Photo: michelsforgovernor.com
Tim Michels
Tim Michels
At a time when Republicans were trying to avoid talking about abortion, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham lobbed a proposed nationwide ban into the midterms like a hand grenade. Republican candidates in Wisconsin and elsewhere are scurrying for cover.
Abolishing the Constitutional right of women to decide for themselves whether to give birth when they become pregnant has been the holy grail sought by religious extremists ever since that right was recognized by Nixon’s conservative Republican court half a century ago.
The leader of America’s version of the Taliban was Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell who packed the court with three appointees by Donald Trump screened by the rightwing Federalist Society for their willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade. McConnell openly stole one of those court vacancies by refusing to hold a hearing on President Obama’s nominee for a year.
That’s not the only reason Republicans didn’t want to talk about abortion in the midterms. It’s now becoming clear the court’s abrupt and cruel destruction of the fundamental right for women to make decisions about their own lives just like men is a galvanizing political issue increasing voter registration for November.
Two-Thirds Majority
Multiple polls since Trump’s radical court voted 6-3 to overturn Roe have consistently shown two-thirds of the nation oppose the abolition of abortion rights. In Marquette University Law School’s most recent poll, 63% of Wisconsin voters were opposed—95% of Democrats, 66% of independents and even 29% of Republicans.
Voters express even stronger support for exceptions from abortion bans for victims of rape and incest. In Wisconsin, those exceptions were supported by 70% of Republicans, 83% of independents and 96% of Democrats.
Republican candidates in the midterms in Wisconsin and throughout the country are wildly out of step with their voters. A huge voter turnout in Kansas, which backed Trump by 15 percentage points in 2020, overwhelmingly voted to retain their state constitutional protection for abortion rights.
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Wisconsin Republican candidates in the midterms have lined up behind Republican legislators who support sending Wisconsin not just back to the pre-Roe days, but all the way back to 1849 to enforce an abortion ban passed a year after becoming a state. The only exception to a total ban would be to save the life of a mother.
Tim “No Exceptions” Michels
Republican gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels could go even further. His family foundation has contributed $175,000 to multiple anti-abortion groups including Pro-Life Wisconsin that wants to abolish the exception to save the life of the mother.
Michels also says it’s “not unreasonable” to force rape victims to give birth. Most Americans thought it was when a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim had to travel to Indianapolis to get an abortion because her home state outlawed abortions for children like her. Since then, Indiana Republicans have joined Ohioans in viciously outlawing abortions for young children who are crime victims.
Michels’ inhumane views increase the importance of re-electing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to veto the continuing assault on reproductive rights by the Republican legislature. Atty. Gen. Josh Kaul and Evers refuse to prosecute anyone for violating 19th century frontier laws. Kaul’s self-professed pro-life Republican opponent Eric Toney promises to prosecute doctors.
RoJo Up to Tricks
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, running against Sen. Ron Johnson, has pledged to protect abortion rights, voting rights and all the other Constitutional rights Johnson’s ultra-MAGA Republicans have targeted for destruction.
Johnson thinks he’s come up with a clever way to dodge questions about abortion. He claims to support a statewide referendum to allow voters to decide what the law should be. It’s a fraudulent proposal and Johnson knows it. Under Wisconsin law, such a referendum would be meaningless because the state has only advisory, not binding referenda.
Johnson knows Republicans beginning their second decade of drastically gerrymandered control of the legislature have no intention of doing anything to update the state’s 1849 abortion ban. They’re eager to live in the 19th century again when women had no citizenship rights at all.
Many Republicans don’t understand what Graham is up to. It seems pretty simple. Trump and McConnell hate each other. Trump’s caddy wants to replace McConnell as a shamelessly servile handmaid to the ex-president, a Kevin McCarthy of the Senate, in case Trump succeeds in running the table by electing his dream team of unfit U.S. senators in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire. That pack of misfit toys would prepare America for the end times of democracy with Trump’s triumphal return in 2024.
That means turning out to vote in the midterms for candidates committed to protecting American democracy is just as important as it was in 2020.
