving the right:
Yeah, Charlie, the right’s contempt and hatred for women is pretty in your face…
Lauren Boebert has some thoughts, too:
LAUREN BOEBERT: Well, first of all, Sean, I’m absolutely overjoyed at this decision, but here’s the irony. Tonight we are bracing for democrat cities vandalized by democrat voters in democrat states where their abortion laws won’t be affected by today’s ruling.
Me: As if the right will stop at only seeing to it that abortions are illegal in the red states…
Fake but accurate:
And finally, I’ll leave you with this interview I found this morning, of Abby Johnson:
(HOST): Here to react is former Planned Parenthood clinic director, now pro-life advocate Abby Johnson. Abby, thank you so much for being here. Before we get to the states, first of all, your reaction as someone who’s been in the middle of this for so many years to the Supreme Court decision.
ABBY JOHNSON: Well, you know, I am very excited, pro-lifers across the country are very excited. We believe it’s a great day for women–
Me: Um… how? How is this a great day for women, Abby?
Also, I’m just going to leave this here, about Abby’s conversion…
ABBY JOHNSON: –we believe it’s a great day for life, a great day for the pre-born. I am someone who knows firsthand the devastation of Roe. I’ve had two abortions myself — something that I deeply regret — I have facilitated over 22,000 abortions as a Planned Parenthood director–
Me: I’m going out on a limb here, but I think that claim is likely exaggerated. If you count every single abortion performed at the clinic in the eight years she was there, you might reach that number. Maybe. But she says she “facillitated” them as the director. She wasn’t director for most of her time there. And what does “facillitated” abortions mean? Because her early job was to escort women from their cars into the clinic. While that’s an important job, it’s hardly facillitating the actual abortion.
ABBY JOHNSON: –so knowing the destruction of abortion, the destruction of Roe, I’m very glad that law is off the books in our country.
HOST: The law is off the books and now, so now it goes to the states. Thirteen states have trigger laws, five others had previously had a ban on abortion before Roe was decided. One of those was, say, Indiana, so what happens in these states now, uh, that it’s in their hands?
ABBY JOHNSON: So now we’re waiting. Some states have already enacted their trigger laws, so, uh, Utah, Kentucky, um, there are a couple of others that have already said, “Look, we’re not waiting the thirty days, we’re gonna go ahead and enact those today. And so as of yesterday, there’s a few states where abortion is now illegal. Um, some states are, sort of, in the waiting period, they’re waiting the thirty days, or now, in the next thirty days they may go ahead and enact their trigger laws. Um, so, but, within the thirty days those states in red [Fox had up a map which showed the following states in red: Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Red denoted states with trigger laws in place.] are going to be states where abortion is illegal.
HOST: Abby, how did this happen? I mean, for, just ten years ago, it would’ve seemed almost inconceivable that Roe would be overturned, given the, uh, the status of the court, and it had been forty years. How, how did this moment happen?
ABBY JOHNSON: Well, I mean, of course, I think that we have Trump to thank for this, for putting constitutionalist judges on the Supreme Court.
Me: All hail the great and powerful Trump! Who couldn’t have done it without Mitch McConnell and the Heritage Foundation…
ABBY JOHNSON: But, I mean, really, I think the left has done this to themselves. Uh, they have swung this pendulum so far to one side; you know, the safe, legal, and rare argument made sense to a lot of people. It made sense to independents, it made sense to moderate republicans, but swinging this pendulum so far to the left, to where they are now demanding abortion-on-demand, for any reason, for all nine months of pregnancy, AND they want us to pay for it?
Me: There’s no doubt some on the left have said things like this. There’s also no doubt they speak for a small minority.
The fact is the vast majority of Americans think abortion should be legal. Most of us would be happy with some limits in place, and we had limits in place already. What state legislatures and the Supreme Court have done is overruled the will of the people to do whatever they chose to do. It was nine unelected judges who overturned Roe — three of whom were confirmed during Trump’s tenure in office, where the right had the express intention of placing conservative justices on the court in order to do this. This isn’t democracy in action, nor is it the will of the people, and they know this. They don’t care.
So this wasn’t the public’s reaction to the “far left’s pendulum swing.” This was the right seeing an opening and taking it, and not giving a single care for what the vast majority of us want. And they believe they’ll suffer no electoral cost for this action.
ABBY JOHNSON: That is something that just doesn’t make sense to the majority of Americans. It just doesn’t make sense to the, to the bulk of democrats.
Me: That’s because it’s a strawman argument you’re using here.
ABBY JOHNSON: And so they have really done this to themselves by taking such an extremist position on abortion.
Me: Unlike the right, whose position is totes not at all extremist. cough giving a fertilized egg the legal status of being a person cough
ABBY JOHNSON: And people finally rose up and said, “This is crazy. This is ridiculous. This is not something that I want to support.” The states rose up–
Me: Yes, it wasn’t the people. It was a handful of state legislators who did this. Let’s be clear on this.
Yesterday when I was talking to my sister (formerly an RN, now a nurse practitioner!), I told her, I find myself less and less identifying with conservatism, but I don’t fit in with the democrats, either. So she said, “You have to figure out what you can live with, and what’s something you absolutely won’t tolerate.”
Many people support Trump because of things they won’t tolerate (“I’d sooner vote for Satan than a democrat!”) rather than things they want. However, oftentimes, politicians take each vote as a sign of support for every single one of their positions. Well, it’s not. Oftentimes, we as voters, have to settle for someone who’s 80 or 90% of what we want, and 10-20% what we don’t want. (And that’s in a good case. Most times, the distribution of like and dislike is much more evenly split.) So some guy gets elected, assuming his voters also support his draconian anti-abortion stance, when, in fact, maybe a lot of voters merely tolerated that fact or were unaware of (or simply didn’t care about) what his stance on abortion was.
My point is, it’s folly for the right to assume (and we all know the dangers of assumptions here) that because pro-Trump candidates were elected, that means the people who elected them agree with their anti-choice stance. (And, yes, I just used a “loaded term” to describe them, because calling them “pro-life” isn’t really true, as long as they have no concern for a life once it’s outside the womb.)
“The People” don’t stand with them on this issue. But they’re going to lie and say they do in order to justify their actions henceforth.
And as a personal aside, I’ll note that looking at Abby Johnson’s face as I transcribe her is off-putting, because her expression is sneering. Now, maybe that’s just natural for her, but it comes across as very unpleasant.
ABBY JOHNSON: –they (the states) passed legislation. And now, here we are, with the end of Roe.
HOST: Abby, very wll said. Congratulations. Thank you for your bold stance that you’ve taken on this issue for many years. As you said, just the beginning.
Me: So as we have noted elsewhere, overturning Roe is “just the beginning” for these people.
ABBY JOHNSON: Thank you.
Lest you think I cherry-picked the “sneer” image above, here she is at this point of the tape, smiling. She’s still sneering, as well.
This seems like, even in victory, she’s sneering at all of us who don’t support this but will have to live with it. If you disagree, let me know in the comments below.
Okay, that’s a wrap. Stay snarky, my Blender peeps!
And remember tomorrow’s noir film is “Down Three Dark Streets,” with Broderick Crawford. Sounds like fun!