DU'ers over 50: How responsible is Roe v Wade for today's political climate?

[newtothegame]

I'm only in my late 20's myself, but another DU'er wrote a very intelligent post a couple days ago on this subject that got me thinking. They talked about Roe v Wade and the expansion of the "single-issue voter" bloc.

How in today's America, you can be for the little guy, be for peace, be for the environment, be for everything good in this world, but if you are pro-choice, you can be soundly beaten by a known warmongering corporate lackey pro-lifer.

My question is, especially in light of today's ultra-polarized America, can abortion be pointed to as THE ISSUE that created such passionate divisions, THE ISSUE that changed the game? THE ISSUE that turned previously apathetic Americans into rabid, straight-ticket, passionate defenders of one party or the other?

For historical comparison, I would guess slavery was the same way. No matter what your background was or your leanings on other issues, slavery and the expansion of slave territory was THE ISSUE that got you in or out of Congress.


PS I'd like to share your opinion with my coworkers who I'm having this discussion with currently, so please share your thoughts along with your vote :)

ed for sp

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. I'm a tiny litle bit under 50 but I voted anyway. If it wasn't abortion, it would have been somethin

else

[zipplewrath]

2. Exactly

And there are plenty-o-something else's already being used. Gay rights, being probably the #1

[Warpy]

3. Exactly, it might have been putting black folks back in the box

so they couldn't vote, live in "our" neighborhoods, or compete for "our" jobs. Who knows?

People with a toxic mindset will always find some noble cause to hang it on. People who are drawn to cults will always find one or two or three, and if you can merge religion and politics on any level, it's always a match made in hell and sent to destroy us on earth.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. yep, or gay rights or women in the workplace or immigration. Hateful

people need a group to hate against.

[EFerrari]

20. Yep. It was just the biggest hook the right wing could find.

If it weren't abortion, it would be guns or gays or taxes or whatever gave them the biggest bang.

[AmandaRuth]

5. I am over 50, and while i totally see your point

there will always be single issue voters, i think the political climate is totally the responsibility of the media (esp talk radio). imho,

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. "All politics is local." Tip O'Neill And, nothing is more "local" than one's beliefs/principles.

Personally, I won't vote for anyone, no matter which party, who is anti-choice or pro-war. There are plenty of others who will vote just the opposite way.

It's democracy...warts and all...but, it's democracy.

[BurtWorm]

7. Civil rights was THE issue that polarized American politics.

[rurallib]

22. And racial (or sexual) politics still dominates.

so it has gone from slavery to civil rights and is now racial politics. Same shit. Seems like most everything else is some branch of this.

[ixion]

8. Today's political climate has to do with malicious individuals

seeking to manipulate, lie and obfuscate for fun and profit.

[napi21]

9. I'm 66 and remember when that ruling weas read. Some at work were

talking about it on all different sides, but the RW will always find some issue to hype. Black v/s white, abortion, gay rights, illegal immigrants....

[onehandle]

10. People who bitterly cling to guns, religion and antipathy are responsible. nt

[Lasher]

11. Somewhat.

It's hard to make a serious case that Roe v. Wade is a neutral issue. The same is true of the Equal Rights Act. The question is framed unfortunately, however, perhaps encouraging a conclusion that supporters of the associated concepts are to be blamed for today's political climate.

[Lerkfish]

12. its all about the money: the wedge issues are irrelevant frankly

the last two elections they've been using gay marriage to drive wedges.

the wedge itself is unimportant. Look to the powerbrokers and why they NEED to use wedge issues.

[newtothegame]

14. Great post. n/t

[Birthmark]

13. I think that the Cult of the Fetus is somewhat important

Throw in some continuing bitterness about Viet Nam, and worship of the great god Market and it's Holy Prophet, Ronald Reagan, and you have today's Republican Party as close as whatnot.

[Arkansas Granny]

15. Roe v. Wade is not responsible, but it is a useful tool for the RW to use to get support

from the Christian conservatives who might not support them with as much enthusiasm if they just stuck to the really important issues facing our country right now. In some ways, it's kind of like a bait & switch ploy.

[3324SS]

16. Today's So-Called Toxic Environment

is directly related to the consolidation of TV, Radio and Newspapers to just a few corporations, they now control the message to the masses. Next they will be attacking the internet, right now they can't control it except to belittle reporters and individuals who report the truth.

Media is so corrupt and bad today that groups of Cons have banded together to keep radio, tv stations and newspapers going spreading the GOP Lies and Propaganda at a loss just to keep the liberal and progressive message off the public air waves.

[Echo In Light]

17. Welcome aboard - good post

[3324SS]

33. That was My Last POST Ever on DU!

I don't like how the moderators arbitrarily pick and choose which posts are OK and which are not.

I already know they will remove this one too.

[Cirque du So-What]

18. I've been around for years longer than Roe v. Wade was decided

and I can attest to the fact that not one conservative EVER expressed the slightest concern about the plight of the unborn OR the women who were dying as a result of botched abortions. I don't recall any expressions of outrage over back-alley abortionists who routinely put the lives of women at risk or that wealthy women could afford trips to facilities that were safer, flaunting the law of the land at that time.

I remain convinced that conservatives use abortion as a wedge issue merely because it's convenient and because it can be whipped up to a frothy, emotionally-charged lather that the fundies can use to condemn the gawdless heathens & secular humanists. Conservative concern over the 'sanctity of life' ends the moment the baby's head emerges from between the mother's legs.

[omega minimo]

19. Educate yourself, don't poll yourself a water cooler argument.

This OP trivializes the issues and sets up a false premise to be addressed. The OP title is inflammatory.

If you understand nothing about how the Republicans under Reagan created the divisive atmosphere we live in now, you need to do some reading, not waste people's time with this game.

[BonnieJW]

21. Pro-choice is a way of thinking.

It's a marker for many other things this person is for and against.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Not responsible.

The same folks who don't like abortion didn't like integration either. There has always been a far right fringe and the issue they are most passionate about changes from decade to decade.

[jmowreader]

24. I think it has a LOT to do with it

Civil rights and the abortion issue MADE the Republican Party into what it is today. The implication is the pro-choicers are going to make you move in next to one of Those People, and then they're going to kill your baby.

[sinkingfeeling]

25. America did not become polarized because of Roe vs. Wade. It's become polarized in the last

30 years because of St. Ronnie's inflammatory talk, the rapid growth of 'mega churches' spewing a doctrine of prosperity and fear of others, wealth distribution from the working classes to the upper 1%, and America's fading influence around the world.

[Greyhound]

28. I'd say the current polarization stems from the 60's and the general awakening of the people

to the fact that, just because someone tells you that you must, doesn't mean you have to.

The number of ordinary people that realized they could say "no" reached critical mass and they began to exercise their power.

Raygun was the response from the people that give orders.

[demosincebirth]

26. To me, an anti-abortion dem is better than any republican-- thats my belief

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

42. They can be anti-abortion personally but once they become anti-choice, they are as bad

as any republican, IMHO.

[demosincebirth]

44. Me, being a "yellow dog" democrat, I have to disagree

[OregonBlue]

27. I'm well over 50 and I can say it's not the abortion issue, its corporate media.

[TreasonousBastard]

29. That's one of the few issues that still drives people...

integration, civil rights, the environment, even the new gay marriage fights... none of them have the staying power of abortion.

I don't remember too many people talking about abortion before Roe, but since Roe it has been the single most divisive issue to regularly come up.

We have come to a national consensus that black people, women, and other groups discriminated against have the same rights everyone else has, even though we haven't done all that well acting on that consensus. We have come to a national consensus on the environment and other similar issues, too-- there's still a lot of arguing about it, but no one dares come out in public seriously saying we SHOULD cut down all those trees that are just in the way, the way they used to. Just like no one says they have a right not to hire blacks, women or gays any more. Such troglodytes still exist, but they are fewer and more subtle about it, and they know they can't go out in public with their ignorance and prejudices.

But we haven't come close to a consensus on abortion. To the right-to-lifer, you're either against it or you're wrong, and they will say so loudly, proudly, and publically. No other possibilities. To the rest of us, there is some legitimate discussion on the extent to which it should be allowed, but going back to buttonhooks and wire hangers is horrific and unthinkable.

[county worker]

30. Nixon's silent majority was the beginning for me.

During the 60's there was a group of people who played by the rules, believed in authority and the system. They were the "cleans." The did not rebel against the war or their parents. William Buckley and Barry Goldwater were their heroes. The lost the cultural war of the 60's and never forgot it.

Nixon called them the silent majority. While the rest of us supported civil rights and the woman's movement they longed to return to the days before the changes happened. Agnew called us nattering nabobs of negativism. During Watergate there became a great divide of those who hated Nixon and those who supported him. Then we had mr "potatoe" Dan Quayle who called Murphy Brown some name because on a TV show (all fiction) she was going to have a baby without being married to the father.

The right had people who spoke for them now like the John Birch Society, Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell and his religious right. The silent majority and religious right started to make noise. Mostly it was the backlash to civil rights, woman's movement and anti war protests that started the right noise machine in my book. The election of Bill Clinton started the wing nut media to go out of control.

Issues like abortion and gay rights were used by the leaders of the right to build up a following. They became the party of the losers of the sixties.

[Orangepeel]

31. If it hadn't been abortion, it would have been something else

Republican operatives picked that because it was there, but they would have found something else if it hadn't been. Look at how they were able to get people protesting "government" health care, which in many cases would help their own families.

[closeupready]

32. It was arguably responsible for Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1980

but after that, negligible.

[pitohui]

40. not so, the iran hostage crisis was the reason for reagan EOM

,

[JHB]

34. In the 60's and early 70's, abortion wasn't a big issue among evengelicals.

There were some, but most considered it a "Catholic" issue. It was deliberately cultivated by conservative operatives during the 70's as a wedge issue to help split working class whites off from the New Deal coalition. Look up the careers of Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguere and their courting of people like Jerry Falwell.

The evangelicals eventually took to it because it let them play the moral high ground against the change in sexual mores and womens' place in society (being "pro-life" is certainly easier to sell than being an anti-sex scold).

[RainDog]

35. no. the civil rights act was what started the divisions

the culture wars came out of the 1960s civil rights act signed into law by LBJ.

the insistence on rights for others that followed that is part of the original movement.. i.e. the African-American community inspired others.

it seems to me, when I look back at other eras I know of in the past, when great strides are made that increase human rights for democracy or power-sharing in a society, a backlash follows... sort of the last gasp of the old mindset.

then those who were around at the time die off and the people they influenced to think the same way seem to comprise a smaller and smaller part of the overall consensus.

George Wallace is the political godfather of the teabaggers, to me.

[Igel]

36. Somewhat.

There were divisions before R v W, for sure. And some other issue might easily have come along to produce the same result. Civil rights was divisive. Vietnam had a big role to play in it.

Having media take up sides more explicitly, and having media proliferate, helped.

R v W was important, though, as a trigger. During the late '60s morality started to be redefined: First it was "you can't legislate morality," but more and more those who claimed that insisted that we do precisely that. The thing is, the new moral code was different from the old moral code.

This was a fairly common occurrence. Moral codes shift over time. But in this case there were a good number of fairly controversial issues that were forced. Perhaps many were looking for a justification. Most groups could see around race, whatever current outsiders might think. But drugs, draft-dodging, the idea of unmarried couples living together, as well as the failure of the Great Society and a lot of other programs, brought them to a boil. R v W put them over the top. Large, controversial decisions that are imposed by theocrats or others who know the One True Path tend to lead to long-term dissent.

Most people overlook that fairly conservative Xians tended towards electoral quietism for decades. A lot of the more vehemently fundie and evangelical sects openly said that politics was the domain of the "ruler of this world," while their King was elsewhere. A lot of Xian voters didn't insist on seeing many of their social views so strongly represented. In the mid-late '70s things changed sharply. Partly under the influence of Liberation Theology, of all things, and partly after the religion-driven civil rights movement--in both cases with explicitly religion-driven left-wing activists playing a much larger political role (after the Prohibition debacle), providing justification for explicitly religion-driven right-wing activists to enter the fray. So these benchwarmers got involved. Voila: The religious right. It may be true that the right was always more religious, but that generalization misses the influx of newbies, mostly very driven, very passionate, very loud, and very, very socially conservative. Often not very educated, and not very well off.

So, yeah. Somewhat important. Just saying that repubs have always been jackasses misses the point and nicely denies that certain actions had consequences.

[NorthCarolina]

37. I think Abortion, Gay Rights and Immigration formed a triad for inciting the bigots

and fueling political donations. The fundamentalist Churches quickly discovered these same issues could be pushed to drive the holy bigots into a frenzy of hate, thereby feeding the Po-box. Couple that with a public media that faithfully painted these "concerns" as main-stream thought by a "center-right" nation, they succeeded in dividing the people amongst themselves. A divided populace is easier to manipulate. It was obviously and intentional process carried over these past decades, and what we see today is very likely the desired end result. An uneducated, poor and divided populace, unable to communicate their demands to their elected officials without the conservative filter of the public media.

So, was abortion "the issue"...no. Rather, it was one of several issues created expressly for public consumption.

[Swamp Rat]

38. Our legacy of mass murder, war, slavery, and bigotry colors today's political climate.

It started with pre-industrial colonization and continues to this day, mainly because a large percentage of Americans have a poor education regarding our history, and because many agree with such hateful and murderous policies of the past (and present).

Roe vs. Wade is but a single example of the fight against institutionalized bigotry (religiously-based misogyny, combined with racism and classicism).

[pitohui]

39. roe vs. wade isn't responsible for the political climate, that makes no sense

you could just as well say that "the issue" that created division was the civil rights movement, but you wouldn't blame the civil rights movement or black people for wanting their rights -- you'd blame the racist fuckwits

you could say "the issue" was the peace movement/vietnam anti-war movement but you wouldn't blame the people who worked for peace for creating division -- you'd blame those who profited from continuing that war and other wars

so why blame "abortion" or "roe vs. wade" for the political mess we see today? oh, that's right, because abortion helps WOMEN be free and gawd only knows, there is always some reason why women can't be free and why it's a bad thing for us to have free choices in this world

"roe vs. wade" is not responsible in any way for today's political climate of division and hate

those who would divide us for profit (mostly an unholy alliance of religious thieves and corporate thieves) are solely responsible for the political climate of division and hate

women are not to blame for wanting to be free, any more than blacks are to blame for wanting to be free, wanting to be free is right and healthy for adult human animals

[southernyankeebelle]

41. If you take away the social issues most people would vote for democrats because

most share the same financial issues.

[ChickMagic]

43. It's merely a wedge issue

The pubbies had the presidency, congress & senate plus the SCOTUS. Nobody bothered with it. Besides a woman's right to choose, it also encompasses privacy issues.