28 June 2022 — 1024 mdt

Democrats will err if they make abortion
the most important 2022 midterm issue

By James Conner

Anger’s incandescent passions motivate powerfully — and blind the angry to fact and logic. According to various mainstream media news reports, Democrats, enraged by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, want to make protecting access to safe and legal abortion the anchor plank in their platform for the 2022 midterm election.

That’s understandable, but it’s not a good idea: for most voters the economy is and will remain the defining issue of the midterms.

Serious inflation bedevils western economies. Caused partly by a supply and demand imbalance, partly by corporate greed, partly by the Ukrainian war’s disruption of long established economic relationships and markets, it’s squeezing our pocketbooks at the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the airline ticket counter, at the pharmacy, at every place that money can be spent. There are serious shortages of baby formula, helium, nitrous oxide, neon, computer chips, and strategic minerals.

Life is not just increasingly more expensive. It’s increasingly more uncertain — and that’s what most worries the voters who are not members of the Democratic Party’s college educated intelligentsia. They seek the certainty that economic stability provides, for certainty allows them to live orderly lives. So does the certainty provided by deep religious convictions. Rational family planning matters to them, but so do many other issues that affect their day-to-day lives.

Therefore, should Democrats not mention the consequences of Dobbs? Of course not. It’s an important issue, but it’s not the only issue voters face — and most voters are not single issue voters. Before nailing a giant abortion rights plank into their platforms, Democrats should let their white hot rage cool lest hotheads make bad decisions. Wait a few weeks, re-poll the issue, conduct focus groups on it, and then, and only then, fashion the facts, the Great Truths, and what's possible, into a strong plank for their party's platform.