The better angels of our nature

 

Whichever way the election goes, and regardless of whom we voted for, should we be disappointed, violence is not an acceptable response.

I was going to write a post about options for nonviolent civil disobedience in the event one side tries to steal the election, such as a general strike, but I think instead I’m just going to encourage everybody to chill out and remember these lines from Lincoln's Inaugural Address:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

I invite you to also read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, reprinted in its entirety below, and recall that in between those two addresses, over 620,000 American lives were lost.

Second Inaugural Address.

Delivered at Washington, D. C. March 4, 1865.

Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

The seamless garment vs. the sausage factory

In my last post, I talked about pro-life Democrats. Case in point, Bart Stupak.

Bill Clinton campaigned on health care reform, but his administration failed to come up with a plan that could get through Congress, and health care reform would not receive serious consideration again at the national level until 2008. I had inadequate health insurance or none at all for much of the 90s-00s, so the issue concerned me personally.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, all of the major candidates of both parties had proposals for health care reform. I anticipated real change after Obama won, but I feared that health care reform would run afoul of abortion politics. This is in fact what happened. 

Although Obama was willing to allow the existing ban on federal funding for abortions (the Hyde Amendment) to apply to his health care reform proposal in the interest of getting it passed, pro-choice members of the House rejected that approach and instead amended the administration’s proposal so that it would in effect allow federal funds to pay for abortions (the Capps Amendment). This amendment was a compromise according to its supporters, but it would have funded insurance plans that paid for abortions. This was unacceptable to pro-life representatives, including a bloc of pro-life Democrats led by Bart Stupak of Michigan. With all GOP members voting against the bill, Stupak’s bloc was able to hold up passage of health care reform in the House until the ban on funding was re-established in the legislation.

In the Senate, however, the funding ban was weakened, and when the bill came back to the House for final passage, Stupak’s pro-life Democrats faced a dilemma: allow abortion funding or kill health care reform. Obama gave them a way out: if they agreed to vote for the bill, Obama would issue an executive order that would deny the federal funding for abortions, closing the loophole in the Senate bill that allowed it. The final result was the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”).

Under intense pressure, facing the defection of several members of his bloc, and unwilling to deal a fatal blow to health care reform and possibly Obama’s presidency, Bart Stupak and the remaining members of his bloc accepted this compromise.

(Here is a short summary of what happened, published by the Commonwealth Fund.)

I remember these events well. They exemplified the pernicious hypocrisy of single-issue activists and extremists on both sides of the abortion debate, but especially that of the GOP under Mitch McConnell’s leadership. Watching these events unfold solidified my conviction that another approach to abortion was needed (see my post on 25 May 2017,“Pro-Conscience”). 

On the progressive side, some activists were concerned that women who had coverage for abortions in the health insurance plans they already had would lose it; others, it seems, simply wanted to expand access and were willing to play games with health care reform to get it. I wrote to Speaker Pelosi back then, imploring her not to allow health care reform to fail because of abortion. I asked why every other progressive goal -- everything progressives wanted to do to address health care, climate change, civil rights, civil liberties, labor, gun control, immigration, etc. -- was negotiable, but not abortion. As long as abortion remained legal, how could any progressive justify holding up health care reform, which so many people needed so desperately, in an attempt to make abortions available at public expense?

On the conservative side, the GOP showed that it was more interested in using abortion as a wedge issue than in protecting the unborn or being pro-life in the larger sense. When the Obamacare bill was in the House, the GOP representatives unanimously joined with Democrat Bart Stupak in the successful fight to maintain Hyde Amendment language in the bill, but then only one Republican, Joe Cao of Louisiana, voted to pass the amended bill. This shows that the GOP was really only interested in using abortion as a poison pill. Then, when the bill reached the Senate, the ban on federal funding for abortions was weakened by pro-choice senators. The bill could have passed the Senate with the ban intact if the GOP senators had cooperated in a bipartisan way with pro-life Democrats, but Mitch McConnell chose to pursue a path of obstructionism, and the GOP senators followed his lead. 

The national pro-life organizations revealed themselves to be little better than GOP shills. They had lauded Bart Stupak when he held up passage of the ACA in the House, but when he accepted Obama’s executive order banning funding for abortions, they turned on him. Susan B. Anthony’s List had given him its “Defender of Life” award, but revoked it and donated $150,000 for advertising against him.

Pro-choice organizations were almost as hypocritical. They accused Stupak of attacking abortion rights when in fact it was pro-choice members of Congress who had unnecessarily injected abortion into the health care debate. Obama’s plan had originally been conformable to the Hyde Amendment; it was the pro-choice side who had amended the bill to include expanded abortion funding.

Catholic organizations were split. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had supported Stupak’s efforts but sided with the GOP in the end, despite their affirmation that health care is a right. But organizations representing Catholic sisters, many of whom work in health care, supported the passage of the ACA. Bart Stupak himself is a devout Catholic. He is pro-life in the “seamless garment” sense; he opposed the death penalty and the second Iraq War and fought for health care reform throughout his nine terms in Congress. 

It is worth mentioning that Stupak himself favored a much simpler reform plan: “ . . . expand Medicaid, SCHIP, and Medicare for individuals fifty-five and over. Then, for all the rest of the uninsured Americans: allow them to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Package.” (Bart Stupak, For All Americans, Ch. 21, Kindle edition location 1632.)

This post is based mostly on Bart Stupak’s book For All Americans (Covenant Books, 2017), and on my own recollections of the events. I lived in Stupak’s district from 2000-2006 and voted for him. I would encourage anyone interested in abortion, health care, or how laws are made to read Stupak’s book. Of course it is told from Stupak’s point of view, and there is some self-justification and score-settling, but it is adequately documented and its main topics are mostly matters of public record. Despite going into minute details of the legislative process and associated deal-making, I found the book to be a page-turner.

Can Democrats be pro-life in 2020?

Al Gore has been in the news lately. He recently endorsed Joe Biden for President and continues to advocate for action on climate change. People on social media are ruefully speculating about how different things would be if Gore had won in 2000.

source

Something nobody on the left wants to acknowledge is that Gore's approach to abortion contributed to his defeat. Yes, Florida was stolen, but he also lost his home state of Tennessee, which would have put him over the top had he won it, even with the loss of Florida. Why did he lose Tennessee? Not because a few people voted for Nader. It may well have been because he not only shifted his position on abortion from one that was borderline pro-life to one that was fully pro-choice, but did so in a way that alienated many of those who had previously voted for him and/or Bill Clinton. Instead of Bill's conciliatory "safe, legal, and rare", which at least acknowledged that this was a moral issue to many people, Gore adopted the tone and language of pro-choice activists, dropped his previous opposition to federal funding for abortions, and pretended that he had always been unequivocally pro-choice.

Gore wasn't the only one. Some heartland politicians like Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich switched their positions on abortion and were defeated anyway. Others like Bob Casey, Sr. didn't switch but were silenced by the Democratic Party elite, which may have led some of their supporters to vote for Republicans for other offices, including the presidency.

John Kerry’s loss in 2004 is also instructive. There are similarities between Biden and Kerry that should worry Democrats. Like Kerry, few voters are particularly enthusiastic about Biden, and the race is more about why the incumbent is bad than why the challenger is good. Also like Kerry, Biden is a pro-choice Catholic. Catholics in the US come in all political persuasions, but nothing riles up conservative Catholics more than pro-choice Catholic politicians. Gay marriage was another cultural issue that drove up conservative turnout in 2004. COVID-19 may render cultural issues and the lack of enthusiasm for Biden moot in 2020, or it may not -- a lot can happen between now and November.

If the Democrats lose the swing voters, they lose the election. If progressives take the bait and once again allow the GOP to frame the election in terms of culture-war issues, Democrats will lose the swing voters. Biden has already backed away from his previous support of the Hyde amendment, which is more than he should have had to do. With all due respect to Bernie Sanders and all that he has achieved, he was wrong to suggest that Democrats can't be pro-life. Some are in Louisiana and other places, and the Democrats can't afford to lose them.

Instead of trying to chase pro-life voters and elected officials out of the party, Democrats need to find common ground, emphasize that progressive policies will in fact lead to fewer abortions, and point out that outlawing abortion will not make it stop if the other conditions that drive women to it are still present. The Democratic Party also needs to make sure that pro-life Democrats go to the polls and vote for downballot Democrats -- including pro-life Democratic candidates -- even if some of them might cast no vote for president rather than vote for a pro-choice nominee.

The 2020 election ought to be about two things: (1) saving the republic from oligarchic degeneration, corruption, and incompetence, and (2) saving the planet from catastrophic climate change. The culture wars will have to wait.