Over at TakiMag, a provocative and often witty site of social commentary, the “Z Man” (who would ever give themselves a third-person nickname? That’s weird.) has an excellent piece on why Conservative Inc. must learn the lesson that the “who” who decides is more important than the “process” by which things are decided. Read the whole article, but here are some highlights:
Right there is one of those mileposts that reveal just how much America has changed in the past fifty years. Abortion used to be an issue fought between white lesbians and Christian mothers. The former argued that abortion was a feminist sacrament that magically made women on par with men. The latter argued that it was just another step in stripping women of the natural respect they command in a just society. […]
Interestingly, the other side of the issue has been subdued in response to what is their one and only victory in the culture war. Many of the people who made social conservatism a force on the right have been dead for a generation. Others simply got tired of waiting and moved on to other issues. Fifty years is a long time to wait for the conservative movement to deliver on a promise.
Conservative Inc. is also struggling with this one. Their whole model is based on losing gracefully, so they are unprepared for an actual victory. Crisis counselors have been called to American Enterprise and Heritage to help the staff cope with something they were told could never happen. For professional conservatives, Dobbs is like seeing Big Foot riding a unicorn. They are questioning their sanity.
What makes this even more difficult for Conservative Inc. is the fact that Dobbs was made possible by their archnemesis, Donald Trump. In his debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump made clear that abortion would be a litmus test issue for him when it came time to select judges for the court. His matter-of-fact explanation for how he would roll back Roe was mocked at the time, but it turned out to be correct. […]
Although they probably do not see it, the Dobbs decision cuts the legs out from under the New Right just as it does Conservative Inc. Both sides of this debate claim that how things are done is what matters. In reality, it is who, not how. Who decides is what matters in the law and in social policy. If a society has the right people in charge, people with a natural attachment to society, they will make decisions in the public interest.
This is why the most unhinged opposition to Trump came from the neocons. They have always been the brains of Conservative Inc., and they correctly saw what the Trump phenomenon represented to them. Trump was not running to promote a process but on the promise that he and he alone could make the required changes. His campaign was an explicit appeal to the who rather than the how.
In the end, Dobbs will not change much about abortion in America. The states will arrive at policies that match their inclinations. In other words, the issue will quickly fold into the normal process of government. That was always the right answer, but the people promoting abortion opposed this because it made it impossible for them to impose their morality on the rest of society. Again, who versus how.
Saint Louis Catholic 