As expected, reaction among Republicans to Republican Senate candidate Michele Tafoya’s public embrace of her pro-choice stance on abortion stirred a lot of discussion on whether the abortion issue is helping or hurting Republicans.
After reading my own thoughts on this issue, a few have lectured me on the nuances of “triangulation,” where you attempt to rise above the partisan divide by adopting the ideas and policies of your opponent; the old "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" strategy.
Bill Clinton owes at least part of the economic success of his presidential years to this skill. Clinton adopted the principles of the Republicans’ “Contract with America” without formally endorsing the Republican movement. In other words, and this may be an over-simplification, he cherry-picked the Republican policies and took credit for their success. That’s triangulation in action, and it tends to work best on fiscal issues and other issues that don’t challenge the country’s moral fiber.
The abortion issue defies such a cynical political strategy. But in fairness, American politicians aren’t the only ones who’ve given triangulation a go on the abortion issue.
In the Catholic community, there’s this notion called the “seamless garment,” which is a form of triangulation, where you frame the issue of abortion as only one facet of a much larger moral mission. The interpretation of the term has evolved.
At first, someone might have said, “You can’t be against abortion and for the death penalty. You have to be pro-life in both cases.” That’s an example of the seamless garment. But over the years, leftist thinkers within the Catholic community have broadly expanded the interpretation of the seamless garment to include everything from climate change to open-border policies. In their argument, you can’t be pro-life and also support the deportation of illegal aliens.
That’s the seamless garment in practical application, and it’s a form of triangulation.
What all this serves to accomplish is that it waters down and dilutes a culture’s core values. It does not expand or bolster them, because it takes an all-or-nothing approach. And it tends to put less weighty issues and matters on equal footing with the most serious ones.
This brings me to that abortion issue and the never-ending debate within the Republican and conservative world as to whether it’s smart, politically speaking, to take an absolutist approach to the abortion issue.
Here’s the problem with that very question. You either stand for something, or you don’t. Abortion is not about fiscal policy. It’s not about government spending, or even open borders. The abortion issue is at the core of civilized society. Do we, as a civilized world, condone and endorse the active killing of innocents?
This is not about “choice.” Choice comes later. Before we get to that debate, society must first determine the value of human life in the womb. If society cannot do that, we are no more advanced than the primitive Aztecs who practiced child sacrifice to their gods.
Put in more pragmatic terms for today’s political environment, as cliché as it sounds, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.
The triangulation crowd is squarely in “fall for anything” mode.
When President Donald Trump picked three justices for the Supreme Court in his first term, the one thing he accomplished, which is one of his greatest legacies, is that he shaped a court that would overturn Roe v. Wade – the Dobbs decision.
By the time that decision came down on June 24, 2022, a Democrat was in the White House, and Trump was in political exile. But still, at the time he picked those pro-life justices, he and everyone throughout the Republican Party knew that doing the right thing in this case would not come without a political price.
The cynics, the pragmatists, the “triangulators” all would rather have left the abortion issue alone. Save it for another day. Kick the can down the road. All that matters is that we win this election, or this race. Nothing else matters.
But Trump and some of the people around him have understood that power is no good if you have it and don’t exercise it for the right reasons. Putting an end to Roe v. Wade was worth the political price, they believed, because they knew that unfettered access to abortion was bringing society down, not lifting it up.
So, in picking those justices, and later when they handed down the Dobbs decision, Republicans had spent a certain amount of political capital for the cause, and the civilized world is the better for it.
And so, when Republican candidates for office proudly proclaim that they are pro-choice, that’s not progress, and it’s not a shrewd move to pick up Democrat or Independent voters. It’s selling out on one of your core values. It’s selling out one of the most priceless things we conservatives are trying to conserve – human life.
The abortion issue is a litmus test for politicians because it forces them to take a stand for something that’s bigger and more important than any political race, any election, and any political party. Where you stand on this issue says everything about whether you stand for anything.
Voters, Republican voters more often, expect their candidates to take some stands that are non-compromising. They expect their candidates to stand for some things even if there is a political, and sometimes personal, price to pay.
But there is a difference between how the left approaches this litmus test and the right.
Conservatives are clear on where they stand on values and social issues like abortion, and they come to this place out of a deep desire to do what is the most moral thing to do. This is not to say conservatives are saints. It is to say that the common understanding within conservative circles is that if you take a stand on a moral issue, it’s because you really believe it.
Leftists, on the other hand, see the abortion issue and all other issues as a loyalty test, not one where you actually have to believe in a set of values or principles. Where you stand on any given issue, and the abortion issue is a big one, is a test of your loyalty to the party, to the tribe. If you are a Democrat and you violate this sacred trust within the left, you risk being ostracized and destroyed. For leftists, your loyalty to the group is the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters; not honesty, not truth, not science, not facts, not human life itself.
And so, when people on both sides of the aisle see a politician come out as “pro-choice,” there are certain assumptions and expectations that follow.
Following that “seamless garment” concept, Democrats want to know if their new Republican friend stands with them on all of their other issues, from abolishing ICE to declaring that men can be women. If the Republican can’t agree with them on everything, then they can’t agree on anything. The Republican gains nothing from Democrats or Independents in the process. He or she may as well be pro-life anyway.
Related: Senate Candidate Michele Tafoya Didn’t Have to Shoot Herself in the Foot, but She Did
Conservatives see it differently. They realize that if a Republican candidate is pro-choice, he or she can and may be politically expedient on any issue. Such a candidate will be less reliable on other social and governance issues. Conservatives want strong leaders. While they, too, like loyalty, it’s not loyalty to the group that matters most. It’s loyalty to a set of principles and values, never wavering. That’s the litmus test of the abortion issue to them.
At its most fundamental level, for conservatives, the abortion issue is about the care and well-being of two human beings involved in every pregnancy. That’s the litmus test – to make sure the second person is acknowledged and respected.
To be sure, the abortion issue is not the only litmus test we have to contend with. Twenty years ago, had you said we’d be fighting over the definition of a “woman,” everyone would have thought you were crazy. Yet here we are.
Another litmus test is whether men can become women and women can become men. Conservatives defer to nature, science, and God’s design. Leftists revert back to that loyalty thing. The truth doesn’t matter. Science doesn’t matter. God doesn’t exist. All that matters is your loyalty to the tribe.
Ironically, the left knows men can’t be women, which makes adhering to the lie all that more important to it. The transgender lie is a rite of passage, a ritual hazing of sorts, to vet you and your loyalty. Only if you can subscribe to one of the left’s sacred lies can you be deemed acceptable.
This is why the abortion issue and a handful of others defy this notion of triangulation or the seamless garment. Because in the end, the battle always comes down to one between the fundamental truth and a fundamental lie.
