What Happens When the Dog Catches the Bus?
Some thoughts on US politics in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on abortion
"Dog Running" by Michael Kappel is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to over-rule Roe vs Wade is likely to be the starting point of a new chapter in US politics. Up to now, America’s right has often been based on a coalition funded by billionaires who want tax cuts for themselves while promising social conservatives tougher rules on abortion at some point in the future, which never quite arrives. What happens when the dog catches the bus?
Many social conservatives see removing constitutional protection for abortions as the first step towards turning back the clock on how people live their lives. Bans on abortion in red states are coming. Expect the social conservative majority on the Supreme Court to attack other areas like contraception and gay rights as a ways of trying to reinstall old-fashioned sexual mores across society.
Mitt Romney, one of the most thoughtful social conservatives, has already realized that if abortions are no longer a constitutional right, then his side are going to have to think a lot harder about how to support families. His proposal to give families monthly payments for each kid is unlikely to make it into law any time soon. However, it will be interesting to see to what extent social conservatives, who are over-whelmingly religious, will embrace the redistribution of wealth in the future.
The logic of a marriage between social conservatism and socialist economics is undeniable. If you want young women to give birth to heavily handicapped kids, shouldn’t you be supporting free healthcare at the very least? Shouldn’t the whole of society chip in to cover the costs that would otherwise ruin a family?
However, there is also a wild card. The “America First” wing of the Republican Party is openly embracing insurrection. Fascism expert Robert Paxton has said that he was reluctant to apply the term to Donald Trump during his chaotic presidency. However, in January 2021, Paxton said Trump’s open encouragement of civic violence means the former president can now be described as a fascist, the expert said.
Will American social conservatives embrace Romney’s socialist pivot or Trump’s turn to fascism? It is hard to say, but the old alliance between religious traditionals and libertarians might be in trouble. Florida governor Ron DeSantis will try to keep it alive if and when he runs for President, but it will be a hard balancing act. Can he can make his brand of populist-right politics fiery enough to attract insurrectionists while keeping it sane enough so corporate donors and mainstream conservatives like Romney stay on board? I might be wrong, but I have my doubts.
On the other side, progressives are quite understandably furious about the Supreme Court’s decision. The movement is truly progressive in the sense that it wants to move beyond traditional ways of arranging families. It wants women to have control over their bodies; and people who aren’t cis heterosexuals the ability to live their lives as they see fit, rather than living in fear or denial. It tends to be secular rather than religious.
Americans often use the word “liberals” for progressives. This can be misleading. The progressive movement can have illiberal elements. It includes many socialists, although Americans are often reluctant to use the term for those who want to move away from a market-based economy. “Woke” progressives who want to enforce “no debate” rules on core dogmas can also be deeply illiberal. Some apocalyptic environmentalists and conservationists are also illiberal.
At the same time, the progressive movement has a corporate wing, which tends to be more market-friendly and liberal in the true sense of the word. Believers in cleantech and environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing are also the liberal wing of the green movement, which works in parallel and overlaps with the liberal wing of the progressive movement.
Many executives who believe in stakeholder capitalism are often keen to use rainbow flags and the like to signal their progressive credentials. This can lead to hypocrisy if the companies also back socially conservative politicians, but it can be harder to play both sides in the social media age. Sites like Judd Legum’s Popular Information will become increasingly important at exposing these issues.
The theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that companies will probably double down on rainbow flags rather than sneaky donations to the right. This is particularly true of companies that need to recruit large numbers of young people. Research suggests that members of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2008) tend to have more positive views about socialism than about capitalism. Recruiters who want to attract young talent will have to bend over backwards to convince new hires that their organizations are progressive and forces for good in society.
If the progressive movement becomes more corporate and liberal, then Silicon Valley is likely to be at its heart. Successful innovation will continue to generate vast fortunes and some of this is likely to be used to support liberal-progressive causes. By contrast, the socialist and apocalyptic sides of the progressive movement will find it much harder to raise funds.
Former vet Loren Crowe recently offered the insight that the left has built a “blue wall” of sky-high housing and costs of living in progressive cities, which will make it hard for poor families to escape increasingly regressive laws in red states. If the left wants to tackle this issue, it will need to vigorously fight non-liberal progressives and conservationists who keep housing costs high by supporting knee-jerk Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) policies. Building cheap homes around big cities is both progressive and liberal. Expect many battles on this front within the progressive movement.
What does the future hold? The fault lines are clear. Progressives tend to congregate in large cities and on the two coasts, while social conservatives tend to live in the countryside and in small towns. Long-term trends show society becoming more secular, while religious people tend to have more kids. Progressives tend to be more ethnically diverse and better educated than conservatives. Meanwhile, social conservatives and right-wing insurrectionists often use conspiracy theories about progressives as a way of finding recruits among people who aren’t necessarily religious.
If these trends persist in the future, competent progressive candidates will always be a good bet for the presidency and a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, although they will continue to sweat about mid-term elections. Social conservatives will have a narrow advantage in the Senate and will continue to develop populist and conspiratorial themes in national elections to overcome their structural disadvantages. Expect gridlock and tension as a baseline assumption.
It is important to note that social conservatives were only able to end the constitutional right to abortion by playing hardball on judicial picks for decades. Polls show the Supreme Court decision is unpopular. Will Democrats be able to harness this anger in the upcoming mid-term elections? It remains to be seen, but there is a chance the Supreme Court decision will backfire. Of course, actually catching the bus is a terrible idea for dogs that enjoy chasing them.
Looking further ahead, the fault lines between red and blue states appears intractable. However, politics makes for strange bedfellows. If social conservativism takes a turn towards the redistribution of wealth, could members of the movement find common ground with socialists, NIMBY conservationists and apocalyptic environments on the progressive side? This seems unlikely in the short term, but would be a good contrarian bet on a longer timescale.
Progressives also shouldn’t be complacent about support from minorities. Latino/Hispanic communities have tended to vote Democrat, but many people from these communities are both religious and socially conservative. Winning large numbers of these votes could be a game-changer for Republicans and help move it away from the insurrectionists, who are often racists.
Strangely enough, none of the tension and gridlock will have much impact on the US’s role as the cornerstone of the West. The reason is very simple: Foreign affairs rarely gain much traction in election campaigns, beyond the big-picture push and pull between isolationism and interventionism, which is never quite resolved.
In the longer term, though, will the US split into two or three countries at some point? The chance of this happening isn’t zero, although it must remain extremely improbable for any given year. The risks probably increase as both sides move away from loyalty to the US Constitution. What would happen if progressives slowly turn against 18th century institutions like the Electoral College, while conservatives become increasingly insurrectional? In this scenario, expect Ernest Hemingway’s joke about a character going bankrupt first gradually and then suddenly to take on a new lease of life.
Of course, I’m not American and I don’t live in America. But, American politics does tend to foreshadow trends in Europe. The big difference is that America tends to be much more religious than Western Europe. Although roughly a quarter of the population of the US, Germany and the UK are unaffiliated, the numbers for other aspects show strong divergence. For example, about two-thirds of Americans pray every day, compared to just 18% of Europeans, with numbers going as low as 6% in Britain, where I am from.
The divergence on religious views means that I am unconvinced that opposing abortion will win many votes for the right in Europe. For example, Portugal is one of the most religious countries in Europe, but even so only 36% of the population believe in God as described by the Bible, compared to 56% of Americans. With numbers like these, why would the European right over-emphasize opposition to abortion? What do you think? The comments are open. See you next week!
Further Reading
The Bible says nothing about abortion
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