Comment on [deleted]
demlet@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Republicans increasingly rely on the most extreme voting base for energy. It works mostly because we only have two viable parties and even the less extreme Republicans think the extreme right is the lesser of two evils. How many Republicans do you suppose will wring their hands in 2024 but vote for MAGA candidates and Trump anyway? Almost all, even if they say otherwise. We know preference falsification is a thing now. People will just lie if they’re too embarrassed to admit what they’re doing.
Rolder@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Even then, it still doesn’t make sense to push so hard for restricting abortion. The extreme righters will vote Republican regardless, and they run the risk of alienating the center/undecided voters. The vote margins when they win were already super thin as it was…
overzeetop@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Republicans (conservatives, generally) have limited empathy. Relatively few people will every have the need to seek an abortion as a percentage of the population - only half are even eligible. The lack of empathy means they do not consider that it is a problem for them until it actually happens to them. For the base it’s a litmus test which allows the candidate to do or say almost anything and still guarantee a vote; for the rest who have never had to seek or don’t expect to need to seek an abortion, it’s a non-issue and they can cite more (American) moderate right policies like lower taxes and less regulation as their driving force.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 months ago
joycearthur.com/…/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-a…
scarabic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s a question of which side will see more voters activated by the issue, and go on to vote: remember that winning is largely about generating the momentum for people who already support you to vote at all, not just swaying hearts and minds to vote for you. It’s barely that latter at all.
So they calculate they can get more church ladies and reactionary males to get fired up about protecting babies and punishing jezebels than the democrats can get people fired up about protecting women’s healthcare. Given how shafted women are across the board, betting on hate may be a winning move.
Rolder@reddthat.com 10 months ago
But every time abortion is on the ballot, the republicans lose. So clearly betting on hate isn’t working.
Ah well, far be it from me to stop them from shooting themselves in the foot.
scarabic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Republicans have no good strategies left, only bad ones to choose between. They have a base that thinks ending immigration would be a good thing, when it’s immigration that keeps our economy afloat. What do you even do with that?
They’ve gotten a great deal of mileage out of the abortion issue over the last 30 years. And now they’ve finally struck down Roe, delivering a long-promised victory to their base and seemingly legitimizing their long drive for this. Perhaps that emboldens them to overplay their hand?
tburkhol@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Not in their primaries.
With so many states ridiculously gerrymandered, Republican candidates - in non-state-wide races - really only need to beat other republicans. If the Evangelical/anti-abortion block can reliably deliver around 1/3 of voters, they will reliably swing a primary. That keeps the party captured by their radicals, and keeps the country stuck with the ideology of a minority of the minority.