Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins, not looking too good
On Monday night, the explosive news broke that the Republican-majority U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is about to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision granting a constitutional right to abortion, and indeed, that a draft of the decision is already being circulated on the Court. The likely result of this imminent decision will be to leave abortion to the states, where it is estimated that at least half of them (primarily the ones with Republican governors and/or legislatures) will outlaw abortion completely, even in the case of rape, incest, and possibly he health or life of the mother.
To many observers, the news about this decision is shocking but not surprising, given the Court’s 6-3 majority of conservative Republicans. These Republican justices were put on the Court for the very purpose of overturning Roe, and perhaps many other decisions granting rights to women, blacks, LGBTQ Americans and other minorities; as well as protections for consumers, workers, the environment, wildlife, etc. However, the list of culprits that led us to this day goes well beyond the six current Republican SCOTUS justices and the Republican presidents who put them there. Here are some additional parties who share responsibility for the impending loss of a woman’s right to choose:
Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins — To put it bluntly, Collins is either dishonest or the most naive politician in Washington. On Tuesday, Collins’ office released the following statement:
If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office. Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.
Collins is referring to the fact that, during the confirmation process for two of Donald Trump‘s three Supreme Court nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Collins met with these nominees in private, questioned them during their Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and stated at the time that she was “confident” or “persuaded” that neither of them would overturn Roe v. Wade.
This is the same Senator Collins who hilariously stated that Donald Trump had “learned his lesson” after his first impeachment in 2020, in which she voted not to convict him. Collins’ credibility and her reputation are in the tank right now.
Democratic voters who did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 — There were more Democratic than Republican voters who did not vote in the 2016 presidential elections. According to FiveThirtyEight, if both parties instead had equal turnout on election day, Clinton probably would have won. Many of these voters were no doubt turned off by the relentless Republican and media campaign against Hillary and Bill Clinton for the preceding 30 years. Then-FBI Director James Comey even handed Trump a last-minute gift in the form of an October Surprise falsely maligning Clinton. As indicated below, other would-be Democratic voters went with protest candidates, which was the equivalent of a vote for Trump.
The significance is that, had Clinton been elected president, Clinton may have had up to three Supreme Court picks like those Donald Trump ended up getting (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as mentioned above, plus Amy Coney Barrett). The Supreme Court might well have a Democratic, not Republican, majority now as a result, and it’s all but certain that Clinton’s nominees, as well as all Democratic SCOTUS justices, would not have voted to overturn Roe.
Other culprits — The tweet below lists additional culprits, including those in the media and political figures on the left, some of whom influenced Democratic voters not to vote for Hillary Clinton because she was somehow imperfect, as noted above:
Congratulations to
Jill Stein
Nina Turner
Andrea Mitchell
Marianne Williamson
Susan Sarandon
Mika BrzezinskiAnd then there's
Bernie Sanders
Matt Lauer
Chris Hayes
Chris Mathews
Joe ScarboroughYou got what you wanted. #2016#StillWithHer #BernInHell #ToldYouSo
— Security Chief Roc Ingersol⚖😷🍩💜⚕ (@AAhangarzadeh) May 3, 2022
As always, the lesson here for Democratic voters is to get out and vote in large numbers, including in midterm elections (when all of the U.S. House and one-third of U.S. Senate seats are up for grabs each time). The other lesson is to avoid purity politics and the false, dangerous notion that somehow “both parties are the same.”
Photo by AFGE, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/ksxkyR
