Radical And Extreme Positions

Not that he said anything much, but Donald Trump's presence at the March for Life did make the point that the pro-life movement was too close to the ungrateful and undeserving Republican Party.

That movement has told its supporters to vote for Ronald Reagan (who had legalised abortion in California, and who went on to appoint no fewer that three supporters of abortion to the Supreme Court), for George Bush, for Bob Dole, for George W. Bush, for John McCain, for Mitt Romney (who derived an income from the public funding that he introduced for abortion in Massachusetts), and for Planned Parenthood's very own major donor, Donald Trump.

But that party has never done anything for it, and it holds and implements economic and foreign policies that are repugnant to Catholic Teaching. Policies, in fact, that are identical to those of the Clinton-Biden-Pelosi Democratic Party. As, for all practical purposes, are the Republican Party's policies on the issues addressed by the March for Life. 

This problem has become particularly acute among Irish-Americans. Long the richest group in the United States, something that is rarely appreciated outside, they have largely forgotten their own radical history, and their own quite recent experience of extreme racial discrimination and violence. Nadir, at least for now, was reached with the confirmation to the United States Supreme Court of Justice of Brett Kavanaugh. 

Kavanaugh was unknown to the pro-life movement, which had submitted the names of dozens of potential nominees, all of which had been rejected by a President who, say it again, had previously been a major donor to Planned Parenthood. Republican Senators voted to confirm Kavanaugh after he had promised Susan Collins that he would uphold Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges. They gave Collins's speech a standing ovation. In her words:

"Opponents frequently cite then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign pledge to nominate only judges who would overturn Roe. The Republican platform for all Presidential campaigns has included this pledge since at least 1980. During this time, Presidents, Republican Presidents, have appointed Justices O'Connor, Souter, and Kennedy to the Supreme Court. These are the very three justices, Republican-president-appointed justices, who authored the Casey decision which reaffirmed Roe." 

Quite.

And say it again, a Republican standing ovation. Thus did they secure a Justice with the most egregious record on torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans tribes, and healthcare for people with preexisting conditions. On any one of those issues, Kavanaugh could have been blocked, with all Democrats and enough Republicans voting against him.

But the Democrats chose to make it about #MeToo instead. The confirmation of Kavanaugh will be the only lasting legacy of the #MeToo phenomenon. But that is another story. Or at any rate, it is a different chapter in the story of the baleful decline of both main political parties in the United States. Neither of them deserves a free pass. Or very much else at all.