Abortion and the Heritage Uncertainty Principle

As Paul and Cheryl have noted, Trump is trying to untie the anvil Dobbs attached to the leg of the Republican Party. (You can tell how deeply he understands the issue by how he “credits” John Roberts, who did not join the majority opinion and strongly implied that Roe should not be overruled at all, for Dobbs.)

After claiming abortion should be an issue for the states to decide, Trump concludes his new video by saying the country is "at the brink … we have to win … we are a failing nation." Bleak stuff. pic.twitter.com/d2jyI2yryH— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 8, 2024

You can also tell how popular the Republican position is by his felt need to lie about Democrats supporting infanticide.

Ultimately, Trump is trying out the same rhetorical trick he tries with healthcare, promising that the ACA will be replaced with a better plan, which of course will never materialize because all Republican healthcare plans that aren’t just rollbacks of existing programs are pure vaporware designed to conceal the fact that Republicans believe in principle that people who can’t afford healthcare should be denied it. But as Paul says note that despite all the states’ rights guff behind the scene he’s openly saying Republicans want a national ban, and the only question is how draconian it will be:

Former President Donald Trump is vowing to solve the abortion dilemma that has dogged Republican candidates since the fall of Roe v. Wade with his singular dealmaking acumen.

The presumptive Republican nominee, who has pledged to make a statement on abortion this week, has said for months that if elected he would “come together with all groups” and “negotiate something” that would “make both sides happy,” suggesting that “15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”

The problem with trying this “I will come up with a compromise everyone will love” approach to abortion is that the American anti-reproductive-freedom lobby won’t settle for platitudes — it wants to see the blood on the tracks, now. Which will run headlong into the basic fact that there is no politically palatable way for Trump to address it:

“We’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years,” he said.

The tactic has drawn praise from conservatives including Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former counselor, who called it “a reasonable conversation starter.”

“It reflects consensus,” she said of a 15- or 16-week ban, citing her own firm’s polling. “People recognize that the lack of compromise, moderation and reasonableness is on the side of the professional, political left, and the Democrats.”

But Trump, who has blasted other Republicans for speaking “inarticulately” on abortion, is running headlong into the same problem the rest of the party has encountered: There is almost certainly no deal the opposing sides of the abortion wars would accept.

“You’re getting the worst of both worlds” by pitching a 15-week ban, said a GOP political strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns, including Trump’s failed 2020 bid. “Pro-life groups still aren’t going to be happy, and you’re still supporting a nationwide limit that Democrats will attack,” said the strategist, granted anonymity to speak critically about the former president’s rhetoric.

“Publicly, [the Trump campaign will] want to keep their options open and stick to the line that he will negotiate something that everyone would be happy with, which of course is nonsense,” he added.

The unnamed strategist is of course correct — proposing a 15-week ban won’t work because they only people who actually like them are centrist pundits who think that there must be some way of allowing abortions they personally consider good and prohibit those they personally consider bad. (SPOILER: there isn’t.) So Trump will keep trying to say nothing for as lng as he can — but at some point the bill will come due. And unlike with healthcare reform, there are enough actual examples of what Republicans will do if they get the chance that voters will be much less inclined to swallow the bullshit if he refuses to come out for anything — Abbott, DeSantis et al have already filled in the blanks.