A Very American Scam
10th April 2024
ZMan turns the cynicism up to 11.
For fifty years abortion was a part of the national political debate due to the fight to overturn Roe v. Wade. Those who opposed abortion sought to overturn this court decision, thus returning the issue to the people. The pro-life side assumed they could win the argument and get laws passed to end most abortions. The pro-abortion people obviously fought to prevent this, even though they always claimed the vast majority of the people saw abortion as a holy sacrament.
Abortion was always a good money maker for Conservative Inc. because on the one hand, they only had to pay lip service to the moral issue. It was not as if they could pass legislation or change a regulation to meet the demands of their voters. The courts would just strike down those changes. On the other hand, the only path to victory was getting a majority of pro-life people in office, especially the White house, so the courts could be stocked with pro-life judges. That meant voting Republican.
The way the two party grift has worked since the middle of the last century was that the Democrats conjure novel ideas and find creative ways to normalize them with the progressive segment of the population. Once these ideas gain circulation, the Republicans pretend to oppose these new ideas. Both sides squabble over it, thus narrowing the options to their preferred positions. Then they aggressively fundraise off it as the novel ideas are slowly implemented.
The genius of this arrangement is the elites get what they want, while both parties protect themselves from outside threats by sucking all the oxygen out of the room in their endless media debates. With the oxygen comes the money, which keeps both camps in the lifestyle they think they deserve. Just as important, none of that money goes to anyone who has a third opinion. The political rackets rest on every issue being reduce to a binary choice.
Binary is bad.