Culture Wars 3.0 Have Begun

Ifa leaked draftof a majority opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States is indicative of the final outcome, Roe v. Wade will soon be overturned and the legal status of abortion will be returned to the states,13 of whichhave already passed "trigger laws" that will outlaw the procedure in concert with such a ruling. Regardless of your position on the issue, the political war that will follow is bound to be bad for citizens and good for Washington.

Culture war has always been a very powerful political device, and today’s world of social media, smartphones, and ever-present high-speed internet access has made it all the more effective. If you can keep the masses deeply engaged in a limited number of highly-divisive, emotional issues, it will suck up all of the oxygen while leaving little energy for the litany of other matters that both parties have no interest in taking up, many of which the masses are actually united on. This is one of the premier reasons why public support for so many less controversial issues can be overwhelmingly high, yet our leaders in Washington can continue to perpetually ignore them at the behest of special interests.

The abortion debate regained political focus after 2000, when George W. Bush’s campaign strategist, Karl Rove, successfully managed to turn out the evangelical Christian vote to an unprecedented degree. One of the promises was to appoint "pro-life“ judges to federal courts and the SCOTUS while working toward overturning Roe v. Wade. It soon became clear that rallying a massive bloc of largely single-issue voters, many of whom found politics otherwise distasteful, couldn’t be serviced with rhetoric the way so many other issues can, especially for those who rather do enjoy the soap opera aspect of Washington.

As the tactic evolved, anti-abortion groups began testing legislation that they knew would be challenged in courts, usually in conservative states where lawmakers were more apt to sponsor such bills. Little by little, Republicans at the state level managed to inch the ball toward the goal line. Throw in some rank hypocrisy, like the GOP’s handling of Merrick Garland/Brett Kavanaugh and what recently confirmed justicessaidabout Roe during their confirmation hearings, and suddenly we find ourselves in our current powder keg.

When it comes to abortion law, I am pro-choice. As a male, I believe that reproductive rights should reside with the woman and, aside from the existing, reasonable limits on late-term abortions that are not to protect the life and health of the mother, I believe that it should be a personal choice, not one made by the state. I’m also a pragmatist who understands that prohibitions on abortion procedures have never ended abortions. Instead, they just limit the safe and effective use of the procedure to those with the resources to travel in order to obtain them elsewhere, meaning that a disproportionate number of unwanted pregnancies are carried by those with the least ability to properly care for the resulting child.

That said, as a daughterless male who long ago had a vasectomy specifically to prevent any potential involvement in an unwanted pregnancy, I have to admit that it is not a top-tier issue for me. I really think that the same can be said for many male legislators, and that’s why I really hate to see this wedge issue once again take center stage, even if I understand the passions on both sides for people whodosee it as among the most important issues our society faces. This is one of a small number of issues that can effectively paralyze public policy by way of manipulating those passions and, when that happens, we all lose.

I’ll give you an example. About a month ago, I was having a conversation with a female acquaintance. She is in her early thirties and has a daughter who is in elementary school. We were talking politics, and I was expressing my litany of complaints with the modern Democratic Party. I mentioned the way that it has, over the past 50 years, morphed from a representative of America’s underserved working class to a party of elites who dress their pro-Wall Street, pro-Big Tech, pro-Big Banks, pro-Military Industrial Complex, pro-Big Pharma agenda with culture war rhetoric that costs them nothing and has little to no impact on the lives of most Americans who are far more interested in things like affordable healthcare, growing income inequality, affordable housing, and the skyrocketing cost of higher education.

She responded that, as a woman and a mother, the current climate on reproductive rights has effectively rendered her a single-issue voter who would remain with the only party that has a pro-choice platform. I couldn’t blame her. When you hear much of the rhetoric that comes not from the "far-right“ so much as the Republican establishment these days, it’s not hard to imagine a future that looks something like the Handmaid’s Tale. But what really bothered me about that reality was the way it lets not only Democrats but Republicans off the hook with so many voters foreverything elsethey do and fail to do for the American people.

Democrats have exploited those emotions just as eagerly as Republicans have.Sure, our candidate isn’t perfect and we didn’t accomplish or even attempt most of the things we promised in the last term, but this is about more than an election! This is about the courts. The Republicans won’t stop until they’ve overturned Roe and erased half a century of progress.Every fundraising email from either party reads like it was written by Chicken Little.Will you send us $50, $75, or $100 right now so that we can stop (insert either party) from ending America as you know it?

In fact, given President Biden's low approval rating and failure to act on many of his campaign promises, along with high gas prices and skyrocketing inflation, a wedge issue fight like this one could very well be the only thing that turns out otherwise dissatisfied Democrats heading into what, until this week, looked like a sure bloodbath in the midterms.

Likewise, Republicans have not only brought the religious right deep into the political fold, but they’ve fostered a political environment in which the effectively secular among the party’s base prizeowning the libsabove all else. In other words, for many Republican voters, it has seemingly become more about keeping their opponents from getting anything they might want than an actual legislative agenda.

Meanwhile, Republican politicians are equally heavy on rhetoric, while putting the bulk of their energy into maintaining a status quo in which billionaires and Fortune 500 companies pay some of the lowest effective tax rates, while Big Energy, Healthcare conglomerates, Wall Street, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the other special interests underwriting their elections continue to prosper at the expense of the rest of us. And for all of the party’s empty populist rhetoric about America's working class in recent years, its utter silence on all of the pro-labor movements that have been springing up over the past year demonstrates how hollow thatsupportreally is.

Democrats want to take your freedoms! Will you contribute today so that we can help keep America land of the free(unless you mean freedom to control your own body or organize to collectively bargain for decent wages and working conditions)? In either case, the money pours in.

When it comes to politics, nothing gins up the masses like guns and abortions, so it should be no surprise that the former is also front and center as we head into another election cycle. These issues, as important as they may be to many individuals, function as a shiny rattle that can be shaken anytime either party wants to capture our attention, ensuring that our collective vision is never focused on the issues that would require them to confront the deep-pocketed special interests that stuff their coffers. And that’s just the way they - and their paymasters - like it.