Reality Check: Croaky Dismantles Abortion Dooming
Yesterday I wrote about the delusions on the right over the idea of Trump being the driver of culture and destroyer of Roe v Wade, as if he acted unilaterally and the prior 50 years had never existed. Today I will focus on another issue of delusion on the right, which is concern of the very likely situation where Kamala Harris wins the 2024 election. Over the last couple of weeks ever since Kamala Harris announced her candidacy one hears with alarming frequency the breathless assertion of doom: that a Kamala Harris administration would usher in a nationwide right to abortion and pack the Supreme Court to reimpose Roe v. Wade. These claims are not just made by the right's doomsayers but also implied by the left in hopes of her administration codifying Roe v Wade and upending the Supreme Court's conservative majority in one fell swoop, as if they could muster the political capital to do so. The sheer improbability of these claims seems not to trouble their proponents, who appear more enchanted by their own rhetorical style than by the inconvenient reality of governance. But reality, as any serious student of history knows, does have a stubborn way of asserting itself.
On the Imposition of a Nationwide Right to Abortion
The notion that any president—be it Harris, Trump or even FDR himself—could unilaterally impose a nationwide right to abortion under our system of government is as fanciful as it is constitutionally dubious. The Constitution, which remains a remarkably resilient document despite the best efforts of modern sophists (that would make the ones at Socrates trial blush), places clear limits on federal power. To enact this kind of a sweeping measure, a President Harris would need both houses of Congress at her disposal, a feat that requires not just numerical majorities but near-universal party discipline—a rare commodity in the best of times. Now from someone in the Republican party viewing from a disheveled GOP that might seem like what's occurring now, but really the Democrat party is united in beating Trump over all.
Even assuming Democrats could muster the votes to pass such legislation, they would then have to contend with the harsh realities of midterm elections. History, in its unyielding wisdom, teaches us that midterms have a habit of decimating the party in power, particularly when that party overreaches. The electorate, it seems, possesses a finely tuned instinct for rebalancing power when one side strays too far from the center. A Kamala administration would begin in January 2025 which would give her 1 year before house and senate members begin preparing for the midterm elections of 2026. Within that same one year window there would have to be a massive push on abortion at a time when there will be other real world economic and geopolitical issues occurring. Democrats would have to take a massive win in the house (which is possible) and will also have had to defy the odds in the senate race in 2024 (that favors Republicans) to get a super majority or at minimum 51 senators to vote to nuke the filibuster. These aren't just perks these would be requirements to pass any type of abortion legislation to reach the desk of a President Kamala.
But lets indulge in this fantasy a step further. Suppose Congress did pass a nationwide right to abortion despite all odds.