THE RIGHT-WING TAKEOVER IS ALREADY UPON US [View all]
In early 2016, when the prospect that he could actually become president was still the stuff of late night jokes and distant nightmares, Donald Trump stirred outrage when he suggested that women who seek out abortions would face criminal consequences under his administration. “There has to be some form of punishment,” he told Chris Matthews. This wasn’t his first controversy as a candidate; by that point in the campaign, he’d already called Mexican immigrants “rapists,” mocked John McCain’s war service, and demanded a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States. And his comment to Matthews wasn’t exactly out of step with what the so-called pro-life contingent of his party had been working toward for decades. If abortion was to be made illegal, punishment would seem to be the logical conclusion.
But at the time, saying stuff like that out loud could still provoke a scandal, and Trump quickly went on defense—which, for him, meant taking as many positions as possible, many of them contradictory, until pinning him down was near impossible—not that it was seen as important to do so in spring 2016. By the time October rolled around, however, his actual positions on issues like abortion had become far more important to the national interest. He was officially the GOP’s guy, and while Hillary Clinton seemed poised to wipe the floor with him, the notion that Trump could bullshit his way into the presidency was no longer something that could be laughed off. So, in the third presidential debate, just a couple weeks out from Election Day, moderator Chris Wallace attempted to finally nail him down. “Do you want to see the court overturn Roe v. Wade?” Wallace asked.
“Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that’s really what’s going to be—that will happen,” Trump said, after some dithering. “And that’ll happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court.”
Trump told a lot of lies, but in this case he followed through. He went on to muscle three justices onto the bench: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last fall, Amy Coney Barrett. And while Roe wasn’t obliterated while he was actually president, Mitch McConnell—the architect of the conservative court—and the relentless anti-abortion movement has now gotten their return on investment: In a 5-4 shadow docket opinion Wednesday, the Supreme Court’s conservatives—with the exception of Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with the liberal dissent—allowed an extreme anti-abortion law in Texas to stand, effectively ending most abortions in the state and opening the door for other states to enact their own restrictions.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/the-right-wing-takeover-is-already-upon-us
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