{"id":114435,"date":"2019-11-25T00:09:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T07:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=114435"},"modified":"2019-11-20T19:32:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T02:32:53","slug":"on-the-victory-of-john-bel-edwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/on-the-victory-of-john-bel-edwards.html","title":{"rendered":"On the victory of John Bel Edwards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Charlie Camosy talks about the recent victory of John Bel Edwards in the Louisiana governor\u2019s race<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Given our nation\u2019s polarized abortion politics, it is hard to believe that a governor who dramatically expanded Medicaid in his state also signed a bill banning abortion after a heartbeat can be detected.\u00a0Yet that\u2019s precisely what Democrat John Bel Edwards of Louisiana did. And this weekend, Edwards\u00a0won a reelection race<\/a>\u00a0against Eddie Rispone\u2014a Republican who got strong support from Trump, including two personal visits in the final two weeks of the campaign.<\/p>\n

How did Edwards manage to win the governorship of a deep-red state in which the president\u00a0has a +12 approval rating<\/a>? Simply put, he could never have won in such a state if he were not pro-life. His traditional values in this area reflect both\u00a0his deep commitment to Catholicism<\/a>\u00a0and the views of Louisiana voters\u2014especially Democratic voters of color.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to the election, both\u00a0racial justice activist organizations<\/a>\u00a0and Edwards\u2019s\u00a0campaign itself<\/a>\u00a0made a dramatic increase in African American voter turnout a major priority. And with good results\u2014according to preliminary indications, voters of color put Edwards over the top,\u00a0especially when it came to early voting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It would be interesting to know what white, progressive, highly educated Democrats think of all this. After all, they have been primarily responsible for the party\u2019s turn to the kind of abortion extremism that would have doomed an orthodox Democrat in a race like this one.\u00a0Mother Jones\u00a0ran a piece<\/a>\u00a0a few days before the election with the headline, \u201cIs There Still Room for an Anti-Abortion Hardliner in the Democratic Party?\u201d The\u00a0answer in the party platform<\/a>\u2014which claims that abortion should be unrestricted, that it should be paid for by pro-lifers\u2019 tax dollars, and that it is \u201ccore to women\u2019s, men\u2019s, and young people\u2019s health and wellbeing\u201d\u2014is obviously in the negative.<\/p>\n

But when faced with the prospect of a Trump-supported governor, Democratic activists changed their tune. This kind of change needs to happen more generally throughout the party, especially as we head into 2020.\u00a0In 2016, Trump\u00a0over-performed with African Americans and Latinos<\/a>\u2014populations which tend to be\u00a0more abortion-skeptical than white Democrats<\/a>.\u00a0For the Democrats\u2019\u00a0progressive leadership, which at least says all the right things about listening to voices of color, the factors behind Edwards\u2019s reelection should be highly instructive.\u00a0But the party, at least as currently constituted, is light years away from permitting a pro-life Democratic candidate from running for national office.<\/p>\n

As Alexandra DeSanctis\u00a0pointed out in the Washington Post<\/a>, candidates like Tulsi Gabbard who dare to suggest\u00a0(as\u00a0Hillary Clinton did<\/a>\u00a0just a decade ago) that abortion ought to be \u201csafe, legal, and rare\u201d are castigated by the party\u2019s powers that be.\u00a0The Democratic Attorneys General Association has\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0it will not support any candidate who does not support abortion rights.\u00a0Abortion is now understood in the Democratic party to be a social good, unworthy of any stigma whatsoever.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an extremely\u00a0alienating view for the kinds of voters Democrats need to keep and pick up if they are to defeat Trump in 2020. Virtually no one holds the \u201cabortion is a social good\u201d position other than ultra-progressive white Democrats, and the swing voters in swing states\u2014already a source of consternation for Democrats\u00a0given recent polling<\/a>\u2014especially loathe this position.\u00a0Consider that\u00a025 percent of Trump voters<\/a>\u00a0(including a\u00a0disproportionate number of late-deciders<\/a>\u00a0in swing states) voted for him primarily because of Supreme Court vacancies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s perfectly right, of course.\u00a0 If the Dem gave their own base of prolifers (about a third of Democrats) some respect instead of doing all in their power to exile them, they would never stop winning.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, of course, what this election also shows extremely clearly is that the President of Kidnapping, Sexual Assault, Racism, Treason, and Torture of Brown Children is not \u201cprolife\u201d, all the lies of the \u201cprolife\u201d MAGA cult to the contrary.\u00a0 If he had been, he would not have gone to Louisiana three times to demand his cult vote against a prolife candidate<\/a>.\u00a0 Nor would that MAGA cult have fought to defeat Edwards.\u00a0 But for the Cult, it has never really been about opposing abortion.\u00a0 It has always been about using the unborn as human shields for all the stuff they really care about, particularly the ugly cruelties of Trump.<\/p>\n

Happily, Edwards won anyway, delivering yet another crushing defeat to Trump after he again begged one of his Nuremburg rallies to hand victory to a GOPer as a personal act of fealty to his authoritarian charisma.\u00a0 It is a very hopeful sign that next year will deliver crushing defeat to him and his whole party of criminals and mobsters.<\/p>\n

Congratulations, John Bel Edwards!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlie Camosy talks about the recent victory of John Bel Edwards in the Louisiana governor\u2019s race: Given our nation\u2019s polarized abortion politics, it is hard to believe that a governor who dramatically expanded Medicaid in his state also signed a bill banning abortion after a heartbeat can be detected.\u00a0Yet that\u2019s precisely what Democrat John Bel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[793],"class_list":["post-114435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-using-the-unborn-as-human-shields"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the victory of John Bel Edwards<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Charlie Camosy talks about the recent victory of John Bel Edwards in the Louisiana governor's race: Given our nation\u2019s polarized abortion politics, it is\" 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