Barefoot and Pregnant

[Thad]

Biden To Sign Executive Order To Help Safeguard Access To Abortion, Contraception

Biden will direct the Health and Human Services Department to take action to protect and expand access to "medication abortion" approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the White House said.

He will also direct the department to ensure women have access to emergency medical care, family planning services, and contraception, including intrauterine devices (IUDs.)

Biden's attorney general and White House counsel will convene pro bono attorneys and other organizations to provide legal counsel for patients seeking an abortion as well as abortion providers.

It's a start, and finally a good example of the Democratic leadership actually doing something concrete. It's not enough, but it's a small step in the right direction.

And improving access to contraception is good. In itself and because I think there are still a lot of people who don't understand that Republicans are coming for that too.

[Yoji]

I was just wondering what was stopping him from signing executive orders. Y'know, maybe start acting like half of the iron-fisted dictator Fox News makes him out to be? Because his previous boss really had the same problem and I really really wish he did something about it.

"Oh goodness, these angry liars who are absolutely out to get me every time I so much as open a window might get angry and tell lies about me if I open this window! Guess I better just keep it closed and maybe even shut a few. That'll get them to stop being angry and lying all the time!"

[Friday]

Open ended question, genuinely curious.

Has the opposition party to the fascist movement ever successfully stopped a fascist takeover?

I guess this question requires more precise terminology. Because by default non-fascist governments suppress fascist dictatorships, I suppose we have to determine the "point of no return."

So, I'll change the question. At the point we are currently at, historically speaking (A coup was attempted, the courts are compromised, we are seriously starting to move backward in regards to policy and law governing people's behavior) has an opposition party ever successfully stopped a fascist takeover in history? If so, when and how?

[Upthorn]

I think this question is harder to answer than it might seem because of selection bias/survivorship bias.

History records events of significance, and a failed fascist movement looks like "politics in this country moved right for a while but then it started moving left again" which is generally considered the normal pattern of history.

I think it's likely you can find countless examples where a nation had this level of authoritarian sentiment and

• nothing wound up happening overall
• it became fascist for a while before a huge grassroots left-wing uprising took power back
• a civil war happened that the fascists won
• a civil war happened that the fascists lost

[Mongrel]

It really is. Especially since blaming SPECIFIC Republicans for SPECIFIC acts, is something the Dems have been pretty terrible at doing.

[Thad]

Kansas voters spoke loudly on abortion: Trust women. Now politicians must listen

Kansas voters reject a constitutional amendment that would have removed the state-level right to abortion. Massive turnout for a primary; I'm seeing reports, variously, that it may have exceeded the 2018 general election or even the 2008 general election.

I'd caution that it's still too early to generalize, but if you're looking for evidence that Dobbs is going to galvanize the significant majority of Americans who are pro-choice, this is certainly suggestive.

[Mongrel]

A break from more immediate stories for a longer demographic look at the fundamentals.

Never seen actual stats on this, even though it's something you might guess at. That's even starker than I would have expected.

[Friday]

Cards against Humanity did a poll asking people about Abortion rights in the states that have become "forced birth hellscapes."

The answers will not surprise you.

(Scroll down to read.)

[Yoji]

I'm sure I've mentioned once or twice how I oscillate between feeling like I don't know jack and feeling like I'm the only one with my head on straight.

Those men-only answers are terrible are doing that to me right now. The "fourth trimester" one is just...

Guys? What do you think the "tri" in "trimester" means? And I have joked about the fourth trimester, but that's about how achingly dependent a newborn child is for the first few months. It's not a medical thing.

This makes me want to pull out my own spine and whip someone with it.

[Friday]

[Thad]

Another "don't take anything for granted, but this is a good sign" datapoint.

[Mongrel]

It's still a ways to go, and in our digital age always take polls with several grains of salt, but I have literally yet to see a poll that wasn't +D nationally or in ANY state since Dobbs. Granted, in places like Texas R is still ahead due to the huge margin R naturally has, but even there it's getting close.

[Thad]

If the polls are off, I think it's almost certain that they're underrating Democrats' chances. See The Abortion Vote In Kansas Looks Like It’s Going To Be Close. Granted, you shouldn't draw conclusions from a single data point, but polling and polling analysis by their nature have a normalcy bias and aren't always well-prepared for sudden massive shifts in public opinion.

[Friday]

If the last 6 years have taught me anything, it's that anyone with a normalcy bias has a serious medical condition and they need to go to the hospital. Have them look at your head, you know, asap. There's some sort of growth in there.

[Thad]

...I...meant in the statistical sense, but sure, that too.

[Thad]

Four's a trend: Democrats are doing much better in special elections since Roe was overturned

Yes, Special Elections Really Are Signaling A Better-Than-Expected Midterm For Democrats

All those "this is just a single datapoint" datapoints are starting to add up.

Still way too early to draw any conclusions about November. But if the Democrats were going to keep the House in an upset, the buildup would look a lot like this.

[Friday]

My friends talk about this constantly. Specifically two of them, the most politically active of my group. One of them is the concept of a "normalcy bias" given flesh, and the other is one of those guys who moves from one wild speculation as certainty to the next as they don't pan out. So both are kind of extreme examples of how to be wrong about politics 100% of the time.

Anyway, they talk about this topic (the midterms and how Roe affected it) more than any other, and it's been interesting to listen to them argue about it. My own bias lies in cynicism, I always expect the worst. But I've been working on that in recent times, because

A: it's awful for your own mental health to think and live like that
and just as importantly
B: it's actually wrong. Good things do happen and denying that they can happen is fucking stupid.

Roe being overturned will have backlash. It is absolutely moronic to believe otherwise. As more and more stories about headless babies being forced to birth make the news, liberals, moderates, and progressives who are too lazy to vote "because it doesn't matter" are going to be constantly reminded that this is the world that the GOP wants. And they will vote because of it in times and elections they would not otherwise have.

The above paragraph is factual. You can dig into it and debate the extent of it and if it will be enough to make a difference and you can bring up how it will affect the right's voting patterns, but in the end, the above paragraph is factual.

History has shown us that most of the time change is incremental. History has also shown us that some of the time, change is not incremental. The previous two sentences are also factual.

I don't know about you, but I have my eyes open. I expect nothing and I do not close my mind to any possibility.

That being said, it's not a waste of time to try to analyze where things are heading. And yeah, if I had to guess, I'd say we're going to see some backlash that makes a difference.

[Grath]

There's also the damage being done by the Big Lie, where "no, see, Trump totally won, they're cheating" is leading some of the most diehard Republicans to... lose faith in voting entirely, and not bother to show up. There's only so much gerrymandering you can do when you're also telling your voters that every election is fraudulent and their votes don't matter.

[Thad]

There's also the damage being done by the Big Lie, where "no, see, Trump totally won, they're cheating" is leading some of the most diehard Republicans to... lose faith in voting entirely, and not bother to show up. There's only so much gerrymandering you can do when you're also telling your voters that every election is fraudulent and their votes don't matter.

I don't know, we'll see. I think that's a possibility but I don't think we have much evidence bearing it out yet. We're talking about the same people who will claim in one sentence that January 6 was an antifa false flag and in the next that the people in jail for it are innocent political prisoners being persecuted for a peaceful protest. Cognitive dissonance doesn't seem to be much of a factor.

Trump spent 2020 talking about how the vote was rigged, and more people showed up to vote for him than in '16. Maybe we'll see disillusioned Republicans not showing up to vote because they've lost faith in the process, but I'm not convinced; we'll see what the numbers look like in the next couple elections.

[KingRoyal]

The thing is, I think the GOP did better when they didn't make abortion an explicit issue. Now that they've gone ahead and forced it, the 75% of people who oppose abortion restrictions are more motivated to vote, more than the 15-25% of any state that wants the restrictions

The core GOP strategy on this was about diversion, downplaying anti-choice policies in favor of economic ones to get votes, which always for decades left them unwilling to touch Roe because they knew it was a harder position to generate support. I won't fully say "Now they done fucked up" since they control SCOTUS, the True Legislator, and any advancements or wins are gonna be precarious until we burn down the SCOTUS the makeup of the court changes