Last week a draft of an upcoming Supreme Court decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s
Health Organization was leaked to the press. The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, indicates
that the court is about to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, an act which would eliminate
the constitutionally guaranteed right to obtain an abortion. If this does indeed happen — and
nothing is official until the court formally hands down its final opinion — it will be a
dark day for millions of Americans, a day many of us thought would never come.
Which is part of the problem.
The forthcoming decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the result of
decades of focused, determined effort on the part of American conservatives. It has been their goal
since Roe was decided to see it overturned, and they have not taken their eyes off the ball
this entire time. In my lifetime — I was born in 1980 — they have dragged the U.S. Supreme Court,
lower federal courts, state courts, state legislatures, the Republican Party, and our
overall national political discourse inexorably to the right. They’ve accumulated power in the
states, in Congress, appointed judges whose judicial philosophies align with their own, and
they have prepared for this moment, when one of the numerous laws enacted by Republican-controlled
states could be brought before the review of a Supreme Court with a conservative majority.
It’s a long-term strategy which, as we now see, has been chillingly effective. But one of the most
chilling realizations I’ve had about the — apparently successful — conservative assault
on reproductive rights is that I find it very hard to imagine progressives
in this country even mounting, much less successfully completing, such a project.
Maybe that’s cynical of me. I hope it is. But, I don’t think so. Because my party,
the Democratic Party, has watched its conservative adversaries carry out their
plan to destroy Roe this whole time, and done relatively little of substance to stop it.
Even now, with constitutionally guaranteed abortion rights teetering on the precipice,
congressional efforts to subvert the Supreme Court ruling by passing legislation codifying the right
to an abortion into federal law are being stalled in the U.S. Senate — not by Republicans,
but by a pair of Democrats — Senators Manchin and Sinema — who would rather preserve
a parliamentary procedure — the filibuster — than the reproductive rights of the American people.
Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not blaming the Democrats for the imminent death of Roe v. Wade.
The Republicans are doing this, they are primarily responsible. But they might not have been able
to do it if the Democrats — if we — had put up more of a fight. Some of us have, or have tried,
but during all this time when the Republicans have been slowly but surely laying the groundwork
for their assault on Roe, the Democrats — by which I mean, the Democratic Party establishment — have
acted like there was nothing to worry about, like Roe actually being overturned was impossible.
The Democratic Party has treated losing Roe the way most of us think about our own deaths — we
know intellectually that it’s a real thing, but we don’t actually believe it’s ever going to happen.
Except, it’s even worse than that, because unlike death, the overturning of Roe is not inevitable.
Democrats have had almost fifty years since roe was decided to do something to enshrine
the right to an abortion into law as something stronger than a court precedent. In that time,
Democrats have held filibuster-proof majorities in Congress twice — once beginning in 1977,
once in 2009. Both majorities were held during the administrations
of Democratic presidents. Did they pass legislation to codify Roe? No, they didn’t.
During the Obama administration, when it was painfully obvious what a conservative majority
on the Supreme Court would mean, did the aging justices of the liberal majority retire so that
the Democratic president and the, for a time, Democratically controlled Congress could nominate
and confirm younger justices, to preserve the majority in case of a future right-wing president?
No. They didn’t. President Trump was able to appoint three justices to the court,
including two who replaced liberal judges. One of those liberal justices, Anthony Kennedy,
chose to retire during the Trump presidency. Would a conservative justice have retired
knowing that a liberal president would be choosing their replacement?
I wouldn’t bet on it, because the Republican Party plays to win.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, still doesn’t seem to even know what the game
is. Democrats — establishment Democrats, the leaders of the party — continue to
cling to norms that Republicans shattered years ago, and to chase an ideal of bipartisanship that
is a foolish, toxic fantasy. Republicans aren’t interested in bipartisanship.
Republican-controlled state legislatures all across the country have passed bills
banning abortions, bills designed to trigger exactly the sort of court challenge that is
about to result in the overturning of Roe. Did any of those Republicans say “Well,
of course I support banning abortions, but I can’t support these bills unless they’re bipartisan,
so we need to get at least a few Democrats onboard with this before I’ll vote for it”?
They don’t give a shit about bipartisanship. They don’t give a shit what Democrats or Democratic
voters think of them. They aren’t afraid of being hated by people who aren’t going to
vote for them anyway. They want to win, and they do what they have to do. And wouldn’t
it be fucking nice if I could honestly say the same thing about my own goddamn party?
I’m not suggesting that Democrats adopt Republican policy, or Republican philosophy — some of them
have done enough of that already. I am saying that Democrats should pursue their goals with the same
tenacity and fearlessness. Stop triangulating. Stop preemptively compromising. Stop trying to
appeal to voters who, were he alive today, would think of Teddy Roosevelt as a communist. Stop
acting like you’re embarrassed by your own principles, assuming you actually have them.
Most importantly, stop attempting to play chess while the other side is literally trying to
kill you. Wake the fuck up. Act like you have some recognition of what the stakes are here.
Do what the Republicans have been doing all along, what you should have been doing all along,
and fight. You want to win elections? You want more votes in the Senate so you can afford
to tell Manchin and Sinema to go fuck themselves? Fight. Let the people see you fighting. Give
the people whose interests you claim to represent, the people who need you — women,
people of color, queer people, immigrants, people with disabilities, members religious minorities,
the poor, the working class — everyone who is threatened by the brutality and depravity and
corruption of the Republican Party — it’s a lot of people — give them a reason to believe in you.
If Democrats do that, they’ll win. The people will give them the power they need to really
make a difference if the people have a reason to think they’ll actually use it.
So, Democrats have a choice. We can either get our shit together, get in the game, recognize our
enemies as what they are — our enemies, who are trying to destroy us and the basic institutions
that make us at least potentially a free and democratic society — and fight. Or, we can
keep acting like Charlie Brown trying to kick that fucking football. But if we do that, the right to
an abortion won’t be the last of our liberties to die with some of its blood on our hands.