Over the weekend, when asked about the lackadaisical response to the end of Roe, a White House spokesperson made the following unfortunate statement (emphasis mine): “Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 election.”
This insults the very activists, including many women of color, who worked so hard to elect Biden in 2020. As Rebecca Traister notes, "by casting activists as 'out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party,' the Biden administration did the right wing’s job for them: presenting those fighting for human rights as fringe radicals, rather than as people working to provide literal health care, legal support, travel funds, and housing to patients requiring abortions. And they made this 'out of step' assessment about a party (and a nation!) in which a vast majority believes that abortion should be legal." Moreover, in another instance of tone-deafness, Biden just cut a deal with Mitch McConnell -- whose monstrous treachery gave us this very SCOTUS -- to put an anti-choice firebrand on the federal judiciary for life.
Obviously voting is extremely important, and Manchin and Sinema pose problems. But there is no long-term solution to Roe or to attacks on democracy without expanding the court, and the Dem leadership is so far completely unwilling to even entertain this idea. Does anyone actually think this Supreme Court will let any new federal abortion law stand? Or that it will respect voting rights in future elections? It's not just idealistic "lefties" asking these questions. This is checkmate.
Support these comics by joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Follow me on Twitter at @JenSorensen