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No, Abortion is NOT on the November Ballot.... But it SHOULD BE: The LONG TERM Lesson of Kansas [1]
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Date: 2022-08-03
"Rock Chalk....!"
Faced with the Anti-Abortion Rights Referendum, Kansas broke all records for Advance Voting this year.
Last night’s spectacular Abortion Rights referendum results in Kansas were predictably followed by an almost universal consensus among the pundit class that “Abortion is on the [November] ballot.”
Except it’s NOT — unless those pundits, in a rare use of poetic license, are speaking figuratively.
Indeed, only Kentucky and Montana have Abortion referenda scheduled for the November election. And it should be noted that in both cases, the confusing, emotionally charged language of the ballot measures were written by Anti-Abortion Rights forces, determined to mislead voters about their true extremist nature.
Of course, Right wing, Anti-Abortion forces have long understood the power of framing the issue to appeal to Fear, Hatred, and Greed (The Three Horsemen of the Electoral Apocalypse that the Republicans are so adept at unleashing every election cycle). And they have — until Kansas, that is — understood how a well placed ballot measure which appeals to those raw irrational emotions can motivate their base and ensure GOP victories in many other consequential races, as well, on the same ballot.
If Democrats had even a scintilla of electoral savvy, they’d have realized that, all too often, Blind Fear trumps Hope, & Mindless Greed trumps Conscience. And if they had more than that scintilla, they’d understand the difference between, on the one hand, the GOP’s appeal to Irrational Fear & Greed and, on the other hand, well placed, Rationally based Fear & [enlightened] Self-interest that Democrats could use to equal — or greater — effect.
Last night Kansas voters did their best to teach Democrats that difference.
Kansas’ Right-Wing Republican legislators were counting on the apathy, complacency, and indifference that they have come to expect from most voters (though not their base), when it comes to midterm primary elections.
They did not understand that when The Supreme Court’s Black Robed Junta that seized power in a Judicial Branch Coup and overturned Roe, it created a Tsunami of Rational Fear and Enlightened Self-interest sweeping from shore to shore all across America — reaching even into the very center of the Red States — a tsunami that swept Abortion Care Rights (and the right to personal privacy and choice that Roe had guaranteed) to victory in Kansas Tuesday night.
So...NO, ABORTION IS NOT YET ON THE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER….BUT IT SHOULD BE.
Here’s the BAD NEWS: In most states, it is already too late to qualify a measure for this November’s Election.
But here’s the GOOD NEWS: there is plenty of time to qualify Abortion Care Rights for the NOVEMBER 2024 BALLOT.
PS Here’s a suggestion about the wording: Consider using the very wording in the WORST Anti-Abortion laws in the WORST RED STATES.
Something like: “A YES VOTE on this ballot measure supports the outlawing of any and all abortions, with no exceptions — including exceptions for Rape, Incest, and Endangering the Mother’s Life.”
I know that such wording would be controversial, to say the least. But, that is already the language in effect or being proposed in many of the Red States. And, furthermore, Kansas has taught us that faced with the horrors of such Right Wing extremism, most voters — Democratic, Independent, and even Republican — will turnout and vote for protecting the rights to personal privacy and choice embodied in Roe.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/3/2114327/-No-Abortion-is-NOT-on-the-November-Ballot-But-it-SHOULD-BE-The-LONG-TERM-Lesson-of-Kansas
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