The Republican Party and Pro-Life

I really could despair of people who persist in the fantasy that the Republican Party is pro-life. Applying this from the GOP generally to John McCain in particular is a point at which delusion becomes insanity. But at least, I suppose, he used to be honest, at least until this bid for the Presidency started. In that, he was like Bush the Elder, more or less. Or Bob Dole, whom he resembles in so very many ways.

By contrast, Bush the Younger is, as Reagan was, a full-blown liar and hypocrite on this subject, who makes no real bones about the fact that pretending to be pro-life prevents the Republican Party from becoming just another eccentricity of the East Coast super-rich, and instead keeps huge numbers of naturally and historically Democratic white Evangelicals and blue-collar Catholics voting to destroy their own jobs and, lately, to massacre their own sons. All in return for absolutely no change whatever in the abortion law. None. Nada. Zilch.

Or, at least, it did. This year, enough of them appear to have had enough. Not before time. The Republican Epoch that has lasted since 1968 is coming to an end; it in turn succeeded that Democratic Epoch that has lasted since 1932. There will occasionally be Republican Presidents in the coming decades, but they will be as popular on the Republican Right as Eisenhower was, or as Carter and Clinton were on the Democratic Left. Key to this epochal shift is the return - in large numbers this time, in huge numbers next time, and then as a settled fact for a very long time - of the abused white Evangelicals and blue-collar Catholics.

That, in turn, represents a change in the Democratic Party. It was changed by their exit, leaving only the more-or-less secular liberals, who are rich enough not to care too much about social justice, and indeed are often so rich that they are positively hostile to it, since they benefit so considerably and conspicuously from unbridled capitalism. Many people like that, especially in the North East, used to be Republicans. But the influx drove them out. Its reversal will drive them out of the Democratic Party and back to a GOP much as it was before they felt moved to leave it. Good riddance.

So what will the Democratic Party be like, during the new Democratic Epoch? It can, should, and I trust will be the party of family values, the protection of workers and consumers, strictly limited and strictly legal immigration, fair trade and fair tax, constitutional checks and balances, universal health care, national security, Social Security, energy independence, environmental responsibility, Second Amendment rights and responsibilities, Civil Rights, America as an English-speaking country, and foreign policy realism.

Much as it once was, in fact. Back when it used to win Presidential Elections. But without the Make The World Anew warmongering and trigger-happiness. Without the niggling doubts about the capacity of the State, at least at federal level, in domestic policy. And without the racism, which cannot come back now that the blacks have equal voting rights in practice as well as in theory, votes which they do and will cast for this, a party so very much in their image.

(Parties like that are quite normal internationally, and by no means only on the fringes. The German CDU was much in that vein in the pre-Merkel days when it was still true to its name and heritage. The CSU still largely is. Even one of the old East German block parties, notionally set up for Christian Democrats, very occasionally gave the powers that be a shock and voted against, especially, abortion as a matter of party policy. Why should it only ever be anti-life and anti-family positions that have the benefit of a Party Whip?)

The Republicans, meanwhile, now actively wish to be rid of those who will be, and are, returning to this restored Democratic Party. They have deliberately sought out someone from that background, but who just happens to be a perfectly ridiculous person, and made her their wholly incredible Vice-Presidential nominee, so that they can blame "the Religious Right" for their impending electoral catastrophe.

The compliment will be, and is being, returned in full.