Donald Trump has demanded credit for the Supreme Court’s overthrow of the infanticidal regime of Roe v. Wade, and various dexterosphere mememasters have had fun at the expense of conservative commentators who praise Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization without mentioning the man who appointed three of the five Justices who rendered it.
Feeling that it is bad form to lambaste someone for doing what you want, I’m willing to commend Mr. Trump, but it is only fair to offer a modicum of thanks to the people who impelled the former President’s appointments, namely, the Hysteriac Left.
At a moment of crisis during the 1848 revolution in France, a leading politician is said to have exclaimed, “There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.” Donald Trump’s service to the pro-life movement was in much the same spirit:
Donald Trump was, until he decided he wanted the Republican presidential nomination, an across-the-board social progressive: not only pro-abortion but “very pro-choice” in his own words, a supporter of gay marriage, a supporter of left-wing gun-control proposals, etc. . . . When Trump was asked what kind of justice he’d nominate for the Supreme Court, he suggested his sister – who is not exactly Clarence Thomas.
When friends asked me in 2016 why I wasn’t going to vote for The Donald (or, needless to say, for his crooked opponent), I answered that Trump had no credibility as a conservative and prided himself on having mastered “the art of the deal”. Once in office, he would inevitably follow the easy and attractive course of negotiating with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to produce about the same results as the election of Hillary Clinton would have yielded. The deals would, of course, include “compromise” judicial nominees who wouldn’t disturb the “living Constitution” status quo.
And why didn’t that happen? Why did a man who had spent his business career treating promises like pie crusts suddenly stop breaking them? Could it have had something to do with the fact that leftists rioted and denounced him as a contemporary Adolf Hitler even before he took the oath of office? The most artistic deal maker has trouble working with materials like that.
So the newly installed President turned to the “establishment Republicans” whom he had mocked mercilessly during the primaries. “Conservatism, Inc.” was willing to overlook his faults in return for inter alia follow-through on judicial nominations. The upshot was the addition of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Comey to the Court and the demise of Roe. None of which would have happened if the Left had been willing and able to subordinate its hatreds to its interests. Let me extend a hearty “thank you”.
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