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Notes -
I guess I'll start us off with a quick one:
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/03/17/trump-gop-must-endorse-three-exceptions-for-abortion-to-get-elected/
This isn't an article so much as a clip-n-quote of something Trump said. I'll copy paste here because it's not long and this way you won't have to click the link:
I'm pro-life and believe life begins at conception, not just as a Christian, but much more importantly because I consider it the cleanest and most sane policy from a secular perspective. Because to me it seems obvious the only way to avoid making Tenochtitlan-sized mistakes at some point along our path is to avoid meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God in the first place.
Once you start introducing 'exceptions,' you're just immediately back to condoning all abortion. "My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.
Trump, quite obviously, doesn't really feel strongly about abortion and is attempting to pick the most palatable position. That's the problem about integrity in politics - none of the voters have any so it's almost always counterproductive for your electability if you do.
But taking the tack that "the GOP must accept exceptions" instead of "the issue must be returned to the states" is another huge own goal from the New York liberal Trump. If you're going to have a slippery real estate mogul as your standard bearer, you're going to end up with some very ugly and counterproductive wheeling and dealing for the movement.
Trump to his credit does not flip flop too much on abortion. He has never been pro-life, and will not cave to this issue despite pressure from religious organizations. Trump is right to ignore this issue and focus on immigration and the economy, as is Richard Hanania that abortion hardliners turn off moderates.
The problem is Trump regularly talks about being the one who put the three judges who turned Roe on the court during speeches, since he's been told it's a big deal, and he like that he did a big thing. Not because he's a committed pro-lifer, but because he likes having accomplishments. It's why he still talks about the vaccine, even though it's unpopular among his own base.
Plus, to a certain extent, it's actually the reverse, among say, secular non-college educated Obama/Trump voters in the Midwest. You remind them a lot of the Republican Party they're now voting for are weirdos who want to stick their noses in your sisters or daughter's personal life, and go from there. Maybe you don't get them to vote for Biden, but you get them to stay home.
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Isn't Hanania full open borders? Maybe i'm mixing him up with someone else but I don't think he's focused on immigration.
Hanania has flip flopped on immigration more times than one can count. His current position is that diversity essentially makes whites more capitalist and less socialist because of tribalism, or something, so immigration is a guard against socialism. He also opposes mass immigration from Africa iirc, he just thinks Hispanics aren’t substantially below the US average so won’t make much of a deleterious difference. I may be misremembering his position.
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In around 2016 Trump said that women who get illegal abortions should be punished, it was a big controversy at the time.
It was one of my favorite Trump moments because you could sort of watch him reasoning out his new pro-Life position in real time on camera, and all the pro-life activists were cringing and trying to insert their epicycles of morality that explained how Abortion is Murder but that mothers should not be prosecuted.
It's why I believe that Trump isn't a blathering moron and is, at worst, a clever amateur who is intelligent enough to see the end result of policy that its own proponents have cleverly ducked around. If abortion is murder, then why not arrest the mother? We arrest infanticides and infant abandoners, don't we? That it is politically unpalatable and bad optics is one thing, but perhaps it is a natural consequence of unpopular policy.
"Not a blathering moron" is a pretty low bar for a presidential candidate.
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