On abortion, a rare weakness for Triangulating Trump
Democrats have a rare opportunity to embarrass Trump to his base - but they may be too self-righteous to seize it.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, just now:
President Trump’s retreat on the Right to Life is a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020...The American people elect presidents, senators and congressmen, and a majority of Americans long to see minimum national protections for the unborn in federal law. But today, too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life.
Pence’s statement comes in response to a video Trump released earlier today where he took a victory lap over the end of Roe vs. Wade and crowed that “the states will determine” the future of reproductive rights, not the federal government. Democrats predictably responded to this by highlighting the worst outcomes of that decision — Biden has already pointed out that more than a third of women now live in states where abortion is illegal, adding that “Trump did this” — and we should expect them to maintain this strategy for the foreseeable future. But is this really the best approach?
Because the Pence comments are an explicit reminder that abortion is the rare issue where Trump’s base is clearly to his right. He was still describing himself as “very pro-choice” as recently as 1999, and while he may not be willing to veto a national abortion ban today, he has still demonstrated little desire to push for one. Trump’s base is extremely well aware of this, and they are absolutely furious about it.
This marks a point of serious vulnerability for Trump — and not just because of the disagreement itself. On other matters, he has been so aligned with his base that he has always been able to present himself as a strong and unwavering champion of their cause. This is central to his brand, and allows him to build a contrast between himself and DC’s “swamp” of corruption and cowardice. But on abortion, Trump suddenly becomes a typical politician: triangulating, unambitious, and dishonest. When advocates of an abortion ban watch his triumphalism on Roe, they aren’t grateful — they see it as an excuse to abandon their cause.
If you have any doubt about this, recent history gives us a direct point of comparison: George W. Bush. Throughout his presidency, GWB also presented himself as a ruthless and unwavering partisan of the evangelical right’s agenda. He was “The Decider,” and his hardline stand on gay marriage in 2004 has long been understood as critical to his victory. But even before Bush’s first term, the GOP had to conduct aggressive messaging operations to appease his hardline base. A comment in The New York Times from right-wing firebrand Phyllis Schlafly was typical:
At the grass-roots level, I just don’t see enthusiasm for Bush…I’ve heard several people say George Bush is not adequate on the pro-life issues. He isn’t 100 percent. His heart isn’t in it.
Despite these concerns, Bush still managed to push through a whole raft of pro-life measures and judicial nominations; but as his presidency came to an end with Roe still in place and no abortion ban on the table, opinion on his tenure in office soured. In 2007, CBS News reported that conservatives were “distraught at how little President Bush has done” on abortion and that their anxieties had sparked a primary arms race of increasingly radical positions on abortion.
Bush’s failure on abortion didn’t just hurt his reputation on that narrow topic, however. It ultimately destroyed his brand as an aggressive, muscular conservative and left him with a reputation among conservatives as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who couldn’t get the job done.
Pence’s complaints about Trump on abortion echo that assessment. Today he is in serious jeopardy of losing his reputation on the right as some kind of conservative warlord and falling into the same narrative that captured Bush: another establishment squish who blinked on abortion when things got too real. This, to be fair, is Trump’s inevitable fate regardless of what he does on abortion, or on any other matter; the next generation of right-wing radicals always has no choice but to position themselves as a break from the failures of the past. But if that narrative starts to build before election day, one too many evangelicals could decide to stay at home.
The irony, however, is that Democrats are probably far too committed to calling Trump the ultimate extremist to take advantage of his real weakness on abortion. Biden could start pumping out tweets about “Triangulating Trump” and ridicule his pathetic attempts to deceive his base; he could also take aggressive and decisive action on legalizing abortion and make Trump look timid and uncertain by comparison. Instead, however, Democrats are more likely to run cover for Trump by exaggerating his ambitions on abortion in an effort to scare voters — even though this will predictably help him with voters who think he isn’t ambitious enough.