Donald Trump won't give the anti-abortion movement everything it wants, but he's already given it way more than his smooth-talking predecessors ever did.
An excellent analysis, as usual. I especially appreciate learning about the relevant historical facts regarding Supreme Court appontments.
There are more than a few on the American Right who are fond of military metaphors when talking about politics. But there are few who actually adopt a military mindset when it comes to deciding on their actual tactics. Rather, they see politics as a kind of performance, in which they can express themselves and demonstrate their virtue, with no regard for the effect of their words or actions on the actual political process, that is, on other people.
Thus the people who charged into Congress on 6 January almost four years ago did not think, "If I do this, it will force key Republicans to change their minds and vote to overturn the election." A few seconds' deliberation would have made them dismss that idea. Nor did they think, "How will this appear to the majority of Americans who are not ardent Trump supporters like me?" They just expressed themselves. It no doubt felt good at the moment, but their actions were an enormous gift to the American Left. (It's irrelevant whether or not their were provocateurs in the crowd urging them on to take this monumentally stupid action. In war, you take for granted that your enemy will try to deceive you into doing self-defeating things.)
They don't think like soldiers, who are supposed to do what will help their side win, not what feels good at the moment. If you're part of an ambush team, and see the enemy point man approaching, you don't just immediately open fire. You wait for the command to fire, which will be given when the team leader has decided that the whole enemy squad has entered the kill zone.
That's how our side has to think. Hume said that reason is, and ought to be, a slave to the passions, but it must be an intelligent slave, carefully considering how best to achieve the ends our emotions drive us to desire. (It's unfortunate that Mr Trump does not set a good example in this respect, but few leaders have all the virtues.)
All of this is true. Granted, there are superficial differences between the "performance" of pro-lifers marching on the Supreme Court, and the "performance" of 6 January. Though they are united by (1) a lack of interest in whether the virtue-displaying action will have a real-world effect, and (2) a personality cult around the current Republican president, whoever he is.
(The excessive faith that pro-lifers have put in people like Reagan and the Bushes, whom they saw as innocent victims of a tyrannical judiciary rather than its enablers, is part of the reason that their movement ended up so weak. A pro-life movement that had done to Reagan in 1984 what the anti-war Democrats did to Johnson in 1968 would have "lost" in the short term, but in every election after that it would have gotten a lot more respect from Republican politicians. This is not to say that Reagan was a bad president in every way - most of his foreign policy and much of his economic policy were quite good - but if you see abortion as the No. 1 moral issue facing the country, there's just no getting around the fact that, from that perspective, President Reagan was a huge grifter.)
An excellent analysis, as usual. I especially appreciate learning about the relevant historical facts regarding Supreme Court appontments.
There are more than a few on the American Right who are fond of military metaphors when talking about politics. But there are few who actually adopt a military mindset when it comes to deciding on their actual tactics. Rather, they see politics as a kind of performance, in which they can express themselves and demonstrate their virtue, with no regard for the effect of their words or actions on the actual political process, that is, on other people.
Thus the people who charged into Congress on 6 January almost four years ago did not think, "If I do this, it will force key Republicans to change their minds and vote to overturn the election." A few seconds' deliberation would have made them dismss that idea. Nor did they think, "How will this appear to the majority of Americans who are not ardent Trump supporters like me?" They just expressed themselves. It no doubt felt good at the moment, but their actions were an enormous gift to the American Left. (It's irrelevant whether or not their were provocateurs in the crowd urging them on to take this monumentally stupid action. In war, you take for granted that your enemy will try to deceive you into doing self-defeating things.)
They don't think like soldiers, who are supposed to do what will help their side win, not what feels good at the moment. If you're part of an ambush team, and see the enemy point man approaching, you don't just immediately open fire. You wait for the command to fire, which will be given when the team leader has decided that the whole enemy squad has entered the kill zone.
That's how our side has to think. Hume said that reason is, and ought to be, a slave to the passions, but it must be an intelligent slave, carefully considering how best to achieve the ends our emotions drive us to desire. (It's unfortunate that Mr Trump does not set a good example in this respect, but few leaders have all the virtues.)
Doug,
All of this is true. Granted, there are superficial differences between the "performance" of pro-lifers marching on the Supreme Court, and the "performance" of 6 January. Though they are united by (1) a lack of interest in whether the virtue-displaying action will have a real-world effect, and (2) a personality cult around the current Republican president, whoever he is.
(The excessive faith that pro-lifers have put in people like Reagan and the Bushes, whom they saw as innocent victims of a tyrannical judiciary rather than its enablers, is part of the reason that their movement ended up so weak. A pro-life movement that had done to Reagan in 1984 what the anti-war Democrats did to Johnson in 1968 would have "lost" in the short term, but in every election after that it would have gotten a lot more respect from Republican politicians. This is not to say that Reagan was a bad president in every way - most of his foreign policy and much of his economic policy were quite good - but if you see abortion as the No. 1 moral issue facing the country, there's just no getting around the fact that, from that perspective, President Reagan was a huge grifter.)